These are excerpts from a roundtable discussion sponsored byReal Estate Media and LePatner & Associates. The full text willappear in the July-August issue ofReal Estate NewYorkmagazine.

NEW YORK CITY-The region's growth is threatened by long-terminattention to the state of its infrastructure, a problem that'seven more severe on the state and national levels, according to apanel discussion Wednesday during the BuildingsNY conference at theJacob J. Javits Convention Center here. Expanding the capacity ofthe nation's infrastructure—ranging from highways and mass transitto utilities—while keeping it in a state of good repair willrequire private and public expenditures in the trillions ofdollars, panelists said.

"We ignore our nation's infrastructure at our peril," saidmoderator Barry LePatner, founder of LePatner & Associates,which specializes in construction law. He noted that last summer'sdeadly bridge collapse along Interstate 35 in Minneapolis wascertain to be repeated elsewhere. "It's a question of when."