Julienne Bautista, Catherine Jaramillo and Meng Qi
This year, our Point/Counterpoint looks at the role of infrastructure in American urbanism and the effects our physical networks have on the more complex social fabric. The seemingly innocuous issue of infrastructure has continually struck chords of resentment and resistance in this country. This has been especially true during times of economic recession, which makes this topic especially relevant today. We asked our respondents, who come from differing backgrounds and hold widely differing perspectives, to discuss this relevance for planners. The editors thank the respondents for their insightful contributions.
Posed and answered before the electoral victory of Barack Obama, who raised public concern for the state of our national technological and transportation infrastructure during his presidential campaign, these questions were inspired by the controversial and tragic examples of infrastructural failure in New Orleans (August 2005) and Minneapolis (August 2007).
INTERVIEW
What are some of your thoughts for the main reasons behind the recent infrastructural failures (i.e., the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, the steam pipe explosion in NYC, overall deterioration of national highways) that have been taking place? How should we as planners go about finding solutions to these problems? O’TOOLE
The Minneapolis bridge collapse was apparently due to a design flaw, not poor maintenance. In general, the “infrastructure crisis” is overblown by government officials seeking larger budgets and special interest groups seeking government handouts. While there are problems, most of those problems can be solved by funding infrastructure out of user fees and letting managers use those fees in the ways they think best. There is no need to spend tax dollars on most infrastructure.
KARVONEN Infrastructure networks are frequently heralded as the epitome of societal progress. The great era of infrastructure development in the U.S., from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1960s, serves as a testament to the ingenuity and drive of humankind. But today, the triumph of these networks fails to resonate with the general public and they tend to serve as background elements to the urban condition, except when they fail spectacularly, as in the recent examples of Minneapolis, New York City, and New Orleans. Given our heavy reliance on these antiquated networks, some of which are over a hundred years old, I find it amazing that we haven’t experienced more catastrophic failures.
The contemporary infrastructure crisis is often understood as a seemingly insurmountable governmental challenge and an enormous economic burden. But it can also be seen as an opportunity for planners and other practitioners of the built environment to update the public realm to reflect current (and future) conditions. Scholars are increasingly calling for the abandonment of single-use infrastructures in favor of multifaceted designs, as characterized by the transdisciplinary work of Frederick Law Olmsted in nineteenth-century landscape architecture and urban planning practice. Multifunctional infrastructure networks of the twenty-first century can simultaneously address economic development, environmental protection, and social equality, fulfilling the aspirations of sustainable development advocates. Furthermore, there is a trend toward conceiving of infrastructure not as permanent physical networks but as constantly evolving ribbons of connection between humans and their surroundings.
Planners have a particular role to play in the rebuilding of infrastructure networks, not only in providing design expertise and professional management, but also in engaging the public in the design, governance, and maintenance of these networks. The development of new infrastructure networks has the potential to bridge the physical and communicative planning approaches through collaboration on local infrastructure revitalization projects founded on strongly democratic principles.
Wireless communication is now increasingly identifi ed as an infrastructural necessity. In what ways should urban designers and planners consider this trend and accommodate this necessity when planning for the urban form?
O’TOOLE Planners should get out of the way and let the market work. Some cities have subsidized the installation of wireless Internet communications. This has almost always been a failure. The most government should do is impose design standards on cell towers in residential areas.
KARVONEN Wireless communication technologies exude an aura of progress, suggesting that infrastructure services can be unshackled from the limits of material distribution networks. And the ubiquitous nature of wireless communication is interpreted to be inherently democratic and freely available to all. But beyond the popular rhetoric, these networks have more in common with conventional infrastructure than typically acknowledged. Wireless technologies continue to be tied to physical distribution lines and can perpetuate or even create new forms of uneven service by providing limited access to specifi c populations. Furthermore, the wireless character of these services can lead to unanticipated problems, such as the rise in traffi c accidents due to the use of cellular telephones by drivers.
The emergence of wireless communication technologies highlights the need for more democratic modes of technological development that can identify the advantages and pitfalls of new technologies before they are adopted by the public at large. Rather than blindly rolling out these technologies and then scrambling to develop legislation to limit their undesirable consequences, we need to develop new modes of public technology assessment to proactively address the potential positive and negative aspects of these technologies. And such an approach goes beyond wireless communications to address all novel and emerging forms of technology, such as genetically modified organisms, nanotechnology, human cloning, and nuclear energy.
Who should provide for infrastructural needs and other public services? Should it be publicly funded or be put into the control of private entities? Or should it be a combination of these two?
O’TOOLE Infrastructure should either be private or be provided by government agencies that are funded out of the revenues from that infrastructure. Government highway departments, sewer offices, and water bureaus can work reasonably well when they are funded out of user fees. When they are funded out of tax dollars, the way most transit agencies are, they quickly succumb to the pork-barreling demands to build megaprojects that often cost too much and do too little.
KARVONEN In the U.S., infrastructure provision continues to be a largely public endeavor, despite significant reductions in federal funding since the 1970s and the emergence of new forms of privatized services such as toll roads, gated communities, cable television, satellite radio, and telephone service. As a whole, these activities suggest that the boundary between public goods and private commodities are continually being negotiated, with varying results. I see the rise of public-private partnerships as one of the most interesting current trends in infrastructure service provision. Participation of private entities is not an inherently negative or threatening trend, as some have argued, but requires judicious forethought so the public good is not sacrificed for private profit. From my perspective, the most successful partnerships are those that maintain public ownership of the network while allowing for private management under strict government oversight. This allows for public control of these networks while taking advantage of the management efficiencies in the private sector.
How do you predict that federal fi scal policies will change in relation to new infrastructural needs? Do you think federal subsidies are crucial to the potential solution? If not, what are some fi nancing strategies that planners can use?
O’TOOLE I don’t think federal subsidies are a part of the solution, but it currently appears that this is the direction we are going. Many members of Congress seem intent on authorizing massive infrastructure subsidies so they can report to their constituents that they delivered pork-barrel projects to their states and districts. This is not going to solve the infrastructure problem; if anything, it will make it worse, as Congress has a history of preferring new construction over maintenance, so the projects they deliver are more likely to add to future infrastructure needs than to solve existing problems.
KARVONEN Federal investment will always be central to infrastructure development, due to the enormous costs associated with building and maintaining these systems as well as the widespread public benefits from robust and comprehensive networks. There is increasing discussion about the need for an updated New Deal to address the current economic crisis through domestic infrastructure development. With respect to energy, it is increasingly acknowledged that our reliance on fossil fuels has had unintended consequences such as climate change, international terrorism, and a rising national debt. Resolving these problems simultaneously will require a massive federal program to reinvent our energy infrastructure to be based on renewable sources. However, such an endeavor will face the wrath of fiscally conservative voters and politicians who advocate for smaller government. Personally, I don’t see how we can make any appreciable changes to existing infrastructure services without an expanded role for the federal government in financing both innovation and construction. While political, cultural, and economic conditions differ today from the Great Depression, the challenges we are facing require a similar level of commitment that can only be provided by a strong federal government.
How do infrastructural issues relate to social inequality? How can reconfiguring infrastructure be used as a tool to combat this inequality? O’TOOLE
Government action is often promoted as a way to reduce social inequality. Yet the sad truth is that the political power of the wealthy is disproportionate to their economic power. So when programs are devised to reduce social inequality, too often they end up primarily benefiting the wealthy. The best way to help low-income people is to rely on user fees.
KARVONEN The history of Austin’s development provides vivid illustrations of how infrastructure services can be used to exacerbate social inequality. For example, the 1928 city plan called for the concentration of minority populations in East Austin to avoid the duplication of municipal services for white and black populations throughout the city. Municipal policy has changed dramatically in the ensuing years, but uneven infrastructure provision continues to exist in low-income areas of the city. And correcting the unevenness of these networks is often tied to economic redevelopment, resulting in relocation of low-income populations to other areas of substandard infrastructure service.
The challenge is to find ways to distribute a limited amount of government funds in an equitable manner, prioritizing projects that will provide the greatest public good rather than the greatest return on investment through property and sales tax revenue. Thus, there is a tension between managing a city as a business endeavor (the current mode of governance in Austin) versus an expansive perspective that supports and fosters an equitable public realm. This is not a call for socialist forms of governance but rather a suggestion to acknowledge that infrastructure provision has multiple consequences that cannot be addressed solely by applying the tenets of neoliberal capitalism.
How can planners help shift public policies that treat open space and urban green space as an optional amenity rather than a necessity for healthy public spaces?
O’TOOLE Why should they? The U.S. is 95 percent open space. Most urban areas have lots of parks. The stampede to protect open space has driven up housing prices, increased traffi c congestion, and taken people’s property rights without compensation.
In general, planners need to learn more economics so they can understand concepts such as cost effi ciency, supply and demand, and marginal utility. Most planners don’t realize—or claim they don’t believe—that when you reduce the availability of land for housing, housing prices go up. So they go to great efforts to preserve an abundant resource—open space—and end up making housing unaffordable for low- and moderate-income families. KARVONEN Planners and other practitioners of the built environment face signifi cant challenges with respect to open space and green space due to a widespread embrace of a Cartesian understanding of the built environment. The city is divvied up among increasingly specialized experts with building design relegated to architects, streets to transportation engineers, parks to landscape architects, and so on. This segmented view of the landscape fails to acknowledge the connections that bind the city into a whole.
Landscape architects have much to offer by identifying design opportunities that relate the common elements of the city, particularly with respect to parks and open space. Rather than interpreting these spaces as nonurban and unbuilt landscapes, we can see them as providing recreation, transportation, commercial, aesthetic, and ecological services. However, this requires collaborative planning efforts that involve built environment experts (architects, urban designers, planners, and landscape architects) as well as the users of these spaces.
CONTRIBUTORS
RANDALL O’TOOLE is a Cato Institute Senior Fellow working on urban growth, public land, and transportation issues. O’Toole’s research on national forest management, culminating in his 1988 book, Reforming the Forest Service, has had a major influence on Forest Service policy and on-the-ground management. His analysis of urban land-use and transportation issues, brought together in his 2001 book, The Vanishing Automobile and Other Urban Myths, has influenced decisions in cities across the country. In his most recent book, The Best-Laid Plans, O’Toole calls for repealing federal, state, and local planning laws and proposes reforms that can help solve social and environmental problems without heavy-handed government regulation. An Oregon native, O’Toole was educated in forestry at Oregon State University and in economics at the University of Oregon.
ANDY KARVONEN is a post-doctoral researcher at the Manchester Architecture Research Centre at the University of Manchester (UK) where he studies the relationships between humans, nature, and technology in urban contexts. He earned a PhD in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin and his dissertation research was on the politics of urban drainage in Austin and Seattle. In addition, he has over a decade of consulting experience in environmental engineering and sustainable building and is a licensed engineer in the state of Washington.
