Infrastructure Projects Can Save America's Middle Class
Joel Kotkin and David Friedman believe investing in massive infrastructure projects can save the nation's middle and working classes.
"Most disturbingly, workers losing the most economic ground are not the uneducated and unskilled but those with high school, community college and even four-year degrees...Is there any way to restore the prospects of middle- and working-class Americans? A comprehensive program to rebuild the nation's highways and bridges, upgrade its ports, construct and expand its energy lifelines and enlarge its public transportation systems could generate hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs. Admittedly, this back-to-basics strategy is not glamorous. But it has helped narrow economic inequality in the past by producing more balanced economic growth."
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Expansion as "Rebuilding"
Rebuild or build anew? The authors use the former term repeatedly -- quite an imperative notion -- yet the article is much less about renovation than expansion on a large scale. (A similar choice of words has been used California, Schwarzenegger-led "rebuilding" program they cite.)
It's not that the US doesn't need some new and expanded infrastructure, but the writers' example of the Interstate Highway System and the political will that built it is not quite a flawless model.