(1-A.) American Infrastructure: An Overview

Infrastructure, the interdisciplinary network of coexisting systems necessary for society to operate, is often overlooked because it is an ever expanding amalgamation of many subject matters. Perhaps popular lexicon is to blame for this as its terminology fails to capture its sheer reach on the built environment; in a sense, it is the built environment. As such, infrastructure is paramount to the economy and greatly impacts the ecology of the world. The twenty trillion dollar US economy is completely reliant on the vast network of infrastructure including roads, bridges, airports, freight rails, ports, power lines, sewage systems, water recycling, etc. It is concerning that the US is widely still operating with the infrastructure it established in the 60s and 70s, especially considering the fact that its population has almost doubled.These decaying systems are projected to cost the United States 10 trillion dollars in losses as well as the loss of 3 million jobs over the next 30 years.

(1-B.) The Infrastructure Bill

Because the US is only paying half of its infrastructure bill, with every year the quality of its infrastructure decays. As it is today, the US infrastructure would need an estimated 2.59 trillion dollars invested into its infrastructure over the next ten years for it to be brought up to date. These drastic effects on the economy are a direct result of increased travel time from poor roads and inefficient airports and increased spending because of unreliable power grids and water sources. Beyond its economic impacts, infrastructure also has a lot of unforeseen consequences on the environment. The noise, hazardous waste, air pollution, water pollution, and increased carbon production is undoubtedly affecting the ecology of the world. The built environment itself contributes to 39% of global carbon emissions, and man made structures such as roads, fences, dams, have fragmented habitats, pushing species towards extinction.