The word that best describes America's infrastructure is "crumbling," says Henry Petroski.
Petroski is Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering at Duke University. His new book is "The Road Taken: The History and Future of America's Infrastructure."
Transcript:
From Duke University, this is "Glad You Asked," where we consider the question, “What should we be talking about this election season?”
"I’m Henry Petroski, professor of civil engineering and professor of history at Duke University. I think one of the issues missing is infrastructure.
The word is not missing. Politicians say it all the time, and infrastructure is a word that’s shorthand for a problem that’s usually qualified with adjectives like ‘crumbling’. But the money does not seem to be forthcoming from the government.
The American Society of Civil Engineers puts out a report card every four years in which they grade the infrastructure in different categories: roads, bridges, sewer systems, airports, and so forth. The last one, which was 2013, was something like a D. Now, that’s not too hot. It’s not something we want to be proud of.
But they also estimate what it would take to fix up the infrastructure and bring it up to, let’s just say, at least B grade, and that’s in the trillions of dollars. So we’re talking about real money.
If we don’t invest in infrastructure – let’s say we don’t do anything at all – obviously, the roads are going to deteriorate. We’ve seen a lot of sinkholes developed for example. We’ve seen roads getting washed out. Our airports have been described as third world, some of them.
The biggest thing as far as the nation is concerned is probably the importance of the infrastructure for the economy. We hear a lot of talk among the politicians about economic growth and whether it’s up or down, and so much of what that number is expected to be depends on the quality of our infrastructure.
It’s a very important topic, but it’s not a glamorous topic. It’s an investment in the country, really."
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