One other thing in the report that made me shake my head was a table they had titled, "Top 20 Countries and Economies Ranked by the Quality of Roads and Railroads" (page 17, see the chart of the right). For roads, the United States is ranked 19th behind such countries as France (2), Switzerland (3) and Germany (5), all countries that I have driven in. Anyone who has done likewise will attest that the standard highway in Europe is like a country road here in the U.S. I agree that their freeways are awesome, but they are also designed to connect towns, not feed strip development. I would attest that the "quality" in this case is less engineering-based and more a function of their adjacent land use not messing things up as ours does.

The table itself is based on an "Executive Opinion Survey" from The Global Competitiveness Report for 2010-2011. ASCE doesn't point out that, despite the sad opinion of our roads, the report ranks the United States as the fourth most competitive economy in the world. It is not really clear how we became so competitive with an infrastructure system ASCE ranked as a 'D'. Might there be just a little more to an economy than infrastructure?

At Strong Towns, we want our infrastructure maintained. But the reason why we can't maintain our infrastructure is not because we lack the money or are afraid to spend it. It is because the systems we have built and the decisions we've made on what is a good investment are based on the kind of ridiculous math you see reflected in this ASCE report. We spend a billion here and a billion there and we get nothing but a couple minutes shaved off of our commutes, which just means we can build more roads and live further away from where we work. (Or, as we call that here in America: growth.)

Sixty years of unproductive infrastructure spending later, we are awash in maintenance liabilities with no money to pay for them. This is what happens when you have a government-subsidized, Ponzi-scheme growth system that, at all times, lives for the next transaction. America is all about new growth, which is why we don't even bother to question the findings in a study like this.

The ASCE report is an embarrassment to the engineering profession. The fact that politicians, journalists and bloggers are all lined up to mindlessly parrot these conclusions is pathetic. If we are actually going to get this country moving in a positive direction, we need a real understanding of how infrastructure spending is used to create value. We need a new approach to land use. We need to start building Strong Towns.

(Top photo by Maryland GovPics)