Infrastructure

Infrastructure Plan Doesn’t Come Close To Tackling The Housing Crisis

April 4, 2021 Lindsay Owens and Sammi Albinder, Business Insider. Create! Housing, Infrastructure, Joe Biden, Recession

The spending plans that the Biden administration released this week laid out substantial investments into our nation's housing system, including $213 billion for building and retrofitting affordable housing units, $40 billion for public housing capital repairs, and grant funding to address zoning laws rooted in racial and economic exclusion. These proposals are a welcome first step to ensuring safe, affordable, sustainable shelter — and Congress should move swiftly to enact them — but they do not come close to meeting the scale of the housing crisis that has been underway in the United States for decades. The reality is that although the failures in our housing system were exacerbated by the pandemic — to the tune of 10 million people at risk of eviction and more than $57 billion owed in back rent — the pandemic didn't cause them.

Building Or Unbuilding America?

March 15, 2021 Nomi Prins, Tom Dispatch. Create! Green New Deal, Infrastructure, Jobs, wealth inequality

During the Trump years, the phrase “Infrastructure Week” rang out as a sort of Groundhog Day-style punchline. What began in June 2017 as a failed effort by The Donald’s White House and a Republican Senate to focus on the desperately needed rebuilding of American infrastructure morphed into a meme and a running joke in Washington. Despite the focus in recent years on President Trump’s failure to do anything for the country’s crumbling infrastructure, here’s a sad reality: considered over a longer period of time, Washington’s political failure to fund the repairing, modernizing, or in some cases simply the building of that national infrastructure has proven a remarkably bipartisan “effort.”

Jackson’s Water Crisis: How You Can Help

March 10, 2021 Tim Majors and Scalawag Editors, Scalawag Magazine. Create! Infrastructure, Mississippi, Mutual Aid, Water

"This is the first time that we've ever had record-breaking, five to six straight days of below-freezing temperatures," Ronnie Crudup Jr., Member of the Mississippi House of Representatives and Executive Director of ‎New Horizon Ministries told WURD radio in an interview on Wednesday. "Our infrastructure just could not handle that." The ice on the ground didn't help the speed of government aid either once Jackson's water treatment plant went down. "The local guys are doing the best they can," Crudup said. State leaders have done little to help with on-the-ground needs or longer-term efforts to replace the sewer and water treatment system, estimated to cost $2 billion—six times the city's annual budget. "We haven't seen the federal government at all." "Just that 'landmass' in between, right? It's just like that. We're always last.

The Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ Is A Myth

February 7, 2021 Deborah Brautigam and Meg Rithmire, The Atlantic. Educate! Belt and Road Initiative, China, Infrastructure, Loans

China, we are told, inveigles poorer countries into taking out loan after loan to build expensive infrastructure that they can’t afford and that will yield few benefits, all with the end goal of Beijing eventually taking control of these assets from its struggling borrowers. As states around the world pile on debt to combat the coronavirus pandemic and bolster flagging economies, fears of such possible seizures have only amplified. Seen this way, China’s internationalization—as laid out in programs such as the Belt and Road Initiative—is not simply a pursuit of geopolitical influence but also, in some tellings, a weapon.

Infrastructure Advances Improve Lives Of All Nicaraguans

December 17, 2020 Nan McCurdy, Alliance for Global Justice. Create! Energy, Infrastructure, Neoliberalism, Nicaragua

During the neoliberal governments from 1990 to 2007, the Nicaraguan population suffered lack of electricity an average of five to twelve hours a day. Electricity was needed to pump water so Nicaraguans had even more hours without the precious liquid. In my Managua neighborhood, Ciudad Jardin, we prepared for the outages with candles, kerosene and stored water. We sat outside together in the dark in the early evenings – one good thing – and the kids played. But the frequent electricity cuts ruined refrigerators, televisions, etc. because, when the electricity returned, it would often spike. I recently talked with some Hondurans who confirm that this is part of their suffering even today.

Investigation Into The Erosion Of Public Health

July 4, 2020 The Associated Press and Kaiser Health News. Educate! COVID-19, Infrastructure, Public Health, United States

Local and state public health departments in the United States work to ensure that people have healthy water to drink, their restaurants don’t serve contaminated food and outbreaks of infectious diseases don’t spread. Those departments now find themselves at the forefront of fighting the coronavirus pandemic. But years of budget and staffing cuts have left them unprepared to face the worst health crisis in a century. KHN, also known as Kaiser Health News, and The Associated Press sought to understand the scale of the cuts and how the decades-long starvation of public health departments by federal, state and local governments has affected the system meant to protect the nation’s health. Six takeaways from the KHN-AP investigation.

COVID19 Brings American Decline Out In The Open

July 1, 2020 Noah Smith, Bloomberg. Educate! Austerity, COVID-19, Infrastructure, Recession

The U.S.’s decline started with little things that people got used to. Americans drove past empty construction sites and didn’t even think about why the workers weren’t working, then wondered why roads and buildings took so long to finish. They got used to avoiding hospitals because of the unpredictable and enormous bills they’d receive. They paid 6% real-estate commissions, never realizing that Australians were paying 2%. They grumbled about high taxes and high health-insurance premiums and potholed roads, but rarely imagined what it would be like to live in a system that worked better. When writers speak of American decline, they’re usually talking about international power -- the rise of China and the waning of U.S. hegemony and moral authority.

How To Stop Fare Evasion: Make NYC’s Trains & Buses Free

December 27, 2019 Staff, Indypendent.org Create! Infrastructure, New York City (NYC), Transportation

Imagine a transit system where there are no turnstiles, where the police presence is minimal because cops aren’t lurking around to enforce fares. Picture a subway and bus network that is free, open and functional because those who profit most from it pay for it. Lawmakers in Kansas City, Missouri took a step in just this direction earlier in December, passing a bill that directed the city’s manager to set aside $8 million a year to cover the fare of $1.50 for every rider. It is expected to save frequent bus users in the city of 490,000 people about $1,000 a year.

New Laws Require All New Roofs To Contain Solar Panels Or Green Space

November 29, 2019 By Rose Adams, Brooklynpaper.com Create! Brooklyn, Infrastructure, New York (NY), Reform, Solar Energy

Two laws requiring new property owners to build solar panels or green spaces on their roofs went into effect on Nov. 15 — marking a major step towards Brooklyn’s environmental sustainability, according to local green thumbs. “It’s important and very valuable,” said environmental activist Pete Sikora from the New York Community for Change, a local nonprofit. “It’s a critical step for New York City to meet the Green New Deal goals.” The legislation — which Councilman Rafael Espinal (D-Bedford Stuyvesant) first introduced to the City Council in July of 2018...

2 million Americans Don’t Have Access To Running Water And Basic Plumbing

November 25, 2019 Meera Jagannathan, Marketwatch.com Educate! Infrastructure, Water

More than 2 million people in the U.S. lack running water and basic indoor plumbing, according to a new report by the human-rights nonprofit DigDeep and the nonprofit U.S. Water Alliance — and race and poverty are key determinants of who has access to clean water and sanitation. Native Americans are 19 times more likely to lack indoor plumbing than their white counterparts, putting them in the worst spot of any group, and African-American and Latinx households lack indoor plumbing at almost twice the rate of white households, the report found.

Why Fiber Is Vastly Superior To Cable And 5G

October 21, 2019 By Bennett Cyphers and Ernesto Falcon, Eff.org Create! Infrastructure, Internet, New Economy, Telecommunications

The United States, its states, and its local governments are in dire need of universal fiber plans. Major telecom carriers such as AT&T and Verizon have discontinued their fiber-to-the-home efforts, leaving most people facing expensive cable monopolies for the future. While much of the Internet infrastructure has already transitioned to fiber, a supermajority of households and businesses across the country still have slow and outdated connections. Transitioning the “last mile” into fiber will require a massive effort from industry and government—an effort the rest of the world has already started.

Minneapolis Pilots ‘Mobility Hubs’

October 3, 2019 By Katie Pyzyk, Smartcitiesdive.com Create! Infrastructure, Minneapolis, New Economy, Transportation

The idea of a mobility hub is not new, but at the same time it has not yet gained mainstream implementation. A German project manager is credited with devising the first integrated mobility hub 20 years ago to reduce the number of cars on the road and regain street space for other uses. Minneapolis looked to European examples, as well as domestic and regional ones, when developing its hub program. "European cities are well on their way, much further than the U.S. is, on this concept of mobility hubs," Johnson said.

Newark Water Coalition Takes Struggle Against Lead Pipes Statewide

September 17, 2019 Newark Water Coalition, Popular Resistance. Organize! Infrastructure, Lead, Newark, Water

Over the past few months, the Newark Water Coalition has tirelessly been advocating for residents of Newark and taking action to spread awareness of the Lead Water Crisis. What started as a small group of activists working to simply spread information about this crisis to residents has since ballooned into a larger movement with education, social media, and canvassing campaigns as well as a place for Newark residents to come for access to free, clean drinking water with no questions asked. The Water Coalition has always been about educating our neighbors and making sure that they are not inadvertently harming themselves or their families. Our Coalition has been immensely successful in advocating for clean water for Newark. We have hosted demonstrations at Mayor Baraka’s State of the City address and the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs).

Study Strongly Supports Public Banking To Finance Infrastructure

February 17, 2019 The Public Banking Institute. Create! Finance and Economy, Infrastructure, New Economy, Public Banking

In honor of the Bank of North Dakota’s centennial anniversary, here is an excellent academic report from Cornell University that includes a detailed case study of BND’s 2015 Infrastructure Loan Fund. The report examines the “unique benefits of public banksand explores strategies for the implementation of similar structured institutions in New York State and the broader US context.” Prepared by Shareef M. Hussam for Professor Mildred Warner at Cornell’s Department of City and Regional Planning, it provides strong academic reinforcement for advocates’ testimony...

If You Pave It, They Will Come

January 4, 2019 Pete Tucker, Fair.org Educate! Infrastructure, Transportation

As world leaders gathered in Poland for the UN climate conference, the Washington Post threw its support behind a $9 billion plan to add over 100 miles of toll lanes to Maryland highways in the traffic-choked DC region. The Post offered its hearty initial support, despite the fact that studies show adding more lanes leads to more cars on the road, when cars already consume “a quarter of the world’s oil” (New York Times, 12/13/18). At the climate conference—which came on the heels of a major UN report finding that the world has just 12 years to drastically cut emissions to avert catastrophe—there was a sense of urgency.

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