Perspectives on Urban Infrastructure (1984) / Chapter Skim
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5 The Future of Urban Public Works: New Ways of Doing Business
5 The Future of Urban Public Works: New Ways of Doing Business
Pages 178-210
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From page 178... ...
Starting in the mid-1950s, however, cracks began to appear in that concrete, and recent developments have speeded up the crumbling of the urban public works foundation. Beginning in 1956 the federal government first increased, then decreased, its involvement in such areas as interstate highways, wastewater treatment, and mass transit construction.
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From page 179... ...
· What new coalitions are likely to emerge on different sides of issues, and what new roles can we expect to see for business in this issue? Finally, from a technological point of view, critical questions that need to be looked at include: · How will new patterns of urban development linked to new technologies change demands for infrastructure of different types?
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From page 180... ...
Research is needed to determine the consequences of these structural changes and opportunities for joint investment. Finally, we suggest that current demands to rebuild our decaying infrastructure may not be taking into account new patterns of urban development and new technology, which call for very different kinds of investments in public works.
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From page 181... ...
Deteriorating State and Local Finances Concern about how to pay for infrastructure has increased with the deterioration of state and local public financing. Beginning with the tax limitation movement heralded by Proposition 13 in 1978 and continuing through 1983 with the effect of the recession on revenues, state and local governments throughout the nation have been experiencing extreme fiscal constraints.
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From page 182... ...
In the 1970s, growing concerns about an overloaded federal system and budget deficits led to moves to decentralize and reduce federal efforts. By the l980s, growing fiscal constraints at the local level have limited the ability of local government to finance capital improvements.
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From page 183... ...
. In laying out future scenarios, it becomes possible to explore the relationships between technology, urban development, and infrastructure requirements.
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From page 184... ...
In a recent report for the Federal Highway Administration prepared by SRT, methods of genetic engineering are described for creating a mutant strain of bacteria critical to the fermentation process for producing a substitute deicer, calcium magnesium acetate (SR} International, 1982a)
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From page 185... ...
Robert Yin has found that technological innovation can be promoted at the local level, if the particular innovation can serve bureaucratic goals anct economic self-interest (Yin et al., 19761. Thus the key to this scenario seems to depend on the political, bureaucratic, and economic characteristics of local governments.
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From page 186... ...
One barrier is the institutional complexities involved in obtaining agreement from the multiple owners of user facilities so that specific projects can become economically feasible. Another is that current public policies do not encourage citywide district heating development.
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From page 187... ...
A variety of benefit approaches are on the rise. A recent survey by the Municipal Finance Officers Association and the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations found a 77 percent increase in user charges and a 26 percent increase in benefit assessments by cities in the United States (Cline and Shannon, 19821.
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From page 188... ...
, have made local governments look more seriously at ways to work with private business as a partner in solving problems. Infrastructure is a natural area for collaboration with business, because business has so much to gain in terms of the effects on economic growth.
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From page 189... ...
The traditional role of local government as a tax collector and provider of publicly financed services is being replaced by a newer role of local government as entrepreneur, catalyst, collaborator, and broker with the private sector. In some cases, citizens are paying directly for services through user fees or benefit assessments; in other cases, developers are paying through exactions and fees.
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From page 190... ...
Proposition 13 has limited local government's ability to raise local property taxes or issue additional general obligation bonds. The state government is experiencing budget crises due to the effect of the recession on revenues and the impact of federal budget cuts.
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From page 191... ...
· Sale and Leaseback Newly constructed or existing facilities can be sold to private investors and leased back for public use. The implications are that local government can no longer be solely an a~ninistrator of local taxes and intergovernmental grants, that private business must become more directly involved in fi nancing through means other than local taxes, and that citizens must be prepared to pay directly for the services they receive.
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From page 192... ...
In Dallas, real estate developers are contributing to the construction of a new light rail system by donating most of the system's right of way. In New York, a private business purchased mass-transit rolling stock and leased it back to the mass transit authority, thereby gaining tax advantages under "safe harbor" leasing provisions.
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From page 193... ...
In tax-exempt leveraged lease financing, local governments sell public facilities in order to generate capital funds for construction and rehabilitation. The sale is financed by tax-exempt revenue bonds.
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From page 194... ...
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From page 195... ...
An expanded variation on the bond bank theme is the proposed Reconstruction Finance Corporation a federal investment and development bank that would lend money to both business and local government for capital investment. Felix Rohatyn (1982)
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From page 196... ...
Federal bond banks and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation appear more remote. THE POLITICS OF URBAN PUBLIC WORKS: A NEW ECOLOGY OF GAMES Political scientist Norton Long viewed politics as an "ecology ot games." In the area of public works he saw a particular highway grid as the result of a series of separate games (Long, 1962:1421431: A professional highway engineer game with its purposes; a public works department's bureaucracy game; a set of contending politicians seeking to use the highway for political capital, patronage and the like; a banking game concerned with bonds, taxes, and the effects of the highways on real estate; contractors eager to make money on building roads; labor leaders interested in union contracts....
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From page 197... ...
We can expect to see new and at times unusual coalitions emerging around the issue of infrastructure. Recently, for example, business, local government, and citizen groups came together in California to form a new organization called Californians for Public Improvements; their purpose is to lobby for improvements in infrastructure in the state id.
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From page 198... ...
of the Urban Institute has found that "when sewer and water systems are taken out of the general budget process and entrusted to independent authorities or put on an enterprise fund basis, the capital stock conditions of these systems are superior; greater attention is given to maintenance; and more regular capital replacement and repair plans are followed." The emergence of these independent authorities mirrors an earlier development in local government in which independent nonpartisan boards and commissions were spun off to operator programs, supposedly outside politics. The proliferation of a large number of special authorities can lead to fragmentation of local government and loss of accountability, a charge made about Baltimore, for example.
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From page 199... ...
A drive to promote the interest of public works that is quite attractive to business could have significant negative effects on the nv~rnil venerations of local government. Joint Public-Private Investment Finally, a potential result of the new forms of public-private collaboration at the local level may well be an increased interest in new ways to negotiate joint public-private investments.
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From page 200... ...
There has been a growing investment in pollution control over the last decade that has a payoff for both public and private sectors. In areas where water pollution control has been vigorously enforced, for example, new industries will have to spend less to obtain clean process water and cities can continue to use existing municipal water supplies.
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From page 201... ...
The ways we adapt to technology, find new methods to finance infrastructure, learn to work together, and develop coalitions to encourage investment will determine the future of urban public works. New and more efficient ways of combining public and private investments are another possibility, but we are only beginning to learn how to do that, and it could take a very long time.
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From page 202... ...
4. The extent of private-sector participation in infrastructure financing should be surveyed to help determine the willingness of private business to pay for particular types of infrastructure using different financing methods.
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From page 203... ...
Business Week 1981 State and local government in trouble: the decay that threatens economic growth. October 26:136.
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From page 204... ...
1977b Infrastructure Linking Science and Technology to State and Local Government. Report prepared for National Science Foundation.
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From page 205... ...
For the practitioner to be more innovative, education in engineering must change. In addition to the fundamental training given civil engineers, the professional schools must give more emphasis to the holistic character of infrastructure problems, including system degradation and maintenance.
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From page 206... ...
Some parts of the infrastructure system are basic and are likely to change very little in the near future. Civil engineers will continue to be involved in providing the basic necessities of urban life: shelter, transportation, water, and waste disposal.
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From page 207... ...
Civil engineers can generate a strong technical basis for the future of cities. Clearly, however, one of the things they need to do is to improve their ability to communicate with nonengineers and to get deeply involved in the process of developing the public consensus on infrastructure policy.
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From page 208... ...
Some efforts are being macle in such areas as district heating; a program supported by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is uncler way that involves 28 .
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From page 209... ...
Further work is needed in the professional schools and elsewhere to give better status to public works careers. The Impact of the Computer on Cities and Their Needs for Infrastructure More studies are needed of the impact of the computer on cities and patterns of urban development.
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