URBAN LAND INSTITUTE
“Confronted by severe recession and economic breakdown, the United States reaches a pivot point for overhauling its dilapidated and outmoded infrastructure. The nation can either leverage crisis into opportunity for future growth by developing a new 21st-century infrastructure model, or backslide into more of the same: greater congestion, deteriorating road and transit networks, and the heightened probability of systemic water system failures.
Infrastructure 2009 warns that short-term stimulus funding for various road, transit, rail, and water projects offers no substitute for a concerted long-range U.S. effort to maintain national prosperity in a rapidly evolving and more competitive global marketplace. The report recommends a total revamping of how the country plans, funds, and implements infrastructure programs, using the following four-pronged approach:
Set a national strategy: The United States hasn’t initiated a national infrastructure plan since the 1950s, when interstate highway construction began. Today, the country’s challenges appear more complex and daunting, and many systems are either obsolete or crumbling and require rebuilding and reinvention. New transport networks must interconnect more efficiently to move goods and people through increasingly gridlocked global pathway cities. New corridors for passenger and freight rail must link to surrounding regional markets and merge into cross-national networks. Innovative new transit schemes, connected to airports and train stations, must help reduce car dependence, prevent bottlenecks in commercial centers, and decrease pollution. The country also needs to plan for 110 million more people by 2050, including provision for water and power in more densely populated metropolitan areas and regions. The President and Congress should move expeditiously to develop a bold national infrastructure agenda for implementation beginning in 2010…”
Full Text
Executive Summary
About Urban Land Institute
www.uli.org
“The mission of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) is to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide. Founded in 1936, the institute now has more than 40,000 members worldwide representing the entire spectrum of land use and real estate development disciplines, working in private enterprise and public service. “
RSS Feed
A national plan for infrastructure works is much too long overdue. I hope local and regional politics can be put aside long enough to finally allow its implementation. Unfortunately infrastructure promises during his campaign seem to have been dilluted, redirected and reduced by the now President.