BUS 627 - Infrastructure in the 21st Century: Political Realities, Policy Implications and Challenges

High profile cases of infrastructure collapse have received a good deal of coverage in the popular media over the last several years, from the broken levees that flooded New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to the bridge collapse in Minneapolis almost two years later. While these cases are well known, they do not begin to tell the entire story as it pertains to the decrepit nature of the nation’s infrastructure; a system that most experts describe as in an almost irrevocable state of decay. This course takes a case study approach to examining the politics and policy of infrastructure in the United States. In particular, it focuses on four basic questions. What is the current state of infrastructure in the United States? How did we get to this point? What are the major challenges facing the nation today as it pertains to our infrastructure? Finally, what can be done from a political, policy, and economic perspective to begin to remedy the situation? In addition to the more high profile cases of Hurricane Katrina, the Bridge over the Mississippi River, and the Boston Tunnel collapse, we will also consider less well known cases pertaining to the nation’s highways, bridges, tunnels, railways, and other aspects of the transportation system, as well as the water supply, power, telephone, and internet lines, cargo, and shipping, among others.
Lecture
3 Credits