Meeting Asia's Infrastructure Needs


Book Description

Infrastructure is essential for development. This report presents a snapshot of the current condition of developing Asia's infrastructure---defined here as transport, power, telecommunications, and water supply and sanitation. It examines how much the region has been investing in infrastructure and what will likely be needed through 2030. Finally, it analyzes the financial and institutional challenges that will shape future infrastructure investment and development.







The Road Taken


Book Description

A renowned historian and engineer explores the past, present, and future of America's crumbling infrastructure. Acclaimed engineer and historian Henry Petroski explores our core infrastructure from both historical and contemporary perspectives, explaining how essential their maintenance is to America's economic health. Petroski reveals the genesis of the many parts of America's highway system--our interstate numbering system, the centerline that divides roads, and such taken-for-granted objects as guardrails, stop signs, and traffic lights--all crucial to our national and local infrastructure. A compelling work of history, The Road Taken is also an urgent clarion call aimed at American citizens, politicians, and anyone with a vested interest in our economic well-being. Physical infrastructure in the United States is crumbling, and Petroski reveals the complex and challenging interplay between government and industry inherent in major infrastructure improvement. The road we take in the next decade toward rebuilding our aging infrastructure will in large part determine our future national prosperity.




Strong Towns


Book Description

A new way forward for sustainable quality of life in cities of all sizes Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem. Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life. Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.







Infrastructure and Jobs


Book Description




The Road to Renewal


Book Description

"In The Road to Renewal: Private Investment in U.S. Transportation Infrastructure, R. Richard Geddes surveys the current state of the American transportation system and finds that, like the roads themselves, the existing policy approach is in desperate need of repair. Drawing on the basic economic principles behind supply, demand, competition, and incentives, Geddes argues that a shift toward increased use of public-private partnerships (PPPs)--contractual agreements between public agencies and private parties that allow private participation in the design, construction, operation, and delivery of transportation facilities--could significantly improve the quality of America's transportation infrastructure. By learning to see themselves as customers and investors--rather than mere users--of roads and highways, Americans should expect to receive a reasonable return on their investment: thorough, effective maintenance of America's transportation infrastructure. The Road to Renewal shows how incorporating increased private participation can halt the deterioration of America's transportation system and become the foundation for a safer, more efficient transportation future."--P. [4] of cover.




Financialising City Statecraft and Infrastructure


Book Description

Financialising City Statecraft and Infrastructure addresses the struggles of national and local states to fund, finance and govern urban infrastructure. It develops fresh thinking on financialisation and city statecraft to explain the socially and spatially uneven mixing of managerial, entrepreneurial and financialised city governance in austerity and limited decentralisation across England. As urban infrastructure fixes for the London global city-region risk undermining national ‘rebalancing’ efforts in the UK, city statecraft in the rest of the country is having uneasily to combine speculation, risk-taking and prospective venturing with co-ordination, planning and regulation.




Our Nation's Infrastructure


Book Description




Highway infrastructure FHWA's model for estimating highway needs has been modified for statelevel planning.


Book Description

Federal and state governments have played a vital role in the nation economy by facilitating the movement of people and goods through significant investments in highways. At the federal level, the Department of Transportation (DOT) Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) uses a computer model known as the Highway Economic Requirements System (HERS) to estimate the future investment required to maintain and improve the nation highways. DOT reports the results of this analysis to the Congress on a biennial basis. However, state governments make a large number of highway infrastructure investment decisions. States currently use a variety of analytic tools to make these decisions. Interest in using HERS at the state level has grown. Two states Indiana and Oregon are already using customized versions of the model, and in December 2000, FHWA began a pilot project to test its state-level version of HERS, called HERS-ST, with interested states.