Main Street

Not “Make Work”

At Daily Kos, Devilstower has some advice for President Obama as he prepares for his jobs summit:

1. Drop the word “infrastructure”

I spent years as an enterprise architect. My father did decades more as a city manager. I can tell you that whether you’re talking about database servers or sewer pipe, the word “infrastructure” is the first step in either putting your audience to sleep or making your project seem too abstract to be relevant. If you mean “let’s build highways,” then say “let’s build highways.”

–snip–

5. There’s no such thing as “make work” jobs

Work has consequences that are bigger than the thing being worked on. It doesn’t matter whether it’s cleaning trash along the highway or building rockets for NASA, work itself is a net positive. Besides, what turns out to be important is hard to predict. All those jobs that people complained about as “make work” seventy years ago? Those jobs built things like the gorgeous Timberline Lodge at Mount Hood. The splendid stone bridge at Cumberland Mountain State Park in Tennessee. Beautiful paths, lodges, shelters, cabins, and camping areas at hundreds of state and federal parks — along with more than 3,000 fire towers to watch over those parks. Many of the structures created by the WPA and the CCC have far outlasted contemporary structures built by people doing “real jobs” and have done so elegantly, wonderfully, in a way that’s uniquely and perfectly American.

Meanwhile, Atrios says:

The fierce urgency of sometime next year is really depressing me. I know my views are clouded somewhat by my life in an older urban hellhole, but the list of possible productive infrastructure projects are practically infinite. I’m not talking about make work, I’m talking about real projects from basic maintenance to sewers to pothole filling to the demolishing and reclaiming of property with abandoned buildings etc… etc…

And by way of illustration:

But despite those upgrades, many sewer systems are still frequently overwhelmed, according to a New York Times analysis of environmental data. As a result, sewage is spilling into waterways.

In the last three years alone, more than 9,400 of the nation’s 25,000 sewage systems — including those in major cities — have reported violating the law by dumping untreated or partly treated human waste, chemicals and other hazardous materials into rivers and lakes and elsewhere, according to data from state environmental agencies and the Environmental Protection Agency.

–snip–

As cities have grown rapidly across the nation, many have neglected infrastructure projects and paved over green spaces that once absorbed rainwater. That has contributed to sewage backups into more than 400,000 basements and spills into thousands of streets, according to data collected by state and federal officials. Sometimes, waste has overflowed just upstream from drinking water intake points or near public beaches.

I’m going to go with the view that keeping sewage out of my basement is not “make work” or some boring, abstract notion of infrastructure. How about you?

Tags: infrastructure, Jobs