US Inrastructure - U.S. mayors desperate to fix crumbling infrastructure but states, feds hold them back

 The drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan illustrates two urgent and related challenges that are stressing many American cities. First, critical infrastructure systems such as roads, bridges and water networks are aging and underfunded. Second, cities are not getting the support they need from higher levels of government to fix these problems.

We are the authors of the 2015 Menino Survey of Mayors, conducted by the Boston University Initiative on Cities. In this survey we asked a nationally representative sample of mayors an open-ended question: which challenge, that they believe should be a primarily “state and/or federal issue,” most affects their cities. Almost half of the mayors homed in on crumbling infrastructure. Many said that higher levels of government were not providing their cities with enough money for infrastructure projects they believe their cities need.

These projects range from relatively mundane needs like repairing roads to more ambitious projects, such as building new mass transit, wastewater and stormwater systems. Addressing the 2015 U.S. Conference of Mayors last June, President Obama observed, “There’s not a mayor here who can’t reel off 10 infrastructure projects right now that you’d love to get funding for, and that would put people to work right away and improve your competitiveness, and help businesses move their products and help people get to their jobs.” Indeed, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that America will need US$3.6 trillion in infrastructure investments by 2020.

These concerns spotlight what mayors see as a bigger problem. In their view, federalism – the division (and sharing) of powers between different levels of government – is not working. In the survey, mayors consistently identified ways in which general government dysfunction, burdensome regulations and laws that preempt local autonomy cause problems for cities. As political scientist Jessica Trounstine has pointed out, Flint is an extreme example of some of these issues. State governments can hamper city governments in a variety of ways, most frequently by cutting funding and/or introducing legislation that reduces local autonomy.

Read more: U.S. mayors desperate to fix crumbling infrastructure but states, feds hold them back

The Entire US Has Infrastructure Lessons to Learn From Hurricane Sandy - by Henry Henderson: Shelter

Disasters like we saw this week laid bare the hidden systems that we take for granted. On a daily basis New York and our other cities depend on pumps to keep water from filling subways, tunnels and basements; sewers to evacuate waste and storm water from our streets; complex systems to deliver electricity, and allow us to communicate around the globe. It’s a wondrous system that regularly proves itself to be vulnerable to wear and tear, error and misuse.  And on a regular basis, we take for granted that the vulnerability of our infrastructure is an irritation, rather than a growing threat to our health, safety and well being. But as Sandy plunged much of the east coast into a sustained wet darkness, the extent of the vulnerability of critical, fallible infrastructure seems like a new revelation.

It is not a new revelation, of course.  However, this furious storm has clearly demonstrated (1) our deep dependence on fallible infrastructure, (2) the fundamental inadequacy of the infrastructure we assume will serve our needs, and (3) that we are in the midst of seriously changing weather and climate conditions that our infrastructure must address to protect our safety and well being. New York Governor Cuomo had it right when he said that ignoring "dramatic change in weather patterns is denying reality. We have a new reality, and old infrastructures and old systems.”

The news media is finally catching up to the changes in our climate and how this reality is connected to the devastating storms, fires, droughts and floods we are seeing across the country (and world). But the implications of these changes for public policy have not been grasped.

The impact of Hurricane Sandy is a sharp rebuke of willful ignorance, cynicism and political malfeasance. The storm has wreaked billions in damage on our economy and the systems we rely upon in daily American life. And billions will be spent to rebuild. The question before us, not just on the East coast, is should we simply be rebuilding the patchwork that exists, or finally pushing towards something newer and stronger?

We need to get serious about the real nature of the challenges that we face as a people and nation. We need to make decisions, and invest in critical infrastructure and policies that are grounded in reality, science and the moral values that respect citizens as irreplaceable members of a vital, just society. We need to rethink, redesign and reinvest in effective infrastructure that makes modern life possible has not yet made it into the national discussion and decision-making mix.

Read more: Henry Henderson: Shelter From the Storm? The Entire US Has Infrastructure Lessons to Learn From Hurricane Sandy

US Economy: Crumbling Infrastructure Symbolizes U.S. Economy - by Jeff Nielson

Like most people, I was already aware that the infrastructure of the United States was rapidly decaying. However, seeing some hard numbers actually quantifying the severity of this problem was nothing less than shocking.

Remember all of that "infrastructure spending" which was (supposedly) part of the stimulus package, which in turn supposedly led to a "U.S. economic recovery"? It never happened. Just like the supposed "recovery" itself, it was nothing but smoke and mirrors. No recovery, no investment in infrastructure. Only the debts from all that "stimulus" were real.

In fact, while the U.S. government was pretending to be attending to its neglected infrastructure, the U.S.'s global ranking for the quality of its infrastructure was plummeting lower. A Reuters article reveals that in a mere four years (from 2007 to 2011) the U.S.'s ranking fell from 6 to 16.

Crumbling Infrastructure Symbolizes U.S. Economy - TheStreet