Rethinking Infrastructure

"The report, "Pivot Point," highlights how China, India, and Europe have invested heavily in modern infrastructure over recent decades, while the U.S. has coasted on its own prosperity, content with patching and repairing its outdated bridges, roads, and other transit and water projects.

"We will not continue to be a major world power if we can't get goods in and out of the country in an efficient, productive way," ULI executive vice president for initiatives, Maureen McAvey, tells ARCHITECT. "And the more we waste time in congestion on our roads, in having inadequate ports and inadequate delivery systems, and having congested airports—that's all loss of productivity."

The ULI's hope is for transit systems to be linked across jurisdictions and for transportation and land use to be integrated. Often, "there's no easy way of getting from A to B, and those are all trips on the road," McAvey says, which, in addition to causing congestion, means more carbon released into the air."