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Costs Mount for Delaying Infrastructure Overhauls

Both presumed Presidential nominees have decried the state of the nation’s infrastructure and say they want to fix it. Donald Trump aptly characterizes…

Jonathan D. Miller Jonathan D. Miller

Both presumed Presidential nominees have decried the state of the nation’s infrastructure and say they want to fix it. Donald Trump aptly characterizes US transportation networks as “an embarrassment” compared to other parts of the world, and Hillary Clinton pledges to bring our public works systems into the 21st century. But so did President Obama, who ran into an implacable Congress which has shifted the spending burden down to hard-pressed states and cities and encouraged one-off public-private partnerships for projects, which don’t change the ultimate cost equation.

Our  infrastructure problems extend not only to traffic clogged roads, inadequate mass transit and airports,  but also to sewer and water systems, dams, and the electric grid—all are outmoded and in various stages of decrepitude. The costs for modernizing add up into the trillions of dollars. Doing nothing risks stunting economic growth, potential crises, or disasters—what happens when power systems shut down or a dam bursts? Is Katrina only a distant memory for New Orleans? But essentially nothing is what we have been doing for the past two decades—because the short-term costs fall on all of us, and the anti-tax, small government crowd has blocked necessary initiatives like raising the gas tax or creating new user fees.

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Jonathan D. Miller

Jonathan D. Miller

A marketing communication strategist who turned to real estate analysis, Jonathan D. Miller is a foremost interpreter of 21st citistate futures – cities and suburbs alike – seen through the lens of lifestyles and market realities. For more than 20 years (1992-2013), Miller authored Emerging Trends in Real Estate, the leading commercial real estate industry outlook report, published annually by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute (ULI). He has lectures frequently on trends in real estate, including the future of America's major 24-hour urban centers and sprawling suburbs. He also has been author of ULI’s annual forecasts on infrastructure and its What’s Next? series of forecasts. On a weekly basis, he writes the Trendczar blog for GlobeStreet.com, the real estate news website. Outside his published forecasting work, Miller is a prominent communications/institutional investor-marketing strategist and partner in Miller Ryan LLC, helping corporate clients develop and execute branding and communications programs. He led the re-branding of GMAC Commercial Mortgage to Capmark Financial Group Inc. and he was part of the management team that helped build Equitable Real Estate Investment Management, Inc. (subsequently Lend Lease Real Estate Investments, Inc.) into the leading real estate advisor to pension funds and other real institutional investors. He joined the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the U.S. in 1981, moving to Equitable Real Estate in 1984 as head of Corporate/Marketing Communications. In the 1980's he managed relations for several of the country's most prominent real estate developments including New York's Trump Tower and the Equitable Center. Earlier in his career, Miller was a reporter for Gannett Newspapers. He is a member of the Citistates Group and a board member of NYC Outward Bound Schools and the Center for Employment Opportunities.

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