As excerpted from a column in the Aug. 28 edition of the Wall Street Journal by Joel Kotkin
Two years ago, as floodwaters overcame the tired defenses of New Orleans, American cities got a wake-up call about the dangers of inadequate infrastructure. But most urban leaders went back to sleep. Since then the occasional disaster, such as the recent bridge collapse in Minneapolis, has been followed by tut-tutting. But if history is a guide, the rhetoric will be followed by another tap of the snooze button.
Rather than deal with the expensive and difficult task of retrofitting the sinews of commerce and communication,bridges, tunnels, roads, rail lines, ports, sewers and drainage systems,America’s urban powers focus on the ephemeral and the glitzy. They emphasize not brick and mortar, but sports stadia, convention centers, arts palaces, dubiously effective new light-rail lines, hotels and condominium projects.
Even in New Orleans, federal and local authorities still have not agreed on a long-term infrastructure plan to protect the city. More disturbing: Instead of looking to rebuild a diverse economy, the emphasis is on cultivating tourism and “culture-based” industry.
Reinventing New Orleans as a mildly raucous, hipper Disney World could spark a renaissance of sorts. But it offers scant hope for many middle-class families who fled the real city two years ago. Today, the estimated population is 273,000, compared to 455,000 pre-Katrina. Many of the newcomers appear to be Hispanics, who have come to take jobs in construction and in the reviving tourist industry.
The ultimate question here is that of priorities. Yes, artists and cultural institutions have always been hallmarks of great cities. But underpinning that efflorescence since the earliest times has been critical commitments to such mundane things as water systems, canals, dikes and protective walls,the economic infrastructure that supports the rest.
Examples of neglected essential support systems abound: Roughly 80% of state transportation officials, according to one recent survey, admit that their 10-year plans will “not meet needs” of the current networks, even though 97% of roads, bridges and tunnels and 88% of transit systems, will need considerable updating. The American Society of Civil Engineers says that $1.6 trillion must be spent over the next five years to prevent further deterioration. Only $900 billion is now earmarked.
Over the past decade, according to a recent Brookings Institution study, public capital spending on convention centers has doubled to $2.4 billion annually; nationwide, 44 new or expanded centers are in planning or under construction. But the evidence is that few such centers make money, and many more lose considerable funds.
(And these) critically, misguided investments shift funds that could finance essential basic infrastructure.
California, with its still rapidly growing population, is falling even further behind. The fraction of the state budget allocated to infrastructure, according to the California Infrastructure Commission, has dropped to barely 3% today from 20% in 1960. The state’s highways and inner-city buses grow ever-more crowded, while its electrical and water systems are increasingly anachronistic and disaster-prone.
Nevertheless, few politicians seem interested in a coherent “back to basics” infrastructure investment strategy, except as a potential opportunity for pork-barrel spending. Until they are, we can look forward to more natural disasters, bridge collapses, subway malfunctions and power shortages. What happened in New Orleans two years ago could become not the exception, but the emblem of a troubled American future.
