Infrastructure, Sustainable Spending, and Sprawl

Photographer David Maisel, Los Angeles

Dean Baker, econoblogger, makes the following point about the right and wrong kinds of infrastructure spending in ‘Road to Hell’ (the guardian):

“While not all highways are bad, highways that promote the pattern of sprawl that we have seen in many metropolitan areas over the last 30 years are bad.

“We should not be making it easier for people live long distances from their jobs, so that they have lengthy commutes each day. This would directly counteract efforts in other areas to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

“It doesn’t make sense to spend money retrofitting buildings so that we use less energy heating and cooling them if we’re also spending money in ways that encourage people to use more gasoline driving to and from work every day. In the same vein, it doesn’t make sense to pay money to develop more fuel-efficient cars so that they can go further on each gallon of gas, and then go out spend tens of billions of dollars building highways that encourage people to drive more….read the full article…

~ by Shane Waggoner on January 7, 2009.