【10.01.19 基建者】U.S. Infrastructure Is Severely Messed Up — But We Shouldn’t Despa

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http://www.infrastructurist.com/ ... e-shouldnt-despair/

U.S. Infrastructure Is Severely Messed Up — But We Shouldn’t Despair
Posted on Tuesday January 19th by Melissa Lafsky

Over at The Atlantic, James Fallows has written a tome on the decline of the U.S. as a superpower — not exactly an uncommon theme in the media of late. He argues that in certain fields, the country is actually doing quite well — or, at least, better than it’s commonly given credit for. The place where we can unabashedly throw up our hands in failure, however, is an area near and dear to our hearts: infrastructure. And the problems, he writes, are grave:

The average dam in the United States is 50 years old. “More than 26%, or one in four, of the nation’s bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete,” according to the latest report. Improving existing bridges would cost about $17 billion per year, or about twice as much as currently budgeted. Worn-out water systems leak away 20 gallons of fresh water per day for every American; replacing systems that are nearing the end of their useful life would cost $11 billion more annually than all levels of government now plan to spend.

The heart of the problem, as Fallows notes, is that the U.S. has found itself at the nexus of education and innovation, but our government is mired in inefficiency and inaction. Or, as Fallows bluntly puts it, “That is the American tragedy of the early 21st century: a vital and self-renewing culture that attracts the world’s talent, and a governing system that increasingly looks like a joke.” And nowhere do the crushing layers of bureaucracy and earmarks weigh more heavily than in large infrastructure projects. The problems have become so institutional, Fallows argues, that solutions are becoming harder to imagine:

In their book on effective government, William Eggers and John O’Leary quote a former deputy mayor of Los Angeles, Michael Keeley, on why the city is out of control. “Think of city government as a big bus,” he told them. “The bus is divided into different sections with different constituencies: labor, the city council, the mayor, interest groups, and contractors. Every seat is equipped with a brake, so lots of people can stop the bus anytime. The problem is that this makes the bus undrivable.”

For that same book, Eggers and O’Leary surveyed members of the National Academy of Public Administration, a counterpart of the National Academy of Sciences for public managers. Sixty-eight percent of those who responded said that the government was “less likely to successfully execute projects than at any time in the past.”

Plus in addition to all this impotence in government comes the added stress of pursuit — specifically, by China. Still, on this issue Fallows raises some interesting and panic-squelching points. When we hold our situation up against the rapidly developing country, which is walloping us in high-speed rail and other building and transit projects, it’s easy to get nervous about winding up left in the dust. But it’s worth asking: Why are Americans so terrified of being “beaten” in size and scope by China? Would it really be such a terrible thing?

The question that matters is not whether America is “falling behind” but instead something like John Winthrop’s original question of whether it is falling short—or even falling apart. This is not the mainstream American position now, so let me explain.

First is the simple reality that one kind of “decline” is inevitable and therefore not worth worrying about. China has about four times as many people as America does. Someday its economy will be larger than ours. Fine! A generation ago, its people produced, on average, about one-sixteenth as much as Americans did; now they produce about one‑sixth. That change is a huge achievement for China—and a plus rather than a minus for everyone else, because a business-minded China is more benign than a miserable or rebellious one.

And for those still despairing at the woeful state of affairs, Fallows gives us another reason why we shouldn’t worry — things have always been this messed up!

Through the entirety of my conscious life, America has been on the brink of ruination, or so we have heard, from the launch of Sputnik through whatever is the latest indication of national falling apart or falling behind. Pick a year over the past half century, and I will supply an indicator of what at the time seemed a major turning point for the worse. The first oil shocks and gas-station lines in peacetime history; the first presidential resignation ever; assassinations and riots; failing schools; failing industries; polarized politics; vulgarized culture; polluted air and water; divisive and inconclusive wars. It all seemed so terrible, during a period defined in retrospect as a time of unquestioned American strength….

“Fifty years from now, Americans will be as worried as they are today,” Murphy said. “And meanwhile the basic social dynamism of the country will continue to wash us forward in the messy, roiling way it always has.”

Perhaps — we just hope someone’s fixed our bridges by then.