Infrastructure 2012: Spotlight on Leadership

The Urban Land Institute in conjunction with Ernst & Young have published their 2012  outlook for infrastructure development in the U.S. and abroad.

“Unfortunately, the United States is one of the few major economic powers lacking a national infrastructure policy direction” they lament.  “ Initiatives are left to percolate from local and state levels, often competing for resources.”  As a result of federal reluctance to think strategically about infrastructure, governors, mayors, state legislators, and others are forced to be creative “in addressing metropolitan congestion, speeding freight movement, and preparing for population growth.”  

In the current environment, they see bottom-up self-help efforts as most likely to attract funding from federal and private sources, especially when they help meet clearly defined economic and strategic objectives.  "In the emerging reformulated world order,” they believe “users probably will be paying for anything new that gets built through some sort of fee or direct tax.”  

“We’ve been living off past prosperity and haven’t had to pay for anything new for 30 or 40 years—but now we do.” When greater needs slam into depleted resources, something has to give. Either you get more creative, pragmatic, and efficient, or you fall further behind with potentially dire consequences—compromised productivity and lowered quality of life in the form of greater congestion and various systemic reakdowns. Simply put, “if we’re working with less than we need, we’ve got to invest it better.”  ... With the onus on states and cities to be smarter, regions would be well served to work together to build the development and infrastructure they need, concentrating on projects that will deliver the greatest economic performance and longterm benefits. “It’s problem solving at the grass roots, figuring it out by ourselves.”

Good luck to us!