The Death and Life of Great American Infrastructure

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In recent years, the U.S. has witnessed a period of profound social and economic awakening. Traditional norms and boundaries are being tested and the fabric of our communities are being re-threaded by millions of people primed to drive systematic change to society, politics, and business through actions online, at the voting booth, with their wallets, and in the streets.

However, one issue remains largely absent from the popular agenda — our failing infrastructure. While the urban infrastructure that supports quality of life may not bear the same emotional hallmarks as some of today’s hot-button issues, its impact and prevalence cannot be ignored. Consider this:

• In 2017, hurricanes Maria, Irma, and Harvey tested our limits of resilience, with over-burdened transportation, energy, and water systems leaving entire neighborhoods stranded
• Fires and mudslides killed dozens and shut down vital transportation corridors in California
• Despite the doubling of ridership, two decades of disinvestment in New York City subways resulted in fewer than 60 percent of weekday trains arriving on time[1], with delays taking an estimated toll of $389 million annually[2]
• Insufficient housing and inadequate transit connections are exacerbating affordability crises in nearly every major city, displacing vulnerable populations and first responders
• According to the World Health Organization[3], three million people die prematurely each year due to air pollution, with 90 percent of these deaths occurring in low-income areas

We also feel the effects of failing infrastructure in our everyday lives. Asthma, homelessness, flooded homes, and hours-long commutes are indicators that our urban infrastructure is broken.

As a nation, we must wake up to the critical importance of infrastructure in our lives. Many of our global allies and competitors recognize the economic and national security benefits of sound and sustainable infrastructure investments. For example, the U.S. spends a paltry two percent of its GDP on infrastructure, while China invests nearly nine percent.[4]

We are overdue for an awakening that rallies public support around our infrastructure and aligns popular demand, private sector innovation, and governmental policy around a shared vision for smart investment.

The last such alignment catalyzed an historic shift in the way we live toward the vision of an automobile-oriented, suburban America. For the 1939 New York World’s Fair, General Motors commissioned Norman Bel Geddes to design the Futurama exhibit. This stunning display of cloverleaf interchanges and suburban homes stoked demand for a vast landscape of expressways and housing tracts. Building upon this confluence of public support and corporate thought leadership, the U.S. government leveraged the National Housing Act and Federal Highways Act to help make this suburban vision reality.

These investments were and continue to be vital to the economic growth and national security of the U.S. However, policies that accompanied them, like urban renewal and mortgage redlining, were racially divisive and decimated neighborhoods. To protest these policies and raise consciousness around a more human-centered vision of city building, Jane Jacobs penned The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Jacobs believed cities stood on the precipice of life or death, and harnessed the power of the people to catalyze a new vision for cities that embraced principles of diversity, walkability, and urban greening.

Today, our urban infrastructure faces a similar life-or-death moment. Now is the time for the public to be the center of the infrastructure conversation and rally around a new vision that unites popular demand, private sector thought, and policy. Some communities have already acted — voting with their wallets and passing bond measures to fund infrastructure, restoration, and urban greening projects. Still others have taken infrastructure into their own hands, steering community-led planning processes. Meanwhile, private firms have taken the lead in innovating new ways to live, work, and move about in our cities. Now, we need to proactively align our urban policies to support the life-giving, economy-driving, and nation-securing role of infrastructure.

We must build upon these trends and realize that like the social movements sweeping our nation, the stakes for infrastructure investment are higher than ever before. It is time we woke up and saw this moment for what it is: an opportunity to resuscitate American infrastructure.

For more on infrastructure from its funding and financing to resilience and innovation, take a look at AECOM’s 2018 global Future of Infrastructure report.

1. Hu, Winnie. (2018 Mar 19). New York subway’s on-time performance hits new low. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/nyregion/new-york-subways-on-time-performance-hits-new-low.html
2. New York City Comptroller. (2017 Oct 01). The economic cost of subway delays. Retrieved from https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/the-economic-cost-of-subway-delays/
3. World Health Organization. (n.d.). Ambient air pollution: Health impacts. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/airpollution/ambient/health-impacts/en/
4. Holmes, Frank. (2015 May 29). What China can teach U.S. about infrastructure investing. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2015/05/29/what-china-can-teach-u-s-about-infrastructure-investing/#2cc8118560ed

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