Meditations on "Infrastructure"

As local municipalities like Franklin rush to add lanes and asphalt with stimulus money rather than secure the crumbling infrastructure - i.e. take care of what we already have, it's worth a note about what "infrastructure" really is:

Spotlight Vol. 8, No. 4: What Lies Beneath: Meditations on a Word - Regional Plan Association:

I like the sentiments, once decoded. What I like to say is that infrastructure is "the things we do in common." That is, it is those tasks or function that we have opted to do collectively and cooperatively, rather than individually and competitively.

I find something moving in that. I think we progress as a society by defining infrastructure upward, by including more and more things in its rhetorical embrace.

Before the late 19th century, clean, safe water was a private good, to be obtained individually on the market. Then we built public water systems, and water became "infrastructure." Now, we debate whether we should have a national health care system. If we answer yes, then health care will become "infrastructure."

Before infrastructure made its appearance, a much handier and to me, more honest term was used: public works. Robert Moses, the famous and infamous czar of New York state infrastructure for a half century, titled his autobiography "Public Works: A Dangerous Trade."