important to look back at how we got here, that it wasn't until that '94, that congress looked and said, we shouldn't be just ol' locating the spectrum to different stakeholders. we should auction this off and have some market forces at play. within a competitive framework to make sure you're able to have multiple competitors-and rather than just turning over this very

finite -- it's a way to make sure there are market forces at play to entice the broadcasters to actually show up and take a good look at this, and the fcc deserves a lot of decreed, and congress as well, setting 'a structure where the only options are not continue being a broadcast or turn off your station. they finished a test showing that spectrum sharing works for broadcasters and there's a pathaway forward for a broadcaster to stay on the air, serve the same customers and receive a portion of the option revenue without changing their been plan. >> i just think that this is a great opportunity for the broadcasters to rethink their business models. everything else is evolving and this is a good opportunity for the wireless community and for the broadcasters, and look forward to seeing it play out. >> there's this huge benefits for consumers. you can tweet out more. huge benefits for taxpayers and

the treasury when those revenues come in. but because this action is such a way to increase competition, we're looking at a $200 billion benefit to the economy by having competition in the wireless industry. >> the since we're speaker to a broader audience say to your local tv stations and broadcasters, meese give up your spectrum -- please give up your spectrum. purely voluntary. and saying this over c-span which is a service provided by cable, that's fair. i guess the speakers i want to thank you, and i think frankly, no matter how you feel, you have to at least thanking the folks at the fcc for a brutal couple of months, and thank you to the

speakers. i appreciate it. thank you. [inaudible conversations]

the wonderful thing about the gulf coast is it's so underappreciated and that's good because it gives us a lot to write about. if we were in new york or san francisco or chicago, those cities and places are all so well known, and new york is a literary capital, but here on the gulf coast, we tend to think of that, say, from texas to the florida panhandle, there really is a sensibility. we have a similar environment, similar types of trees, live oaks, long life pines, palm trees, sandy soil, salt in the air. the gulf of mexico, of course, nourishes and supplies us with wonderful seafood, estuaries and rivers, places like mobile bay are wonderfully rich in tradition and culture, and there have been books and memoirs in and around all these things for hundreds of years. so it's an extraordinarily rich

subject to take, and of course, a along comes the oil spill in 2010 where all of a sudden we are at center stage, and people are beginning to look at the gulf coast and think about, wow, what's its like there? we didn't know we got so much of our oil and gas from there. good lord and the nation became tuned in to how important the gulf is. >> this weekend learn about the rich history and literary life of mobile, alabama, on booktv and american history tv. saturday at 5:15 p.m. eastern on c-span2, and sunday at 2:00 on c-span3. >> c-span2 providing live coverage of the u.s. senate floor proceed examination key public policy events and every weekend, booktv, now for 15 years the only television network devoted to nonfiction books and authors. c-span2, created by the cable tv industry and brought to you as a

public service by your local cable or satellite provider. watch us in hd, like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. >> today the brookings institution hosted a discussion about infrastructure spending. and how to fund the maintenance of american roads, bridges, and public transportation. the first speaker was congressman john delaney, who has put forward a bill to fund the highway trust funds with changes to the tax codes. this is two hours. >> good morning, everyone. my name is bruce katz, i'm a vice president at the brookings institution, founding director of the meant policy program. i want to introduce you to brookings, to the closing of infrastructure week. a lot of folks, public, private,

civic, have been involved in designing structure and to all of you, thank you and also thank you to the foundations and corporations that really have made our work possible. the ford foundation, hitachi, aig, ge, rbc, tkr, and all the members of our metropolitan leadership council. they have made our research possible. now, the timing of this week could not be better. now congressman delaney will talk about this temp there are clearly short term federal actions involving the gas tax and highway trust fund that are critical and really a new way of the national government engaging, but there really or metta issues informing this week. does the united states have what it takes to build and retrofit a new generation of infrastructure for today's pressing and

disruptive challenges. this is a pivotal decade but a of supersized economic, social, and environmental challenges facing the country. we need more jobs. we still need 7.1 million jobs to make up the jobs we lost during the downturn, keep pace with labor, dynamics, population growth. we need better jobs. because we went from 81 million people living in poverty in near poverty in the country in 2000 to 107 million, and we need to build communities that are resilient and sustainable in the face of economic restructuring, and environmental challenges. so, infrastructure can play an enormous role in addressing the superchallenges, both at the national scale and frankly at the city and metropolitan scale which drives most of the economy. if we think differently differed innovate continuously.

what we tried to do at brookings, we tried to do four things, trade to redefine infrastructure for a new era. we have defined it essentially has seven sectors of infrastructure that really have all their own methods by how we design them, how we finance them, how we deliver them, and how we govern them. from roads and transit to trains and logistics to energy and water and so forth. we're a modern sophisticated economy, and infrastructure means a variety of things as we all know, and we can understand that, we can basically not just come up with ideas for solutions but actually execute. second. we redefine the impact of infrastructure. this is 14.2 million jobs in this country. 11% of our jobs and the incredible thing about the infrastructure supersector is that these are good jobs, they pay better wages than many other

sectors of the economy. so when you invest in infrastructure, you're a platform for growth but the jobs in the supersector are very good. third, we are trying to redefine what be mean by innovation in infrastructure. you cannot build 20th century infrastructure for 21st 21st century economy. particularly how disrupted this economy is, given the potential to use it to technology to deploy and it apply it in better ways, and finally, this will get to congressman delane iny's thoughts, we are trying to redefine how we invest in infrastructure. at the end of the day you need to invest for the future and, frankly, the entire system is a public-private exercise in the united states, and it's federalist in design and execution. we are not a country like many of our competitors that really just have a central government that basically has a national

plan, and then does the bulk of the investment. we are a federal republic and we are a public-private enterprise, and so as we go forward today, we have some excellent innovators from reason the country who are really doing the hard work of putting for a vision for what infrastructure can look like in this decade and the next century. we really need to think differently about this and elaine it to a disruptive and pivotal moment and how we operate as a nation and as a society. with that, i want to introduce, i think, one of the most innovative members of congress, john delaney. congressman from maryland's sixth district. home down, washington, dc, but also someone who comes into the national government from the private sector, ceo of a company lists on the new york stock exchange. this is really someone coming

and not just with private sector expertise in the abstract but with ideas that can be deployed for, again, a very different kind of moment where the national government needs to be a stable and reliable partner, a platform, a foundation, for investing in the kind of infrastructure that moves our country fur. so congressman delaney, on the critical committees that deal with so much of what we'll talk about today. thank you for coming here. looking forward to your remarks. [applause] >> thank you, bruce, and thank you all for being here on infrastructure week. it's near and dear to my hearts, and thanks to brookings for

hosting this and your contributions to public policy in the country which in many ways is singular so it's great to be here. so, in my judgment, increasing the infrastructure investment in the united states should be our top economic domestic policy for any measure. i say this for three recents. the first reason is that it's an incredibly important jobs program to some extent, and it particularly focuses on creating middle skill jobs, which is exactly what this country needs. if you look at the data around job creation in this country, we're actually doing a pretty good job creating high-skilled jobs and very good job of creating low-skilled jobs because high-skilled jobs directly and indirectly drive the contraction -- creation of low-skilled jobs buts we're lacking middle-skill jobs,

people can have one job, a decent standard of living and raise their family. that's the shortage, the part of the market hallowed out by the macro trends of globalization and technology, and infrastructure is such a perfect way, investing in infrastructure is a perfect way to create jobs because it creates them directly through the people who actually build the infrastructure and indirectly around the manufacturing that goes with infrastructure. if think about our able to compete in manufacturing, you realize that the kind of things you have to manufacture for infrastructure, to simplify it, are big and heavy, and the united states has a competitive advantage on building big and heavy things so ill -- its will be stimulating. this creates jobs and i think this point really needs to be emphasized because i come from the financial services industry, and people ask me what do i think of another financial crisis. i think the chance in a the near

term are almost zero. but when people ask me about the chances of another jobs crisis where the techs of globalization and technology accelerate and hollow out the middle class of the country at a much more rapid rate than we anticipate. i put theass level.

to handle an investment of that size, we have to, to some extent, deconstruct how we create infrastructure in this country and make sure we have good public policy initiatives around all of them. and so it seems to me the way we create infrastructure in this country falls into one of four categories. we either create infrastructure by having the government grant money to do it, so the federal money grants money, state governments provide grants, a whole variety of governments provide grants to build infrastructure. and most of that infrastructure is stuff that's really related to the common good, right? so that's the first way we build

infrastructure. the second way we build infrastructure is by charging user fees, and there's a whole varian i of projects around -- variety of projects around this country as we all know that are really based on some sort of a user fee scenario. the third way we build infrastructure in this country is the private sector does it through good public/private partnerships where the private sector is building the infrastructure, operating the infrastructure, and it's being used by the public. and then the fourth way we create infrastructure in this country is we finance it. in other words, someone borrows money -- typically a local government -- to build something, and they have to pay it back across the long term. so if we ever want to close the 3, 4, $5 trillion gap in the infrastructure investment in this country, we need to be doing things in all four of those buckets, and we shouldn't think of these things as mutually exclusive. because some people say, well, that's a good idea, but it doesn't do this. that's the wrong answer. we need multiple tools in our tool kit if we really want to

have a meaningful improvement in the infrastructure in this country and make a significant investment in the infrastructure of this country. we have to do it in a lot of different ways, because it's a very complicated and sophisticated landscape. so that's the other thing i like to tell people, have an open mind. all of the tools are virtuous because we have such a big need. and so the main piece of legislation that i've been working on for the last year around this challenge really fits into that financing category. so, again, we grant money, we charge user fees, we do public/private partnerships and finance it. what we've tried to create, for lack of a better term, is the category killer of financing. in other words, the big 800-pound gorilla that will take care of a lot of the financing needs this country has in the long term. and that's what we've created with something called the partnership to build america act which was a bill that i introduced in the house of representatives almost a year ago, and it had a companion bill introduced in the senate a few months ago. and right now this bill is the

most significant piece of bipartisan economic legislation in the whole of the congress. we have 31 house republicans on the bill and 31 house democrats. and we have a half a dozen senate republicans and a half a dozen senate democrats. so it's completely bipartisan, and in a meaningful way. in other words, we're deeply penetrating the congress, and we're adding members every week. what the bill does is pretty simple. it's complicated the way it lays out, but it's actually pretty simple. we launch a large scale infrastructure financing entity which is designed to be a large scale bank bond guarantor to be used by states and local governments around the country to finance any type of infrastructure. i love the way bruce framed the different categories of infrastructure. i call them the food groups of infrastructure, right? this entity allows us, allows states and local governments to use this money for transportation, for water, for energy, for communications, even

for education. to think in the world that we're going to live in in the next 20 or 30 years from now that we don't think of education facilities as core infrastructure to a competitive united states, i think, is crazy. so all of those categories are eligible for financing. the american infrastructure fund is capitalized up front with $50 billion that goes in day one and creates the cap aal bed -- capital bed for this financing entity, and it stays in there for 50 years. we believe the american infrastructure fund can leverage itself 10-15 to 1 in the private markets. so it takes that 50 billion of capital and potentially leverages it up to 750 billion. and it'll exist for 50 years, so that money can revolve up and down for 50 years, potentially financing $2 trillion of infrastructure over 50 years. and if you do the math on that, that would create three million jobs in this country which is more jobs than exist in my home state of maryland, to put itwuop

perspective. so that's what the american infrastructure fund does. the way it's capitalized is very unique. the government does not put the 50 billion into the entity. it's put in by private companies who buy bonds very cheap, nongovernment-guaranteed, long-term bonds. 50-year, 1% not government guaranteed. they would never make this investment in a normal kind of free market system. but to create an incentive for them to do this, we say that for every dollar a u.s. corporation invests in the american infrastructure fund, they get the right to repatriate a certain amount of their overseas earnings back to the united states tax free. we all know, and it's come into sharp focus in the last couple of weeks, that we've got an international tax law problem in this country, right? and it's causing almost half of u.s. cash to sit overseas of our largest corporations, and the cash overseas is growing at a faster rate than it is in the united states.

so pretty soon u.s. companies will have more cash overseas than they do in the united states. and they're not bringing it back because we have a system -- and this system is unique in the world -- where we require our companies to pay tax locally where they earn the money, and then when they bring it back to the united states, they have to pay be u.s. tax. so it's effectively a double tax scheme that we have. no other country has this. what the other countries do is you pay your tax locally, and when you bring your money back to homeland, if you will, you don't have to pay any tax. that's why this cash is accumulating overseas which is why pfizer, for example, is doing one of these tax inversions. the real driver is the fact that they have $60 billion in cash overseas. if they bring it back to the united states, they've got to pay $20 billion in federal taxes, so they might as well use it to potentially overpay for a company. what they're doing is creating a path for some of that money to come back tax-free. it's not a free lunch. they have to put some money in this american infrastructure fund.

we make them buy be bonds if they want to bring it back tax-free that they would never buy, that are probably only worth 20 cents on the dollar. the good news is they get to bring back money, right? the good news for us is we get capitalized without a penny of government spending a massive infrastructure financing vehicle that'll be around for 50 years and make a material difference against this challenge and opportunity we have around infrastructure. and the reason this bill so bipartisan is because it brings together two pieces of public policy that each party has been spot on right about. we democrats -- i'm a democrat -- we've been advocating for an increased investment in infrastructure in this country for a long time for all the reasons we've talked about. and is we've been 100% right about that. my republican colleagues have been pointing out for some time that we need to fix this international tax system, that it's a problem. it's making us not competitive. it's reducing investments in the united states among our largest

companies. and guess what? they've been 100% spot on right about that. and so this bill fuses together those two pieces of good public policy, and it as a result has garnered such significant bipartisan support. as i said, it's the most significant piece of bipartisan legislation in the congress. it's a big idea, it's an innovative idea, and it's being done in a completely bipartisan way. in fact, we won't even add members unless we have a companion from the other side to keep that march of bipartisanship going down the field. we're going to have a hundred members on each side of the aisle pretty soon with this bill. and recently in light of the highway trust fund situation -- now i'm going to pivot to how this, the momentum on our bill can be used to potentially do something even bigger -- we've thought about how we take this groundswell of support we have around the partnership to build america act. and we introduce it into the highway trust fund because, as most of you know, we in congress

need forcing to do things. [laughter] and the highway trust fund which is, obviously, a disaster in the making, it's a pending insolvency, if you will, could also become a huge opportunity if positioned right. so what we've said is this: why don't we take the fact that there is bipartisan support around increasing our investment in infrastructure and fixing the international tax system and not only do the partnership to build america act, but let's do something bigger, and let's deal with the highway trust fund at the same time. so what we've proposed -- because if you think about what we're doing with our bill, we're raising $50 billion of capital from corporations and allowing them to bring back $200 billion from overseas, because the ratio is 4 to 1. for every dollar of bonds they buy in the american infrastructure fund, they can bring back four dollars from overseas. so we're bringing back $200 billion from overseas. there's a lot more money over

there. let's bring back all of that money, or let's put in place a mechanism for more of that money can to come back, and let's take additional revenues that can be generated off that and use it to capitalize or prefund the highway trust fund for several years to get its insolvency off the table which will give us time to figure out how to fix it in the long term. because in truth, the highway trust fund should be funded with a flow source of funds. right? using kind of capital, in other words, putting it in and prefunding it is suboptimal. but in a crisis mode, it's what we should do to give us time because we all know the long-term fixes of a highway trust fund are complicated, right? how do we deal with gas tax, vehicle miles driven, the fact that the country's becoming increasingly urbanized, and a lot of the urban dwellers don't drive, but they use the roads. how do we deal with that is complicated, and we're not going to figure that out in a couple months. so last week i laid out in "the washington post" ap idea that has gotten a lot of momentum

ever since we started talking about which builds on the partnership to build america act bipartisanship but takes it bigger. it's doing something bigger. we say let's take all the money that's sitting overseas, right? and do a mandatory tax on it of 10%, give companies ten years to pay the money in, but then they can bring the money back freely. so we create a path for the almost $2 trillion sitting overseas to come back to the united states which is what most of u.s. corporate america wants to do. that money, the money that's raised from that, can be used for two things. the first thing it can be used for is to prefund the highway trust fund for six years. in other words, the shortfall. and so that we can have a measured and meaningful conversation about how to fix it in the long term and not have to worry about it for the next several years. take 60% of the money and do that. take 40% of the money and create the infrastructure fund. and at the same time, let's change our international tax system to move to a modified

territorial system which is what most of the world does. which means you pay tax locally on your earnings, and if you want to bring it back to your home country, you can bring it back tax-free unless where you pay tax has a particularly low tax rate, then you have to gross it up to a minimum. so if someone sets up a zero tax haven, you're still going to have to pay tax to bring the money back. but if you earn the money in a place that charges 20-25% tax like most of our competitors, you can bring it back tax-free. so that's our framing. let's lift up, let's take this bipartisan support around the act and, potentially, let's do something bigger. let's take the highway trust fund insolvency off the table for six years, give us time to fix it. let's take some of the money and create the american infrastructure fund. this way we'll walk away with a clear net increase in the amount of money we'll spend on infrastructure in this country, and so we'll create the jobs, we'll make ourselves more competitive. and and at the same time, let's fix this international tax system is that money -- so that money can flow.

this would be so utterly transformative to the short-term job creation opportunities in this country, into the long-term competitiveness of this country, i think it would be a singular and historic move for us to do as a nation. and the good news is we're coming to this debate already from a bipartisan perspective. in other words, the momentum on the partnership to build america act proves that both parties want to do this. both parties want to increase our investment in infrastructure. both parties want to fix our international tax system. so one of the things we're going to focus on is how do we take that momentum and not just do the partnership to build america act which we should do, but potentially do something bigger. so that's where my focus is on infrastructure. and it's so great to have your support. bruce, it's really great to be here and have this opportunity the talk. i know you have many other experts that are going to opine on this subject. again, i want to thank all of brookings, the whole of brookings.

it is a singular institution, and it makes an incredible contribution to this country. and i want to thank all of our individual supporters that have been so helpful. you've been there with us from the beginning. you've been constant supporters, and it's really helped our efforts immensely. and i want to thank everyone for taking your time to listen to what i have to say today. and, again, i'm an optimist. i think we can fix a all of these problems, and i think what we're laying out here is a good first step to make this country more competitive, create jobs and, hopefully in 10 or 15 year when we have infrastructure week, we're celebrating all the success we've had. so thank you. [applause] >> morning, everybody. >> good morning. >> well, i think you can see why we wanted to have congressman delaney provide these remarks for us today. obviously, a very thoughtful

proposal that he has discussed there in congress, bipartisan. we always like it when it's bipartisan. it's a really elegant solution, definitely something that's creative and, boy, we really like the optimism. and i think that's a really important thing particularly as, you know, for this close of infrastructure week. so my job is robert puentes, i'm a senior fellow here at the brookings institution. i'm a manager of the metropolitan infrastructure initiative and welcome you all again to the closing event here of infrastructure week 2014. so for those of you who are following on the webcast or following on the tv, wanted to invite you to join the conversation. go ahead and tweet rebuildrenew is the hash talking about and join the very robust twitter conversation that's been happening really all throughout the entire week. so we have an excellent panel lined up, but before i get into that, i want to just quickly recap some of the key themes and discussion points that we heard all during the this week starting back on monday, because even though i think that we were certainly successful at our

initial goal which was to amp up infrastructure, to push it to the front burner of the national policy discourse, as bruce and the congressman talked about, it's obviously something that we think is very critical. but we've got to really start talking about it. we've got to move the conversation to action. and having the president, having the prime vice president talk at earlier this week, we also want to make sure it's a conversation that isn't just reverberating here in washington. it obviously matters for all the reasons we've talked about, it matters what's going on in congress, it matters we've fixed the highway trust fund, it matters what's happened at the midterms and all these things are important, but this is not the only conversation about infrastructure in america today. it's just not the whole entire story. it's really not even reflective, frankly, of the washington conversation. you heard from the congressman, there are lots of these ideas that are out there. we need to start talking more optimistically, we need to start getting down to brass tacks and really figure out what's possible, what we can do here in

america today. but it's also not reflective, i think, of the conversation because infrastructure, as bruce mentioned, so very broad and multifaceted. it's not just about roads and bridges. obviously, that matters for all the reasons that we know it matters and particularly after this horrible winter that we've had. there's going to be potholes and all that stuff going on. we know that transportation matters. but by limiting the discussion of infrastructure to just that narrow a band -- particularly narrowing it to just roads and bridges -- we're failing to recognize the multifaceted way that we're delivering, designing, governing and financing a range of infrastructure projects here in this country. so i was encouraged to hear this week -- and we did talk about a lot of different areas of infrastructure. as bruce mentioned, here at metro program we think about infrastructure in these seven different ways. we do talk about transportation both intra and inter metropolitan transportation, but it's also trade and logistics, it's energy, it's water, it's telecommunications, it's public works and public buildings.

the congressman talked about education is one, folks like governor rendell talked about green infrastructure, but we think that these seven areas really capture the essence of the infrastructure debate in the united states today. and we know that all these things work together. it's clearly a system of systems. water, transport, energy, all these things are fundamentally connected. when it comes down to what we need to do today which is how do you deliver projects in an era of real if fiscal constraints and political gridlock in many places, we've got to deal with these sectors. the federal role in each of these sectors of infrastructure varies dramatically. what the federal government is doing in telecommunications is not the same thing they're doing on public transit, it was not the same thing they're doing on freight rail, water and other areas. other important themes we heard throughout the week, one is that, obviously, infrastructure matters to the american economy. this was a big drum beat right from the very beginning with a big event with the claim per of

commerce. we brought in business leaders to talk fundamentally about infrastructure, how it enables them to do their business and to compete globally. as bruce mentioned, a very major focus on jobs, clearly we need to create more jobs in this country as we put out a report earlier this week. joe cane and i at brookings showed that 11% of u.s. jobs are in one of these different sectors of infrastructure. not even the indirect jobs, not the guy who's cutting the hair or doing his work, but 11% of the american work force. this was a theme that was echoed by policy link this week, by the afl-cio and a whole bunch of others. the direct connect between infrastructure and the american work force. ..

>> the growing that we're expecting think is it not like parts of western asia or europe. we're a growing country how we come the growing and make sure that people are able to got jobs to things like public transit is important and disruptive. several events, discussed logistics and boosting u.s. imports, and given disruptions round climate change, big theme, how to design water infrastructure so it's sustainable and resilient and obviously flooding conditions here today, water infrastructure is near and dear to our hearts on this day. i think the main preoccupation that we heard and the main disruption that kept coming up was around funding and finance of infrastructure. a steady drum beat throughout the day. how to get things done in this difficult era. also where we heard the most

about solutions. not silver bullet but tools in the toolbox. who is thinking differently, how are they getting things done and how to learn from one another. i think first it's clear that for some areas of transportation, -- some areas of infrastructure like transportation we have to fund them in traditional ways. we talked about raising the gasoline tax, we talk about things like tolling on he interstate. we talked about things like ballot measures and transportation for america and the center for transportation, had a great workshop, helping states get ready to do campaigns around ballot measures to go to the voters and say see if they're willing to raise money for transportation infrastructure. something we're going to see emerging in 2015. we heard a lot of about new partnerships for getting things done. combinations between the public and the private, philanthropic

and nonprofit sector. not specific notions about privatization or selling off public assets for purely private profit but to leverage private seconder expertise and capital and connecting that with traditional areas of infrastructure so we can get things done in a unique way. so the bipartisan policy center's event highlightes these ideas along with the west coast infrastructure exchange and what they're doing in washington, california, oregon, and british columbia to develop standardization, transparency and a real pipeline of projects that works for both the public and the private sector. now, it's true that none of these ideas and innovations are going to solve all of our infrastructure problems. we know that. there's no real silver bullet solution to what we're facing today. but it is clear that in addition to priority of fixing the trust fund, as the congressman mentioned, has been studied -- steadsy theme -- true partnerships of government

entities, profit financeeyers, firms and -- have to do the hard work to get the stuff done. not going to be easy. i am encouraged with the stuff we heard this week about the new innovators, new generation of ideas, in new generation of activities to fill the gap. with that as a backdrop that leads into the discussion we want to have tied and from this great panel we're going to set up now. i'll introduce the panelists quickly. their bios are in the back. they're going to be providing remarks high lowing innovations in which they're engaged and their general thoughts about the infrastructure conversation. first up, dan kinkead, the director of projects in the detroit forward cities implement indication office -- i love the fact he calls its the implement ation office. and will talk about the range of engage. s underway to catalyze detroit's transportation-not just for city services like water, lighting,

energy, waste management, transportation, but how all that relates to economic growth and to neighborhood stability. dan was trained as an architect and recently became the father of twins, so good luck with that. probably going to be harder than fixing detroit, i think in some ways. after dan will be shalini. she and her group are leading the rock fell ever -- rockefeller initiative working to create new public private partnerships for resill gents infrastructure across water, energy, and transportation and she may be the only person who actually has a patent. next, shin-pei tsay of a new organization, woulding to catalyze innovations across the infrastructure. i think with an emphasis on transit and transportation. shin-pei has ha broad range of

expertise in making the environment more equitable and sustainable from the policy side and from the practical side. real work on the ground in real places. the carnegie endowment which i think is on the other side of this wall. and then eric shaw, the director of community and economic development in salt lake city where he is responsible for an impossibly wide range of activities in the city, including planning, economic development, transportation, engineering, building services, housing, neighborhood development, and even the arts council. so, i don't know what he does in his spare time, or if he has any, but we'll hear from eric in a bit. so what may be an unusual in act for us here at the metro program. we dent have any big prepare additions no comfy chairs, but given the excitement we did want to make this big more active, more interactive.

weol to the audience relatively quickly for questions and those on the webcast or tv, use the hash tag rebuild and renew and we'll get those in the conversation as we follow up throughout the week. so please join me in welcoming the panel and bring up dan kinkead. >>k yause] >> thank you very much. thank you all for allowing me to speak with you this morning. the image that you see on the screen is one that you have probably seen before of detroit. right? it's one that tends to illustrate disinvestment, depopulation, and some conventional thinking that may have led to both of those things. but for us within detroit future city and the implement indication office, group that

actually implements with a host of partners, public, private, philanthropic and otherwise, we think it's different. we think it actually may be the site of an incredible opportunity for transformative innovation, particularly transformative innovation within infrastructure and looking at things a little differently than the past. with a real opportunity to begin to stabilize our city as a whole, minimize costs, increase revenue, and ensure we can improve the health of all detroiters and those within the southeast michigan region, to ensure that we can establish 21st century systems that begin to mitigate the impacts of some of our older 19th century systems. drive up employment as we do them, ensure equity along the way, and lastly, provide a lasting resilience to a city and a region that really doesn't have it but certainly needs it. and as we do this, as an

implementation office and we have begun a few projects on this, we think there are lessons for everyone here. not just for legacy cities like detroit, throughout the united states or north america, but also for those cities rapidly urbanizing across the globe. the issue that detroit is facing today could be lessons for those in lagos, johannesburg, mumbai, they matter globally and we can deal with those as a network. the expanse save polarization of a legacy city in the u.s. and an urban nicing city somewhere else may be seen as a line and in fact it's a circle and it comes back and the proximity between these two realities is quite close. so, some of the things we're beginning to work on right now that we should talk about, the first is green infrastructure. the idea that we have the ability to clean our air, clean our water to begin to use these spaces to actually bring in

carbon buffers. in detroit we have expansive freeways as you might imagine and many of them sit directly next to neighborhoods. we have three times the rate of childhood asthma in detroit compared to the national average. that's not by chance. how might we use our available vacant land to actually plant specific species of trees to soak up co2 output and block diesel particulates matter in our neighborhoods. we're working with partners and the epa. how might we begin to deploy blue infrastructure systems. this is particularly important, and i think some folks are going to talk about this is the morning -- given the del luge we're experiencing outside in d.c. right now, in detroit, we have over 20 square miles of vacant land. perfectly vacant land. that's not a structure on it and that's occupiable land. it's not the right of way. roughly equivalent to the size

of manhattan. how might we ya the size of manhattan to deal with a bigger issue, storm water runoff in a city like detroit, given the fact at that time detroit sits on 22% of the world's fresh water splice -- 84% of the u.s. fresh water supply. we needs to be better stewardses here because in detroit everytime we gate little over half an inch of rain and the storm water goes to the catch basin, combined with the sanitary waste out of building like dismiss we do a direct discharm into the detroit and if ultimately the great lakes. we taking raw human waste and putting out there. we need to do better than that. this is a global asset that detroit sits on and we can make those changes here by deploying very soft systems, new 21st 21st century blue infrastructure systems that actually use the land to soak up the water, manage the hydrology and remove the gray system that costs copious amounts of money that we do not have and the

federal government would not like to fund. at the same time we can use all this land for food and for energy, right? we can begin to actually think about how food production in a city can work to actually satisfy the needs of the city as a whole. this is starting in detroit, seeing a dramatic revolution here in a city that has typically been defined by food deserts and poor access to food. we think these things can go to a leverage scale and can be occupied across all the land, providing jobs, providing food, and then also providing energy to the biomass and grass and a whole hose of other things. detroit can lead in this regard. lastly, you can tell it's not as if nothing there is. there's a house here and probably a house around the corner. people in fact in the 20 square miles that i'm showing you here, 90,000 people live there older

people, poor people, poor access to halve amenities and services. these folks are isolated. we have to begin to rethink how they can move around in the city. the idea is no one is getting dislocated here. how do we begin to then develop on-call par paratransit networks that allow people to get around more easily without requiring a dedicated fixed route bus to come down the street twice a day when only one person needs to go to the doctor on a tuesday. these are the things to think about, whole platform of opportunity around areas that in the past have indicated our failure. and so for detroit it's all about flipping these liabilities into assets, and we're going to continue doing that as we move forward. thank you. [applause]

>> good morning. i am here as a the ceo of refocus partners. thanks to all of you who braved the rain that all of us have mentioned as we have gotten up here on stage. i was going to ask you to start picturing your city in rain and that is not a stretch of the imagination for those of you who are here in d.c. but i want you imagine what happens to all that water. after it hits your roads. so, we have walked by puddles. they're flashflood warnings in the city today. but picture the water rushing off underneath your streets through large pipes, and headed into water treatment plants or, as dan describes, straight into our lakes and rivers. when the system works well, it's designed to keep our water clean to protect us from floods, but on days like today when the system fails us, what you see are basements that flood, into

sewers that back up into communities and into our water bodies. we need to be able too think about these challenges in different ways. cities across the country are dealing with this problem. this is not just washington, dc today. many cities have infrastructure systems that are 100 or 150 or even older. 150 years old. they weren't designed for the ways we're using them today. so my firm leads an initiative called the reinvest initiative. a partnership in eight cities and leading engineering, legal, and finance form firms to rethink how we design and finance our system, like our water system. so think back on the water system with all the rain that's come in today. and imagine how it works. it works like a giant funnel. our cities are built to catch this water and rush it out jug fiend the streets and carry it out to lakes and rivers. now i want you to picture that city working more like a sponge.

imagine our roads could absorb water. imagine we could plant street trees and put in wetlands that actually hold that water in place instead of having it rush out at the same time. that's a very different type of infrastructure. you're talk can about replacing pipes under your streets and old water mains and creeky water treatment plants with tens of thousands of small pieces and parts. trees. pavement that absorbs water. places to catch and hold water. so things -- think urban bathtubs. what re-invest does is we work with cities directly as s.w.a.t. teams to redesign these systems and create financeable port forols of infrastructure. we have eight city partners from miami beach to hoboken, new jersey, out to milwaukee and el paso. these cities are not like each other but they all face the same

challenges, which is they need to build infrastructure for the next 100 years, and to find ways to pay for it with increasingly strained public budgets. so how do we do this? i'm going to give two examples. one from miami and one from hoboken. the city of miami beach is a city that been featured in the news frequently. miami beach on a sunny day has flooding sometimes that gets up to two feet high. this is surreal for anyone who has not experienced this. our team went out there and we couldn't believe it until city officials drove to us different places where there was just water in the roads. miami beach's problem isn't just flooding. it's not because of rain. the problem is that their sea walls are so old they have sea water pushing underneath the city during high tides and coming up through their sewer systems.

they're coping well now. and they're really leading the charge, but they'll know this can't last forever so we are working with them to redesign their sea walls to think about how you hold up the city differently, but also pay for it differently and rethinking property taxes and insurance rates in one of the most expensive insurance market inside the country. hoboken, which faces strangely similar challenges was on the front page after hurricane sanity hit. the city at one point had 14 feet of standing water. hoboken is one square mile. teeny, tiny, 55,000 people. and shaped like a bowl. built for a different time. and the city knows they need to do different thing. wore working with them on their empty industrial parcels of land to think through how do we combine types of infrastructure across sectors. to not just thinking about water but looking at, where can we

build cisterns underground to hold water when the sewers overflow when it rains, but also to combine that with things like parking garages that can serve as flood overflow spaces during periods of really intense rain, like hurricane sandy. and then building on that, put things on the surface that create recreational spaces and parks for a city that is incredibly dense. to picture that's i want you to think about allayer cake of infrastructure. it's not just about building one thing that's important. it's about building whole systems. when you think about a whole system, sort of counterintuitively in order to finance infrastructure, we're interested in finding multiple ways to pay for the same project. where you can combine parking fees, with water system user fees, with attracting corporations to demonstrate technologies in innovation

parks. so now picture your favorite science museum and imagine being able to showcase for communes, for kids, what resilience looks like for the next 100 years in a public park. to work with companies to showcase, here how we can generate electricity from our wastewater systems. what it looks like to turn waste into energy. a lot of our challenges associated with infrastructure and especially with green and resilient truck, -- infrastructure, when we're successful in building systems it's a politician's worst nightmare because success is something that doesn't happen. so a storm hits but the community wasn't flooded. that's fantastic for exactly one year. and the next year you're fired. what we're doing is finding new ways to not just combine these systems to pay for them differently, but working to make sure those successes are clear and visible for the public entities, for the governments

working hard to make these changes. the slide i have is illustration of our process and you will find this familiar. on the left-hand side here you see a collection of what a city needs. cities know their nodes incredibly well. any need knew water systems new york electricity systems to repave roads at regular intervals to rethink how to provide broadband to underserved communities and, each part of a city has different needs. city governments tend to be organized in silos. you have he transportation office, the broadband office, the education office. and more interestingly, banks tend to think in layers. they want projects where they're not the only ones investing and you can stack up capital and investors to be able to pay for a single thing. what we at refocus and what our partners at re-invest do is work

to re-align systems design with financing. and our goal is to be able to take what a city needs, so national your idea of a dream house. turn that into blueprint consistent with the city's priorities and also help make the leap to a mortgage document. we have a lot of cities with a lot of projects and they're going into banks with their equivalent of a dream house. and we need help translating those ideas into investable projects. this is not a problem of not enough money. it's certainly not a problem of not enough need as you heard from detroit. our challenge is to be able to combine these things, to get from ideas to action, in a way that is clear and -- what we do is like doing an olympics for what a city needs every day, and we work not just on the systems

design, so thinking about what the green infrastructure looks like or how to build a sponge -- but we also connect that to working with legal experts on how do you design a private can-partnership that can deliver 10,000 pieces of infrastructure, not just one water treatment plant. and what are the different ways to bring together revenue streams, as congressman delaney mentioned, we user fees and also savings, the successes that don't happen. when my basement doesn't flood and i didn't collect from the insurance company, how die catch that money -- how do i catch that money and redirect it to the projects i need? some short what we do is help cities not just rebuild what they had for the last 100 years. we aim to get them to what they need for the next 100. thank you. [applause]

>> hi. i'm showing a painting or a collage because i am part of a new civic philanthropy and we are just getting started so it's really exciting to talk to you about what is going on with us. but this is a beautiful piece by an artist named val britain, and base i she worked with the concept of maps to map the unknown, to trace our past and she -- you can say she makes the unknown quite beautiful. and i just wanted to use that as a starting point for how we're thinking about infrastructure and what we -- the role we can play at the civic philanthropy and making a change. we just got started and did a scan of the field, and there are so many wonderful, amazing experts out there banks, banging on the doors, trying to make change, but change is scary for

so many people and what is scary is the unknown. what we want to do is try to brick together all of the people, the partners, the organizations, the cities, the private sector, and making the unknown more legible, to explore this area and to figure out what are the steps we could take, how can we partner together to make these things happen. so one of the things we started to look into was improving the rider experience. the general citizen's experience of getting around the city. we know what it's like to be unable to hail a cab, to wake waite for a bus that never shows up or never know when the bus is going to show up. this is one of the greatest inhibitors of people getting to jobs. we're talking about infrastructure-creating jobs, and infrastructures, an enabler of labor markets and jobs and people accessing jobs. so, it's a huge underpinning of our economy, burst it's one of those things that is sort of overlooked by conventional

transportation as usual. usually we serve it up. we -- to serve it up with big agencies we have to organize it. well, frankly, that's just no longer going to work anymore, and people have really unusual schedules, you have people in detroit who just need to go to the doctor once a month on a tuesday, and in the middle of the afternoon. other people who are working from home part-time so these schedules are no longer as predictable. so there's a huge number of participation from the private sector public that is create thing sharing economy -- i know that's a buzz word -- but what is really amazing is that people are participating. this really has been enabled by technology and partphones and there's an equity issue with smart finances and also new e -- smartphones and new information, 70% of 0 people with smartphones

rely on smartphone as their own access to internet. sew we're seeing a filmer -- glimmer of what can happen. its no onlier to this down supply side. it's demand size. how to get people to be able to move around. create a platform of options and what is going on is the private sector is taking the lead. what is amazing is they're doing this in spite of all the constrains. in fact you have all probably heard about the companies being beened, uber, lift, side car, you name it, banned from cities. i really think that this is the wrong approach. how can you figure this out, they're providing a service, a public infrastructure, public service to your citizens, and the way that, yes, challenges everything we know but it's actually making people able to get around the city. and i think that that is an area

where we have to be courageous, we have to explore the unknown, and don't think it's terribly negative thing to do. i the can there's a lot that we can figure out together but without -- but with leaving them out of the conversation that will never happen. so some things we do to create the environment for those conversations to take place, one thing is we want our work to be rooted in evidence. so we're actually sponsoring a major study, 12,000 person sample size on public attitudes on transit. we'll be releasing results from the survey throughout the course of the year. the second thing is what kind of leadership does it take to make these changes happen. over the last ten years we have seen cities across the country be able to lead in innovation, and they have been doing it without a big federal policy push. they have been doing it on the ground with the mayors, the commissioners, been able to

figure out and rewrite the playbook hour our cities work. does it take a great civic sector, a visionary lead center we are really interested in figuring that out. we want to create situations where the different sectors come together and actually talk about things. right enough it's the wild west in a way. it's the pioneers who are going out and staking a claim. and when that happens, and they're also being restrained, there's a lot of competition that actually is negative. they are being confined by outdated policy and enable to make progress on updating that policy, and we want to create the situation where people can actually come together and talk about these things, so actually on june 10th and 11th we're holding a submit summit in washington on shared use motilities. so the policymakers municipal leaders, coming together to talk about new solutions. we're also taking a look at what

does exist. governance. how to update this, make regions stronger through governance, defining new relationships between the private sector taking the leadership pga and the existing governing structures. what kind of relationship other do we need make and interesting in partnership with chicago litter this year. finally, we're really interested in changing practice. and so i mentioned earlier that leaders are

we have estimated the economic impact of our regional

transportation system is $7 billion, which is amazing. wayne to talk to you about three different systems we have within our region. the top, which is our tracks line 0, light rail line, required some similar collaboration within the city to realize its success can as was mentioned i have housing, transportation, economic development, and planning in my department, and we were able to collaborate looking at changing our zoning, looking at housing policy, and working with stakeholers and developers to map out the development potential of our light rail corridors. our first line opened up in 1999, and connected our downtown to to university of utah. it cost $200 million and to date has create it $1.6 billion in investment and about 50 projects. and it's still ongoing. i want to talk about one of our other lines that just opened up last year. that connects our downtown to

the airport, and it goes long north temple, our main street from the west side which is one of our communities that has some of the lower performance in our economic indicateyears, and so we thought about this. it wasn't just about connecting a nice place for the university but how to catalyze a main street in one of our communities in need and how do we focus on supporting small businesses but also connecting our major jobs centers. this line guess from our downtown to our airport, and includes some major private employers but also focuses on small businesses. if you guys can't see there, this light rail is in front of the red iguana. it has the best chili colorado, but it's a family-owned business, been around for 55 years and one hover at the fastest growing small businesses in the country. they're going to 17% a year.

it's amazing. and the chilly colorado is really good by the way -- the chili colorado is really good. the notion is in creating this rail it allowed a whole new mark to come in for us to connect touris and residents to enjoy the outstanding chili colorado. but for other small businesses, it creates the same opportunities and the fact we were connecting not only job centers but also creating small opportunities for small businesses. i'm right now since that line is fairly new, a $200 million cost as well. and we propose 1,000 new housing units which 550 are under construction. also, this low line in the middle is the new street car line so under the leadership of mayor becker and the city council and the south salt lake city council the uta we're rebuilding our street car system within salt lake city. so this was a

$50 million project that came from tiger money and from a match and i apparently it happened quickly. so we identified the right of way in 2009, we secured the tiger grant in 2011, and we had revenue service in 2013. so, we know how to get things done in salt lake city. that's just want to say that. and it's transformed this community. so, this -- the s line stands for street car line, the also stands for south salt lake line and sugar house. that's the bohemian community and now is a second economic hub in our region. we have had 400 million tuesday in private investment. 400,000 square feet of new retail, and a thousand new housing units being created in the past fur years since we comprised this. so, finally in the end, for our

commuter rail, at the bottom, that commuter rail is a $600 million project that opened up in 2013, and it really changed how we thought about how our suburbs thought about economic development and thought about rail. one of the sweet spots now between salt lake city and provo has become the home to a new campus're adobe, for ebay, and one project alone, 700,000 square feet of new service. so our suburbs are thinking about density and transit oriented testimony and change -- transportation, and has had a effect of thinking about our downtown hub in beth salt lake city and in ogden and revitalize him to think about how to better transform our downtowns and our hubs. and then in the end i just want to say that all this investment and infrastructure also has to

include people. we have -- we did a study and found that while we have a great regional system, the majority of the residents in salt lake city make shorter trips, and we makemer frequent trips, but what we're priced at a regional rate. so we were able to put in as a city $200,000 partnered with the utah transit authority, and create an annual pass specifically for salt lake residents at the price of $360 a year. at the press of $360 a year. [applause] >> i'm so amazed and so proud about this project. we put a significant amount of staff time into it. most was not what the name should be, the hive pass, but at it created this goal of reducing the trips of increasing ridership, of being responsive to how local functions versus

regional functions and is -- thus far we have sold 1500 of them and we have a target of about 7,000. so, we're going to see this happen. we're specifically outreaching to renters and low-income communities to make sure they can do this. which brings me to my final point. it's great to talk about economic development and how it's creating jobs and housing, but in the end, all this is moot if we're not creating economic opportunities. and so one of the best things we have seen is we have a guy had again out of homelessness but was able to secure the funds of $360 a year for a transit pass that was able to connect him from this new house in north temple to his new job house at sugar house and that's what this is about. thank you very much. i look forward to talking to you

guys. ... that was great. that's exactly i think the kind of conversation we were hoping to tee up. following the congressman and following the discussion we already had here this afternoon. we intentionally wanted a mix of folks. we want to have a mix of public and private actors because that was one of the common themes we heard throughout the remarks. it does take a bunch of different people to get these things done. because infrastructure is getting more complex, because it's multifaceted, because we have different motivations and different end games it requires a bunch of different people working together to make things happen. but we also really appreciate the fact -- the national conversation is very helpful but once we get down to -- we have to talk about what this means on

the ground in u.s. cities and other places. so i appreciated that part as well. but one thing want to do just to start -- this is very optimistic conversation which is good, particularly with the gloomy weather, but i think it will help us understand where the challenges are. i want to ask each of you, given you have talk about. what are your biggest headaches, the one thing you wake up and -- i know i have to deal with that one thing, or just break through this one area my life would be easier and see more success. so start with you just because you finished, eric. what could you change if you could with what you're doing now? >> building things faster. and the law that has been -- we have been great to talk to our federal partners how to streamline our approval processes. and we're trying to bundle as much as possible so when in the money shows up we're able to build it faster and not wait,

plan, get approval, build. so how can we lay out the full system now so that when the investment comes up we 'capitalize quickly. >> i think it's -- i think the biggest challenges in creating a new culture of working. i think the sharing aspect really calls for collaboration. cross-sector collaboration, civic, private, public sector collaboration, really unusual in the last -- the dead okayeds we have had of supply side transportation. and i find myself in conversation's i just think, it's not a transaction. we need to work together. i have nothing to give you. i want to work with you. so, i think that really is engendering a new culture of working. >> i think for us, in detroit, they're probably two thing that hit on. one is a bit more transactional

and the other one at a higher level. first off, of course, gaining access to capital to do many of the things we're describing can be a challenge on a good day. as we know, things in detroit are not as good as we'd like them to be. but we also recognize there are opportunities to draw in funding and we're seeking that through a host of partners. but it is always difficult to illustrate the value proposition to potential investor when you're describing things through the slide i showed, about investment in massive vacancy areas, that we know will undergird opportunities for economic development and growth and stability and are indirect. the second is a broader issue of the kennedy of open narrative. in detroit the times articulate a story that is not typically told 0, the positive side how to utilize the vacant spaces. but we think those spaces are highly relatable to the efforts that are underway in areas like

our central business district, in our mid-town district. areas where we're seeing incredible growth. 14,000 new jobs in greats are downtown. significant investment overall. transportation initiatives with the m-1 rail line coming into play. so, it's -- what we want to do is not bring everybody down and challenge with the narrative i'm typically talking about. we want tout pat in real estate to other investments that are necessary to illustrate how these two things support one another. >> so, the greatest challenges -- i have two and will take the liberty of putting in two. i find that when talking about infrastructure, we're able to do incredible things when you get groups of people trying to solve an actual problem. final that nothing gets done when it's a discussion about an issue. so me pore we can shift from issues to problem solving we'll see greater success on the

ground. the other wish list item i have is to drop a lot of the jargon that dominates the space and i come out of federal government and i can hold my own on acronyms but the bottom line is we need to build things that pay for themselves and create multiple types of value. we need to understand where the money is coming from and how we pay for these. >> this is something that we have been testing out here, as bruce mentioned at the beginning we're trying to redefine what we mean by infrastructure, trying -- the word doesn't -- it doesn't mean anything. there's water, there's transport, those things. when you get down to it they are designed and built differently but, what you're trying to do in your firm is to marry these thing intentionally. >> yes. >> is that a bigger challenge? is that because that's how it's done?

just new innovation, or by extension, is the way we're trying to break it down just aggregating infrastructure? does that make any sense? >> i think the opportunities are at the seams of infrastructure system. we have sort of experienced the 50 years where we build the free-standing systems we originally built 100 years ago or 50 years ago. so i think disaggregating the discussions put cities at a dissad advantage because -- disadvantage dunce allow them to have win-win so when you repave your roads it's easier to have pipe for broadband. it's cheaper for the company. so i think aggregation is important but we spend a huge amount of our time in bureaucratic jujitsu, so reminding people, just because it hasn't been done doesn't mean it hasn't been allowed.

and small translation. we learned to speak -- simultaneous translation, speak law and government and engineering and finance and making the ideas accessible. >> others on that one? when you're working with folks you're trying to solve other problems. trying to create opportunity, so the infrastructure isn't the driver of what you're trying -- it's enabling you to do what you're trying to do at the end of the day. right? >> yes. >> anyone want to expand on that? >> yeah. actually, i think that we're thinking about the growing economy and the -- planning for the future so new people will be coming and using the infrastructure, stewarding the infrastructure, and i think that the way that we're going -- our firm, the way we're thinking about doing it, is this culture change issue. not a getting into the jargon, creating greater legibility,

greater literacy, creating leadership capabilities so you can handle the double discussions without dumbing everything down. >> i think for us, in detroit, what we're trying to do is make sure that the investments we put in place today in many of them are not terribly sexy. sexy as detroit might be, of course. they will yield significant results down the road for generations in fact. so these are big plays we're trying to make. five, ten, 15-year efforts to move things forward -- >> does that message resonate in the long term? folks are looking for immediate relief but long term -- >> what we deal with -- we kind of mediate win this world of immediate si -- immediacy and then the long term reality. everybody wants everything

tomorrow. a lot of folks in detroit in extreme need and also people in detroit who have extreme expectations, who don't actually live in the need, which is also interesting to balance. people understand that the issues we're facing there and in many other cities across the u.s., these are issues that can be dealt with over time. they're going to take generations and one thing we ask yourselves in detroit to think beyond our own block, our own neighborhood to think of the city as large, not just what makes the most sense for you and you have to think about your own time. these things are actually going bear fruit for our children. not perhaps for ourselves overall, and it's just something that people need to wrap their minds around. i would ad just one other piece to this. what we see is an opportunity down to road, given the infrastructure efforts we made work on today, we see that very -- in sharp contrast based on past issues. right? and the mid-1970s, detroit

actually submitted a major federal play for a regional light rail system. would be fully operational by 1992, the year i graduated from high school. so, that never happened. because we were -- of course we lad to seek regional cooperation. one county fell out. we had a state match that deployed a circus train downtown, doesn't connect folks to anything. so we see where detroit is today and then we look at salt lake city, denver, we look at all these other cities in which those investments were made. what this made for them from a regional perspective, from prosperity to equity and we know how far we have fallen behind and now we have to surge forward. >> i look at detroit and i say, 50 years from now, if our economy changes, will we have built our infrastructure in a way that creates a resilient city?

can we think about vacant property rules right now or think about infrastructure right now and change those processes so that we can be dynamic, and so it's interesting we're looking at each other. >> i think just in response to what both eric and sam said on the long are term, there's a deep, dark secret with most governments and cities, we lose money today and win we have long-term problems it just means we'll lose more money. so part of helping communities find solutions, figuring out what they're spending money on. cities have the a basement cleanup fund when the sewers back up and they're not allowed to use the money to repair the water mains. so it's not about think can about up certain things 50 years from now. start with where you're failing now and that's where you'll fail worse in the future. >> i wish i had a basic cleanup fund.

>> so much for optimism. >> right. the one common them theme i heard was about partnerships. you actually mentioned that. and it's become so clear to us that -- in our work that -- it's not something that i think we think about public private partnerships and leasing the indiana toll road or the parking meter deal but about different ways that public and private and government and nonprofit leaders are coming together to actually solve problems, and the infrastructure stuff is almost derivative of that. can you -- anybody want to echo that? how important are the partnerships to delivering things and how different is that from what you used to do? >> i think the partnerships are imperative and the idea is to stick to the project, and i think that everyone wants their project for different reasons and that's okay. we don't need to have one common outcome or one common message. the idea in the end is if the chamber wants it for economic development and the mayor wants

it for air quality, who squares, it got built. and everyone is able to use it. so i think that's one of the things that a successful about partnership inside utah, we all just want to see it built. >> i think for us in detroit there's a sense that over the last few years people have moved beyond the kind of pride of ownership or authorship in something as their own, so i don't think anything or anything much of substance occur if it weren't through partnerships in detroit. you're talking about private and public arrange. s, local and federal and also talking about connections through philanthropy and connection to community group's have access to human capital, and we're finding those moments of greatest success are when all of those things are brought together. >> nothing happens without patter inship. >> i was thinking about the

partnerships on the atomized level. the peer to peer sharing, people being able to share risk and they're able to reap the rewards for doing that, and in fact on the philanthropy side one thing we decided decided to do was ton operating philanthropy because we wanted to help direct and have input on the design of these projects so people didn't fall back to the way they usually did things. we want to be able to keep them on track on taking risk and being brave, and so these kinds of partnerships i feel are necessary for the new dynamics out there. >> it's essential. no one right now who can solve these problems alone so we have to do things together. >> obvious as that it to you, i don't them that's quite broken through yet. so talk about the partnerships. it is important. and i'm so interested and going to violate my rule and i'm all the talking but want to throw it open for folks to ask questions

in the time we have left. identify yourself, your affiliation, and question, and has to end in a question mark and your voice may go up so it's a question. >> my name is james assume walt with the national association of railroad passengers and how do you show the important -- often times economically existential importance of these problems and showing they're not simply a nice thing to have or important thing to have but something if we don't invest in the economy, what will exist without it? >> this came up -- how do we make infrastructure not about infrastructure's sake. break through the communication, the partnership and what is the most important. >> i think it's finding cat lists -- catalysts, at devastating at hurricane sandy was it woke up a lot of communes to what happens when they don't

do something, and there are lot of different catalysts. you don't have to wait for a disaster but pick the moments where a resource i stretched to have a conversation with the community about what their lives would look like in the absence of investment. >> has sandy changed the conversation fundamentally on the ground or like the bridge collapse and everybody was excited and it fell off the radar. >> it's definitely stuck and we have to applaud cities like hoboken who have taken an all-hands-on-deck approach to -- they're reworking everything. the electricity networks, working with hud on rebuild by design as a competition to rework the entire city's water and flood management systems. they're working with us. so i think it has stuck and it's changeded the -- both the urgency and also the sense of what is involved. it's not just a one sector problem. >> i think you just have to sell the wind. everyday we had a station open up the governor came out, the

mayor came out, we all cheered. when the first person bought a hive pass we all cheered. so one can't say the system doesn't work. and it's total because it's an iterative process. you have to celebrate and artic plate show that every iteration is a win. >> what was the acting force? what got that done? your work in salt lake city. >> really smart people and amazing staff face. shoutout to them. i told them i hat to do -- i had to do that, which is also true. >> other questions? >> rob, i want to direct this to you and maybe to shin-pei. i don't know. sampled some of these evens so i don't know how much has been talked about. near a situation of enormous needs, some opportunities, and

scarce public resources. we have to be able to prioritize, to choose, sometimes within sectors, sometimes across sectors. how do we -- wasn't even on our radar five or ten years ago, the fact we have to prepare for three and four-foot increase friday sea levels in the next few decades, which is a whole other set of needs. as you know, i've been struck by the fact we do not have in this messy federal republic of ours a really good analytical transportation -- infrastructure planning or capital programming process in place. how do we make decisions better in which some needs are viewed as more important than others, and some opportunities more beneficial than others, and what is the role of the federal

government in driving states and localities and metropolitan regions to establish these systems? we know there are very few places that have effective analytical and decisionmaking processes about infrastructure investments. how do we change and improve that situation? >> so, i'm going to take a crack at the nonfederal level. i think that -- i'll let ron deal with that. on the local side, on how to prioritize on a local level, one thing that is interesting is openingness and sharing information and data from the city government to the public, and this has catalyzed amidessing analysis by just the public. they have an interest in functioning transportation. they want to be able to get around. so, for example, the city bike in new york city recently released a set of data and the

reuben center did an analysis and showed that during a subway delay there were more trips taken near those subway stations immediately, as soon as the mta released that notice of a delay over text. there were more bikes being taken around the transit stations than in other places and it was only during that time. not a recurring trip so it wasn't a commuter trip. just in response to the delay. ...

>> how does your plan tied into the other planned? i am very fortunate to have these divisions under me. we are having a few different things. i am constantly asking where they connect, how they overlap to worry using the same language, data? instead of it being one big launch of infrastructure planning effort, how you a line existing efforts and make sure their stake -- saying the same thing, representing things the same way and having aligned data which i don't see in my work done before. >> i think that this is exactly what we're trying to get. despite what's going on in washington, there actually is really good stuff going on this is happening all across the country. you're exactly right that we have super sized challenges,

things that we could have predicted. it will come. we are just not seeing that. is going become from bottom up. once we start to see all these actions going on, there will be a response. we don't think that we should be doing anything. obviously one of the only industrialized countries on the planet, that doesn't happen. it's the perfect in the federal government should be doing and directing its resources at, but at time of severe fiscal constraint, when there are these massive challenges we have to focus and prioritize and it has to the bottom of. question here. >> thank you. retired government engineer. done critical infrastructure, mostly overseas for about 35 years. now i'm retired. question, one of the biggest returns on investment i see,

critical infrastructure, continuity of operations, abilities do things day to day that we have to do and keep the society moving forward. as i think about it, new york and london, very old infrastructure, but very critical to the financial stability. have we taken any lessons from those cities? as an efficient as they are. thank you. >> i would lead off on that and say particularly within the case of the deal are following sandy, the dimension of the resilience conversation obviously just blossoms nationally and definitely landed. perhaps her is she is not similar to those in new york, the kind of world financial center and so on and so forth. it really kind of rotated into an issue of equity and a tremendous challenge to develop

a truly resilience city that also has some of the greatest need bread. you have a number -- you can imagine, they go along with that. i was them off. here you have a challenge were just slight destruction can begin to actually undermine all lot of the existing systems. ultimately you could have loss of life of a significant challenges. will we are trying to see is the way in which, i talked earlier about bundle infrastructure, how can we, as we move forward to all other soft or hard systems, how can we begin to bring these things together succinctly so that those investments are being made to launch new businesses and at the same time support community action so that everything that happens along the way develops a much stronger

network that can keep things going in a time of challenge knowing that there are some folks who will never have the means to escape something like that. >> basically, transferability. i think you are a great example of being able to translate it within context and having leaders do it in an astute and sensitive way that reflects the community assets. that is actually the imperative. it is really interesting to always be looking for the common challenges office, very contextual. >> just to give a very specific example, you know this well, the process after hurricane sandy, working with governor cuomo to plan for the next hundred years. and within that there was an anecdote. it was from someone at a cable

company who was describing that the cable companies knew where the power was out faster than the power companies to. set top box is blank and the power is interrupted. they start picking up the phone and calling. sped up operation and was -- restoration of power. and we talk about partnerships on the open date it is not just public to private the private to private. industries also live in silos. many to be able to find those of virginities to create a continuity of operations across sectors. private industry really is underpinning most of the need and the resource. >> we have just barely started to scratch the surface. i just want to keep this conversation going. i know we have to move on. again, more questions are raised more questions. not a bad thing. it will keep the conversation going. please join me in thanking our panelists. [applause]

and then, while they are getting off the stage, i just want to introduce them the global chief operating officer. as you may know, the multinational engineering in infrastructure with approximately 14,000 employees. what you may not know is how this fits into the conversation i110 today about future and innovation and on that. connecting different areas of infrastructure, the themes of we just had here on this panel is exactly the right way to close out this week. with that, please join me. [applause] >> good morning. well, as ralph mentioned, this is the closing session for infrastructure. want to take a moment to

acknowledge of the individuals and organizations for putting together a terrific week. the speakers we just heard from this morning from our last panel really underscore the importance of this topic. let's give them a quick round of applause. [applause] when i first spoke with rob, patrick, and carter and myself talked about this opportunity to come here and speak at brookings at the conclusion of the infrastructure week it was probably the easiest decision at to make a long time. to talk about infrastructure, something now we have been doing for close to 130 years, we take great pride in reshaping cities and regions across the globe. we can make to try to advance the conversation about that and offer some perspective in that regard which is a great opportunity. thank you for that. as you are in a moment ago we plan and design infrastructure. in the past year we've personally to a person is bad timing canada, u.k., asia,

middle east, and major cities across the globe. where some of those differences are. i am going to a friend that conversation around three key themes, for key themes. the first is technology, second is generational attitudes, the third is delivery and financing, and the fourth, bring it back to the role of government. something we all face, the onrush of changing technology. traditionally our business infrastructure has not been a hotbed for technological change. the romans were misled late comer. but today new technologies are becoming more and more common in our business.

advanced materials, for will solar power and look good vehicles. the potential is change how we do business. but to new technologies stand above the rest. the magnitude of their potential effects. one is already with us and the other is in the not too distant horizon. it will not change how we build infrastructure so much as how we use it. the smart phone and the autonomous vehicle. each by itself is revolutionary, and the interaction of the two could be game changer. today in much of the world i am fairly certain every person in this room has at least once more fun on them right now. this little device is only changing how we use infrastructure. we adjust our driver reached based on real time traffic reformation, purchase a real

ticket on as one fund, pay for parking, taxi call on the fly. we can accomplish all these things before, but the sheer ease. just ask anyone in the taxi business. more than this the smart phone puts the world in your hand kaj and those no spare bits of time which were always an efficient, we now have time to be efficient, whether way for an elevator or riding the metro. we can use those bits of time in new ways. one of the benefits of transit has always been the chance to do something productive with the time spent commuting. but the quality of that time as always been left out. the smart phone has changed how people use this time. and some argue, one factor behind the trend from driving towards transit.

consider this, total vehicle miles-per-hour in the united states peaked in two dozen seven, a year known for something else, the introduction of the iphone. you the judge. transit is not yet a viable choice for many americans. let's test board to that horizon i just referenced, a time when your on the cost of opening up roads to autonomous vehicles. this technology can take the most unproductive hour of the day, are committed, and make it an hour to read the map, watch movie, go shopping, all in use my phone. i think you will agree, society will have a tough time saying no to that. technology is not the only thing changing. so our attitudes. you have all heard the evidence.

if you or your people are getting drivers' licenses. cities are cool again, trances use keeps growing. this wave has been building for years and knows no sign of slowing down. these changes are happening overseas as well. in germany one half of the men under 25 used on a car. now is less than a third. richard driver for people in the twenties of fallen in several countries. leading the way of the so-called millenniums, major force beyond what people are calling the sharing economy which is everything from zip car to air being beaten by sharing. these services stern underutilized assets from the spare bedroom to go riderless bike into marketable commodities a new. here is where changing technology and changing attitudes make a merger --

converge. what major capital investment sits unused 90 percent of the time? the car, of course. it's hard to imagine the transportation future that looks rather different and today. using an apple, iphone can i summon an autonomous vehicle to take me to my next meeting. might be my car, might be someone else's baby it happens to be close by. once it jobs may of the parks itself committee picks up another passenger. this may be 15 years off, but i bet people are already thinking about it. the consequences for our industry is not yet clear. when everyone has their own chauffeur even further from the city or will people deemphasized car ownership in favor of and on the man mall? will this lead to other lifestyle choices that go with low rates of car ownership like

living in denser, what will never hurts? if so, the infrastructure we invest in will need to change. before we get to that it is important to recognize. our existing stock of an infrastructure will always need to be maintained. from interstate highways to water systems to the power grid to the communication links, we have fallen behind. technology is not going to save us. to my knowledge -- and i am in this business -- there is no and about the fix a bridge. the new infrastructure rebuilding the 21st century may, in fact all look different from what we build the 20th-century. the next wave of investment focuses on supporting a dancer, more urban pattern of living. not too many new highways.

fewer single-family homes and more vertical construction. water and power infrastructure help us go and were then upward instead of the work. sustainability will be an non-negotiable objective. no matter what we build we will have to handle the world of higher sea levels and more powerful storms. it is interesting. other countries like at our decentralized system of and for structure planning and wonder how it can never work. it has challenges, but it also has a strength, and we are saw that this morning. different places and try different things. each city is its own low petrie dish of experimentation. as workplace experiments, the other places look and learn. as an example we never adopted in international policy on my real. but a few cities tried it and other cities like gasol.

by sharing work here in washington d.c. other cities are following suit. so as robber was talking about earlier, how we finance and deliver infrastructure, innovative things are happening. we are all encouraged by what congressman delaney at the site, but they're mostly happening someplace else. a generation ago it was not a big gap in our infrastructure was finance, build, and operated here in the u.s. forces other industrialized nations. a quite simple molto government collected taxes and allocated funding. private firms bit, design, and built the next project and the government was the operator. pretty standard. in the u.s. this is still mostly housed on except, of course, we are doing fewer projects every year. what once existed at all levels of government does not exist anymore in both parties.

to support our reasonable level of infrastructure investment has broken down without anything to replace it. these consequences are serious. i know everybody here understands that and are getting worse every year. while not belabor the point. you have heard it too many towns of four. with financing infrastructure taxes have been on the decline in other countries, but they have been willing to build a new financing system in place. we have yet to adopt that. user financing, fares or rates is in recently acceptable but preferable. mexico to china. most new high-speed roads are built as toll roads. it is the normal baby user financing has advantages. and it goes beyond just raising money. helps allocate resources and rational way. if a project serves a real

demand, the market will find it. have come however, the market is not interested maybe that tells us something about the project. look at the decline for retrenchment in the construction around toll roads. we all hate congestion, but that is different from how much we're willing to pay to avoid it. user financing should be encouraged, but it is not the panacea. in particular it is not well suited to the task of restoring and maintaining the infrastructure we already have. this bread and butter were cost many tens of billions annually, and it cannot realistically be financed with tolls. broadbased funding like we have with the gas tax, is and always will be a necessity. it remains the big regional to locks. where there were talking of a building new facilities are repairing old ones, new methods of projects delivery can make a

big difference. unfortunately we still like a bit behind in this country. the dominant practice here is what we call design, build, build where one team designs a project in the project's sponsors opera at the end of that today. we talked earlier about silos. this is a perfect case were traditional methods in this country are very much silo. what is happening is a move toward design build, an incremental step the started about ten years you were you married contractor and a designer and then develop the project in concert. you eliminate some of that fraction of cost and the fictional town occurs in developing and silos. that improves schedule, cost, and the risk. again, we have heard a bit about

that throughout the week. here is where one team could possibly do everything. government will in this case is to set standards for performance and then pays overtime as people use the facility. let's be honest, some agencies, some governments throughout the country are still skeptical of these new practices. they are free to give up control i believe this fear is not warranted, but it is true that these methods call upon government to exercise control, but in a new way. under the old system the project sponsor could dictate every design choice, however small. very hands-on and could add a lot of time to the process. with new methods the project sponsor still retains control, but that control is expressed your performance standards that

the private sector has to figure out all the details. this allows government to focus its energy on true matters, public policy, setting objectives, establishing a budget, demanding performance, and enforcing rules that it the most of the competitive marketplace. once these decisions are made the delivery process becomes less inherently governmental and more amenable to efficiency driven by the private sector. i firmly believe that if our public agencies adopt the contract in practices that we increasingly see as commonplace overseas from london, australia, and elsewhere, we could get more infrastructure for our money your home. let me conclude with a couple of thoughts. by themselves these reforms will not solve our infrastructure

deficit, but they can give us more bang for the buck. perhaps this can lead to greater public confidence, every dollar we invest will return the benefits and be managed with the utmost care. this could be the key element in convincing at whatever level of government that infrastructure spending is vital and needs to be paid for by all this. given the ways our society will change in the future and the challenges we see in building infrastructure, it is vital to keep was growing and thriving as a country. the time to act is now. thank you. [applause]

>> that is great. thank you, very, very much. a lot of things you may not expect to hear from a large engineering firm. thank you for reinforcing that. before i close i want to say a quick thank-you to the team had brookings you did an awful lot of work on the whole week. if you have done anything, you're probably seen them running around. if you see him, pick him up. thank you all for coming out here today on a rainy friday. i really thought this was the conversation we want to get into we just added to scratch the surface. one more before we adjourn. we highlighted a bunch of projects here today, a lot of things that were specific, particularly with the panel. we did it all throughout. i think that if we're going to keep doing, this is what we will spend time on over the next year

, may be leading up to infrastructure 2015. as we travel around the country, as we talk to public and a private, fund profit, corporate leaders all across the country this is the author looking for from us. they want to know who's doing what, tell me exactly the innovations that are out there. what can we learn from these people? they talk to get that done? give me the specifics. no one is waiting anymore. we see a lot of energy, a lot of vitality. we heard from your -- for your reason. this is the time to get things done. scene and from folks around the country. a few examples. we'll spend the next few months soliciting more. if you have ideas and then toss. we will start to build this clearing else. those lessons can be shared so that we can do this network approached, the partnership approach so we talked about so people can learn from one another. we do believe that america's inas