Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 1
Introduction
There is a growing consensus about a nationwide problem with
the adequacy and maintenance of the nation's infrastructure, spe-
cifically with urban public facilities. There is, however, no consen-
sus on the extent of the problem. Estimates of the backlog of main-
tenance and repair of bridges, streets, and water and sewer systems
range from less than $1 trillion to over $3 trillion. Determining the
size of the problem in terms of cost and assessing the proper course
for public policy beyond the obvious actions to repair deteriorated
facilities or to replace those in clear danger of collapse are com-
plicated by the absence of reliable information and confusion over
the proper standards to apply. Given the constraints on spending
at every level of the political system, people must also decide which
facilities should receive the highest priority for investment, since
it is reasonably clear that not all claims can be honored in any
short time period.
In light of these conditions, the growing demand that something
be done, and the likelihood that the "infrastructure problem" will
persist as urban areas make further adjustments to a changing
economy, changing technology, and changing culture, there is a
need to identify the most important and researchable issues and to
look for answers to the policy questions of what to do, how much
to clo, when to do it, and how to do it.
In November 1981 the National Academy of Engineering held a
1
OCR for page 2
2
PERSPECTIVES ON URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE
workshop on urban infrastructure and identified a long list of policy
issues for further exploration. In June 1982 a second workshop,
held by the Committee on National Urban Policy of the Commission
on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, the Commission
on Engineering and Technical Systems, and the Transportation
Research Board, considered the problems of defining needs and
setting priorities for urban infrastructure. Participants at that
workshop felt that there was a need for an in-depth look at the
nation's infrastructure problems and urged the holding of a sym-
posium to develop a specific research agenda for the National Re-
search Council and other interested organizations.
On February 25 and 26, 1983, the National Research Council
(NRC) held a Symposium on the Adequacy and Maintenance of
Urban Public Facilities. Participants included a cross-section of the
academic, political, administrative, and professional leadership of
the country in urban public works and civil engineering systems.
The objectives of the symposium were to lay out the basis for a
research agenda on salient policy issues and to identify and discuss
major policy concerns. The program for the symposium and a list
of participants appear in the appendixes to this report.
The papers presented at the symposium and the discussion that
followed identified an extensive research agenda. Basically, these
research needs fall into four categories:
1. the development of standards and criteria for the design and
performance of urban public facilities, against which national
and local needs for investment can be measured;
2. the identification of the effects of technology on urban infra-
structure, including the potential for using new technology to
improve the performance and reduce the costs of existing sys-
tems and facilities and the need to develop new systems, ma-
terials, and devices to support the functions of the private
sector in the cities of tomorrow;
3. financing techniques for public facilities systems; and
4. analysis of institutional problems of planning ant} managing
facilities and the processes of decision making.
The symposium was organized to explore public facilities in both
historical and institutional contexts. Accordingly, the paper by Joe}
A. Tarr reviews the relationship between urban development and
public works and offers some lessons for current policy. D. Kelly
OCR for page 3
INTRODUCTION
3
O'Day and Lance A. Neumann examine the needs issue, pointing
out the flaws in facile estimates that obscure the bases on which
they are made. George E. Peterson's paper on financing infrastruc-
ture explores the usefulness of a national infrastructure bank as a
means of encouraging institutional reforms in the way we finance
and manage our public works systems. Heywood T. Sanders reex-
amines the politics of public works decisions and challenges some
of the assumptions about the rationality of choices made by cities.
Finally, Douglas C. Henton and Steven A. WaIdhorn take a look
at the future of public works technologies, finances, and institu-
tions.
These papers and the discussions at the symposium provide a
point of departure for more searching and comprehensive research
on infrastructure needs of the nation and its communities. Their
objective is modest: to outline and discuss what is known that is
not always taken into account in the making of policy and to identify
what is not known but needs to be discovered. In this sense the
volume reflects the new interest in the condition of public facilities,
a recognition of their importance to the national economy, and the
necessity of concern by the scientific and engineering communities
for the inner space of our cities as well as for the outer space of the
universe.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
urban public
