The Next Generation

From the (Tucson) Arizona Daily Star. The immediate focus is, not surprisingly, Arizona. The concepts are applicable worldwide. Quotes like, "...infrastructure is what we build today for our children and grandchildren..." and "Are we going to make investments to secure the well-being, quality of life and competitiveness of our children and grandchildren?" need serious consideration.

The Center for Competitiveness and Prosperity Research has the full series of reports available.

Investing in the future of our children
By Michael M. Crow
Special to the Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, Arizona | Published: 11.24.2008


With demographic projections suggesting the likelihood that within the next quarter-century more than 10 million Americans will call Arizona home, our state must confront unprecedented challenges as it matures and in terms of population becomes one of the 10 largest states in the union — larger than New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois and probably Pennsylvania.

Chief among these challenges is adequate investment in infrastructure — roads, transit, electricity, drinking water, telecommunications, but also health care and public safety and the educational infrastructure of our public schools and the three state universities.

Last Monday Arizona State University was honored to welcome elected policy-makers and prominent leaders from the public and private sectors to the forum "Preparing for an Arizona of 10 Million People: Meeting the Infrastructure Challenges of Growth." The purpose of the gathering, tagged "Arizona 2030," was to address some of the major challenges facing the state's public and private sectors as a result of rapid growth.

While there was broad agreement that our success is contingent on an optimal infrastructure, I would argue that when it comes to reaching the consensus required for policy to advance and investment to be made, Arizonans still lack a sufficient sense of clarity and urgency.

Despite chronic underinvestment in our state's infrastructure, contentious debate over whether or not we should commit to meet the infrastructure needs of the present and future prevents us from acting in our own self- interest.

Perhaps some perspective may be required: Put simply, infrastructure is what we build today for our children and grandchildren. If we look back across the generations who came before us, most were generally well-served by an infrastructure commensurate with the population and needs of the era.

One need only consider the tens of thousands of public schools and the hundreds of great universities that have been built across the country. Railroads operating in the private sector were given massive land grants by the federal government, and canals were advanced through government investment succeeded by private-sector operation.

Throughout our history our success stories have been made possible by government helping to lay down the foundation of the infrastructure and then bridging to the private sector that in turn found some way to prosper.

At the epicenter of our national future — that is the American West — critical decisions regarding the course we take must be made:

● Should we invest in an enhanced quality of life with some sense of collective identity as fellow citizens, or is everybody just out for themselves?
● Can we fathom the extent of our interrelatedness in the global economy and the mounting ferocity of competition from abroad?
● Will we continue to deliberate over infrastructure while most economies in the developed world simply move forward with investments required for success and then engage the private sector?
● Can we find a way to destigmatize and depoliticize concepts like planning and market-driven solutions, and practices like tolls and user fees?
● Can we grasp that infrastructure is not an expense but the basis from which we will attain economic competitiveness?

While the implementation of infrastructure projects may prove challenging, our decision to make a commitment need not be so very complicated after all: Are we going to make investments to secure the well-being, quality of life and competitiveness of our children and grandchildren? Will we lay down the infrastructure they will need so that their market-driven private-sector ambitions can be erected on a platform equal to or greater than that which we enjoyed?
Such deliberation should transcend partisanship. We need to make a decision about whether or not we can find a way to meet today's needs and still invest for tomorrow — for the future of our children and grandchildren.

On StarNet: "Preparing for an Arizona of 10 Million People: Meeting the Infrastructure Challenges of Growth," a study, was done by the Center for Competitiveness and Prosperity Research at the W.P. Carey School of Business and is available in a database that aggregates growth analysis, opinion and documents. The report is available at: azstarnet.com/special/growthresources

The Arizona State University Office of the President Web site is http://president.asu.edu/