>> good morning, everyone. my name is bruce katz, i'm vice president at the brookings institution, founding director of the metropolitan policy program here. i want to welcome you to brookings both for people in the room, who are watching on c-span and i via webcast to the closing

event of infrastructure week. so a lot of folks -- public, private, civic -- have been involved in designing infrastructure week and pulling it off, and to all of you from brookings, thank you. and also thank you to the foundations and corporations that really have made our work possible. the ford foundation, the -- [inaudible] foundation, hitachi, aig, ge, rbc, kkr and all the members of our metropolitan leadership council. they really have made our research possible. now, the timing of this week could not be better. and i know congressman delaney's going to talk about this. there are clearly short-term federal actions involving the gas tax and the highway trust fund that are critical and really a new way of the national government engaging. but there really are metaissues that are incoming this week --

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 because 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 were the jobs -- better jobs because we went from 81 million people live anything poverty and near poverty in this 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 these super challenges both at the national scale and, frankly, at the city and metropolitan

scale which drive most of the economy if we think differently and innovate continuously. so what we've tried to do at brookings, and this really is a setup for congressman delaney, we've really tried to do four things. we've tried to redefine infrastructure for a new era. we've defined it, essentially, as 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 trade 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 them. second, we redefined the impact of infrastructure, right? this is 14.3 million jobs in this country. 11 percent of our jobs. and the incredible thing about

the infrastructure super sector is that these are good jobs. they pay better wages than many other sectors of the economy. so when you invest in infrastructure, they're a platform for broader growth, but the jobs in that super sector are very good. third, we've tried to redefine what we mean by innovation for infrastructure. you cannot build 20th century infrastructure for a 21st century economy. particularly how disresultive this economy is, particularly given the potential to use the technology, to deploy it, to apply it in ways where we get better results. and finally, and this really, i think, will get to congressman delaney's thoughts, a is we're trying to redefine how we invest in infrastructure. because 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 around the country who are really doing the hard work of putting forth a vision for what infrastructure can look like in this decade and the next century. we really need to think differently about this and align it to what is a disruptive and pivotal moment, but also align it to 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, right? hometown, right, washington d.c. but also someone who comes into the national government from the

private sector, ceo of a company listed on the new york stock exchange. this is really someone coming in 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 forward. so congressman delaney on the critical committees that really deal with so much of what we're going to talk about today, thank you for coming today, looking forward to your remarks. [applause] >> thank you, bruce, for that very nice introduction and for all the work you do. and i want to thank everyone for being here and for your significant participation in infrastructure week. it's, obviously, a topic near and dear to my heart, and i also

want to thank brookings for hosting this and for all of your contributions to this topic and, generally, your contributions to public policy in this country which in many ways is singular. so it's great to be here, and it's great to be part of a brookings event. so in my judgment, increasing the infrastructure investment in the united states should be our top domestic economic priority by any measure. and i say this for really three reasons. the first reason relates to some of the things that bruce touched on which is that it's an incredibly important jobs program to some extent, and it particularly focuses on creating middle-skilled 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 we're doing a very good job creating low-skilled jobs because high-skilled jobs kind of directly and indirectly drive the creation of

low-skilled jobs. but what we're really lacking is these middle-skilled jobs, the kind of jobs where people can have one job, have a decent standard of living and raise their family. that's really where the shortage is. that's the part of the market that's been hollowed out by the macro trends of globalization and technology. and infrastructure is such a perfect way, investing in our infrastructure is such a perfect way to create those jobs because it creates them directly through the people who actually build the infrastructure and indirectly around all the manufacturing that goes with infrastructure. because if you think about our ability to compete in manufacturing, you realize that the kind of things you have to manufacture for infrastructure, you know, to simplify it are big and heavy. and the united states has a competitive advantage on building big and heavy things. and so it'll be incredibly stimulative to our manufacturing sector. the first reason we need to invest is because it creates jobs. and i actually think this point needs to be emphasized because i come from the financial services industry, and people often ask

me what do i think the chances of another financial crisis in the near term? i actually think that the chances of another financial crisis in the near term are almost zero. but when people ask me what are the chances of another jobs crisis where the effects of globalization and technology continue to accelerate and hollow out the middle class of this country at a much rapid, much more rapid rate than we anticipate? i put the chances of that at pretty high. and so to think that we don't need a, potentially, a big job ares program in this country, i think is very shortsighted. the second thing is it makes us competitive, and i care deeply about the united states' ability to compete in this new global and technology-enabled world which we all know we're living in. and having world class infrastructure is critically important, a as you all know, to doing that. so it creates jobs, it makes us more competitive in the long term, and it also pencils out. if you look over time, for every dollar we spend on infrastructure in this country we get almost two dollars of

economic return. it's $1.92, to be precise. so it's rare from a domestic public policy perspective that you can do things that do all three of those things; create jobs in the short term, make you more competitive in the long term and pencil out. which is why i think this should be our top priority. and everyone knows about the challenges we face in infrastructure, but it's also a huge opportunity. i mean, the numbers are very significant. i mean, you hear numbers three trillion, four trillion, some people even say five trillion dollars of an investment we need in this country to bring our infrastructure up to a world class 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. ..

how do we design water infrastructure to it's sustainable and resilient and it's obviously flooding conditions today, water infrastructure isner and tear to our hearts. the main preoccupation we heard and the main disruption was around funding and financing. a steady drum beet, how do we

get things done in this difficult era. but it's also where we heard the most about solutions. not civil very bullet style solutions but real -- tools in the toolbox. new ideas out there. who is thinking differently. how are they getting things down and how to learn from one another. first it's clear that for some areas of transportation, -- some areas of infrastructure like transportation, we're going to have to fund them in traditional ways. we talked about raising the gasoline tax vs. wyoming and washington, tolling on the interstate. ballot measures and transportation for america and the center for transportation excellence. a great workshop helping states get reddy to campaigns around ballot measures to go to the voters and see if they're willing to raise money for transportation infrastructure. they're doing this already and at it smooth we'll -- something we'll see in 2015.

heard about new partnerships for getting things done. combination between the private, public, and philanthropy, and trying to figure out how to get things done, leveraging private sector capital and connecting of that witness traditional areas of infrastructure so we can get things done in the unique way. so the bipartisan policy center's event eyelights these ideasing along with the infrastructure exchange and what they're doing in washington, california, oregon, and british columbia, to develop standardization, transparency and develop a real pipeline of products that works for both the public and the private sector. it's true that up none of these ideas will solve all problemful there's no real silver bullet solution to what we're facing today. but it is clear in addition to the priority of fixing the trust fund as has been steady theme

throughout the week, the true partnerships of government entities, private financeeyers, firm and fin al tropists will have to do the hard work to get this stuff done. anybody saying it's going to be easy, but i am encouraged with the stuff we heard this week about new inslow saidors, new generation of -- innovators, new ideas and activities working to fill the gap. that is a backdrop that leads into the discussion that we want to have. so i'll bro dues the panelists quickly. their bios are in the back and you can read the details. they will be high lating innovations in which -- high highlighting innovations in which they're engaged. first up, we have have dan kinkead, the director of protects in the detroit city's implementation office. i love, implementation office. at the name suggests dan will

talk about the range of engagements underway to catalyze transformation, and how all that relates to economic growth and how that relates to neighborhood stability. dan was trained as an architect and recently became the father of twins. congratulations on that. probably harder than fixing detroit, and then after dan, the s-h-h-h aalini, involved in a collaboration working to build partnerships across water, energy, and transportation. and i think she may be the only person who actually has a patent, begin her work on interactive climate change adaptation cools. next will be shin-pei tsay. the directoff or research and

development in transit center. he has a broad range of expertise in making the environment more accessible, equitable and sustainable from the policy side and the practical side. real work on theground. she was most recently the director of cities and transportation for 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. [applause] thank you very much. thank you all for allowing me to speak with you this morning. the image you see on the screen is one that you have probably seep before of -- seen before of detroit, one that illustrates disinvestment, depopulation and conventional thinking that may have led to both of those

things. but for us in detroit future city and the implement addition office and a group that implements with a host of partners, public, private, fin al -- fill an topic and otherwise, we think i might be an incredible opportunity for transformative innovation, within infrastructure, and looking at things differently than the way we may have looked at them in 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 our detroiters and those within the southeast michigan region, to ensure we can establish 21st 21st century systems that begin to mitigate the impacts of some of our older 19th century systems, beginning to drive up employment actually 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, we think there are listens for appear here, not just legacy cities like detroit throughout the united states or north america, but also for those cities rapidly urbanizing across the globe. the issues that detroit is facing today could be lessons for those in lagos, mumbai, and they matter globery and we as a network can deal with those. in maintenance cases the expansive polarization of a leg guess city in the u.s. and an urban nicing city somewhere else may be seen as a kind of line. in fact it's a circle and it comes back, and to the proximity between the 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 we have the able to

clean our air here, to clean our water to begin to use these spaces to bring in carbon bufferrers 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 national average. that's not by chance. how might wey our available vacant land to actually plant specific species of trees to suck up co2 matter, and we're in the middle of developing projects right now with a host of partners in the city as well as those within 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. right? that's not a structure on it and

that's occupiable land. not the right away and things like that. roughly equivalent to the size of manhattan. how might we use the size of manhattan to deal with a bigger issue which is storm water runoff in a city like detroit, especially given the fact that detroit sits on 22% of the world's fresh water supply, 84% of the u.s. fresh water supply. we need to be better stewards here because in detroit every time we get a little over half inch of rain, the storm waters goes to the cache basin and we overwhelm or sewer system and do a direct discharge into the detroit river and the great lakes. we are taking raw human waste and putting it out there. we need to do better than that. right? this is an important asset that detroit sits on, it's a global asset, and we think we can begin to make the changes here by deploying very soft systems, new 21 not century systemses that

mapping the hydrology and remove the 19th century system that costs copious amounts of money, money we do not have as a city and the federal government would not like to fund. we can use the 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. we're seeing a dramatic revolution here in a city defind by food deserts and poor access to nutritious foods and we're seeing small scale agricultural projects start up and could provide jobs, provide food, and then also providing energy threw biomass and a whole host of other things. detroit can lead in this regard. lastly, in many of these areas you can tell it's not as if nothing is there. there's a house here, probably a house around the corner. people insuring fact in the 20 square miles i'm showing you here, 90,000 people live there.

these folks have needs, of course, and many cases folks here are older, people of color, people with poor access to mobility, they have -- poor access to health 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 paratransit networks that allow people to get around more easily without requiring a dedicated fixed route bus to come down their street five times a day when one person needs to go to a doctor on the a tuesday. these are things to think about a whole platform of opportunity around areas that in the past have indicated our failure. right? 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. my name is shalinivajihala and i'm here as the founder of refocus partner. i i was going to ask you to picture you're city in the rain and that is not a stretch of imagination for those here in d.c. imagine what happens to all that water. after it hits your roads. we have walked by puddles. they're flash flood warnings in the the sited but picture the water rushing all underneath your streets through warming pipes and headed into water treatment plants or as didn't described, straight into our lakes and rivers 'when the system works way 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, sewers that back up into communities, and into our water bodies. we need to be able to 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 150 years old or older. they weren't designed for the ways we're using them today. so my firm leads an initiative call the re-invest initiative, a partnership among eight cities across the u.s. and leading engineering, legal, and finance firms to rethink how we both design and finance our systems 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 the water and rush it out

underneath our 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 or put in wetlands. that actually hold that water in place instead of having it return out at the same time. -- rush out at the same time. that's a very different type of infrastructure. you're talking 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 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 portfolios of infrastructure. we have eight city partners

miami beach to hoboken, new jersey, and milwaukee, el paso, 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 how much do we do this? i'll give two examples, one from miami and one frock hoboken. the city of miami beach is a city that's been featured in the news frequently. when you hear about resilience you'll find an article on miami beach. miami beach on a sunny day has flooding that gets up to two feet high. this is surreal. our team went out there and we couldn't believe it until city officials drove us to 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 know this can't last forever so we're 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 markets in the country. hoboken, which faces strangely similar changes, was on the front page of the news for weeks after hurricane sandy hit. the city at one point had 14 feet of standing water. so hoboken is one square mile. teeny, tiny, 55,000 people. and shaped like a bowl. it was built for a different time, and the city knows they need to do different things. we're working with hoboken on some of their empty industrial parcels 0 land to think through,

how do we combine types of infrastructure across sectors. not just thinking about rather but looking at where can we build cisterns underground to hold water when the sewers overflow, when it rains and 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 in building on that, put things on the surface that create recreational spaces and parks for a city that is incredibly dense. to picture this i want you to think about a layer cake of infrastructure. 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 abe to showcase for communities, for kids, what resilience looks like for the next 100 years. in a public park. to work with companies to showcase, here's how we can generate electricity from our wastewater systems. but what it looks like to turn waste into energy. a lot of our challenges associated with infrastructure and especially with green and resilient infrastructure, is when we're successful, in building these systems, it's a politicians' worst nightmare because successing something that doesn't happen. so a storm hit but the community wasn't flood. 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 five that it have up here is an illustration of our process. and all of you will find this familiar. on the left-hand side here you see a collection of what a city needs. cities know their needs incredibly well. they know they need new water systems and repave roads at regular intervals, and provide broadband. and city governments tend to be organized in silos. the 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 do is work to re-align systems designed with financing, and our goal is to be able to take what a city needs -- so imagine your idea of a dream house -- turn that into a 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 our challenge is to come bean -- combine these things to get from idea to action in a way that is clear repeatable.

so what we do is like the olympics to are what a city needs every day, and we work not just on the systems design, how to build a sponge, but we also connect that to working with legal experts on how do you design a private-public partnership that can deliver 10,000 pieces of infrastructure, not just one water treatment plant. and then what are the different ways that you can bring together revenue streams, as congressman delaney mentioned, with user fees and also with savings. those successes that don't happen. so when my basement doesn't flood, and i didn't collect from the insurance company, how do i catch that money and redirect it to the projects i need? so in short what we do is help cities not just rebuild what they had for the last 100 years, but we aim to get them to that why need for the next hundred.

thank you. [applause] >> hi. i'm getting away with showing a painting or collage because i am part of a new civic philanthropy and we're 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 britton, and she worked with the concept of maps, to map the unknown, to trace our past, and she -- you can say that she makes the unknown quite beautiful, and i just wanted to use this 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 weapon did a scan of the field and there are so many wonderful, amazing

experts out there, banks, banging on the doors, trying to make this change. but change is really scary for so many people, and what is scary is the unknown. what we want to do is try to bring together all 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 the steps we could take to make these things happen. so one of the thing wes started to look into was improving the rider experience, the general citizen's experience of getting around the city. we all know what it's like to be unable to hail a cab to wait for the bus that never shows up to never know when the bus is going to show up. we all understand this, and in fact this is one of the greatest inhibitors of people getting to jobs. so 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 but one of those things that is under -- overlooked by conventional transportation as usual. usually we serve it up. to serve it up with these big agencies, we have to really 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 working from home part time. these schedules are no longer as predictable as usual. what is going on now is there's a huge number of participation from the private sector and the public that is creating a sharing economy. what is amazing about this is people are participating. this has been enabled by technology and smart phones.

honestly there is also new emerge in evidence of 73% of americans who have smart phones many of them also rely on smart phones that are only active to the internet. they use a smart phone network to access the internet. we are seeing a glimmer of what can happen and what is going on on the demand side is no longer top-down supply side looking at things. and how do you create a platform of options. and taking the lead, what is amazing about this is they're doing this in spite of all the constraints. you have probably all heard about companies being banned. they are being banned from city is. i think this is the wrong approach. how can you figure this out? providing a public service to your citizens in a way that

challenges everything we know but is actually making people able to get around the city? that is an area where we have to be courageous, explore the unknown. i don't think it is at terribly negative thing to do, there is a lot we can figure out to get there but without leaving them out of the conversations that will never happen. some of the things we are doing to create the environment for those conversations to take place, one of the things is we want our work to be rooted in evidence so we are sponsoring a major study, 12,000 person sample on public attitudes on transit and we will really be seeing results from that, and we are interested in what does it take, what leadership does it take to make these changes happen? we have seen cities across the country really be able to beat

in innovation and they have been doing it without a big federal policy push, on the ground with the mayors, commissioners, able to figure out the play book for how our cities work so what does it take? does it take a great civics center? visionary leader? where are interested in figuring that out. want to create situations where different sectors talk about things. right now it is the wild west in a way, pioneers taking acclaim and when that happens and they are also being restrained there's a lot of competition that is negative. they are being confined by outdated policy and the naval to mix progress on updating that policy and we want to create a situation where people can come together and talk about these things. on june 10th and eleventh we are holding the summit in washington on mobility. sharing, operators working on

this, municipal leaders and policy leaders talking about the new solutions that could be working. we are also taking a look at what does exist. how can we update this? how can we make regions stronger? and differences between the private sector and taking the leadership passed and the existing government structures? what relationships do we need and that is something that we are seeing in partnership with chicago later this year. finally we are really interested in changing practice. i mentioned earlier leaders are rewriting of the playbook on these efforts. we think partnerships with cities, with the civic sector, with the private sector and trying to demonstrate, implement these new ideas is the way to go. right now the pioneers are figuring out on their own and it

takes a civic organization to bring people together, combine the public benefit with the private interests to maximize overall benefits. i hope you will join us in our journey. we adjust getting started and thank you for letting me explain transit center it to you. [applause] >> hello. my name is eric shaw, i am the bureaucrat of this bunch. in my spare time i think about infrastructure which is why i am here. i am excited to talk to you about our transit infrastructure in the salt lake city region and what has been the manifestation of a significant amount of coordination and collaboration between cities, counties and the state. this was not an easy feat given that salt lake city is a c in

the island of blue in a sea of red. but we all came together to work on a common goal which was improved air quality, we have the worst air quality in the country, and increasing economic development potential for the region. lasting impact for this in the fact that 80% of the people who live in utah live in a hundred mile stretch with salt lake city being the largest city in the middle, 180,000. our population ballooned to 370,000 during the day. a lot of the success was realized by keeping strong regional partners. our salt lake chamber was an advocate for regional transportation choice. and regional council has done amazing transportation plan that has been fully accepted and implemented by our partners and the utah transit authority which

was constructed and operates amazing regional transportation system. we estimated the economic impact of the reasonable transportation system is $7 billion which is amazing. so i want to talk about three different systems we have within our region. the top which is the light rail line required similar collaboration to realize its success as mentioned, i have housing transportation, economic development and planning in my department and we were able to collaborate looking at changing zoning, looking at housing policies and working with stakeholders and developers to map out the development potential of our light rail corridors. the first line opened in 1999 connecting downtown to the university of utah. it cost $200 million and to date has created $1.6 billion in

investment and 50 projects and is still ongoing. but i want to talk about one of our other lines that opened up connecting downtown to the airport. it goes along north temple which is our main street through the west side which is one of our communities that has the lower performance in our economic indicators. so we thought about this it wasn't just about connecting a nice place for the university but how do we can allies' main street and one of our communities and how do we focus on supporting small business but connecting major job centers? this goes from downtown to the airport and includes major private employers but also focuses on small business. if you guys can see, this light rail is in front of the red and guana which has the best chili colorado in the country according to diners, drive-ins and dives. a family-owned business has been

around for 55 years, one of the fastest-growing small businesses in the country located in the sea bidi growing at 17% the year. it is amazing. the chilly colorado is really good bye the way. that notion of creating this rail, it allows a whole new market to come in and for us to connect tourists and residents who enjoy the outstanding chilly colorado but for other small businesses it creates the same opportunities and the fact we were connecting not only job centers but small opportunities for small businesses. right now since that line is fairly new was the $200 cost as well and we propose 1,000 new housing units with 550 under construction. also there is a line in the middle that is the new streetcar line. under the leadership of mayor becker and city council and

public city council and the u t a we are rebuilding our streetcar system within salt lake city. this was a $50 million project that came from tighter money and the match and apparently it happened pretty quickly. so we identified the right of way in 2009. we secured the tiger grant in 2011 and had revenue service in 2013 so we know how to get things done in salt lake city. it transformed this community so this stands for streetcar line and south salt lake line and sugarhouse which was our bohemian community where all the teenagers hung out and that was an economic hub in our region, we had $400 million in private investment, 400,000 square feet of retail, 300,000 square feet

of new office and 1,000 new housing units being created in the past four years since we comprise this. finally the front runner was at the bottom, that commuter rail was a $600 million project that opened up in 2013 and it changed how we thought about how our suburbs thought about economic development and thought about rail. one of the sweet spots between salt lake city and provo has become the home to a new campus for adobe, a new campus for ebay and one project alone, 700,000 square feet of new office. our suburbs are about increased density or transit development and it is changing how our cities develop, how our region is developing but also a catholic effect of thinking about our downtown hub in salt lake city and ogden and revitalize them to think about how they could better transform

our downtown and our hubs. in this end i want to say that all this investment in infrastructure also includes people so what we have done in salt lake city, we did a study and found we have a great regional system, though majority of residents in salt lake city make shorter trips and more frequent trips but we are priced at a regional rate. so we were able to put in $200,000 partnered with the utah transit authority and create an annual pass specifically for salt lake residents at a price of $360 a year. at the price of $360 a year, i am so amazed and so proud about this project. we put a significant amount of staff time into it, what the name should be called, the high pass is what it is but it

created this goal of reducing the troops of increasing ridership, being responsive to how local functions are reason all functions and environmental targets. we sold 1500 of them and we had a target of 7,000 so we will see this happen, specifically of reach to renters and low-income communities to make sure they can do this which brings me to my final point in the end, it is great to talk about economic development and show us creating jobs and housing, but in the end all of this is. if we are not creating economic opportunity and one of the best things we have seen, recently got out of homelessness was able to secure $36 a year for a transit pass that was able to connect him from his new house

in north temple to his new housing sugarhouse. thank you very much and look forward to talking to you. [applause] >> that was great. that is the kind of conversation we were hoping following the congressman and the discussion we had here this afternoon, we intentionally want a mix of folks, public and private actors because that was one of the common themes we heard about the remarks. it does take a bunch of different people to get these things done. because infrastructure is getting more complex and multifaceted and we have different motivations and end games it does require different people working together to make things happen.

we also appreciate specific places. the conversation is very helpful but once we get down we have to be talking about what this means on the ground in u.s. cities, metropolitan areas and other places. i appreciate that part of it. one thing to start sat, optimistic conversations so far but another way, i think it could help us understand what the challenges are. given all you talked about what are your biggest headaches? what is the biggest thing you wake up every day, that one thing, break through this one area my life would be easier and more successful. i will start with you. what is the biggest headache, what would you change if you could? >> rebuilding faster and we have been great to talk to fellow partners about how to streamline

our approval processes and bundle as much as possible so that when the money shows up we build it faster and not plan, get approval, how can we layout the system now so when the investment comes up we can capitalize on it quickly. >> the biggest challenges in creating a new culture of working, the sharing aspect calls for a collaboration. across sector collaboration, private, public sector collaboration is really unusual, in a decade we had talked down supply side provision of transportation. i often find myself in conversations where i think it is not a transaction. we need to work together. i want to work with you.

that is engendering a new culture. >> i think for us there are two things to hit on. one is more transactional and one is that a higher level. first off of course gaining access to capital, many of the things we are describing can be a challenge on of. day. things in the foyer to are not as good as in the city but we recognize there is funding and we are seeking that through a host of partners but it is difficult to illustrate the value proposition to a potential investor when you are describing things through the slide that i showed and massive agency areas that we have economic development. and in direct to those. the second is the broader issue of the open narrative. time to articulate a story that is not typically told.

the positive side of how to utilize these spaces but we think those are highly reliable to the efforts that are under way in the central business district. these are areas where we are seeing incredibly robust growth. 14,000 jobs in the last two years, significant investment overall, transportation initiatives with the rail line coming in to play. what we want to do is not bring everybody down and challenge them with the narrative, we want to put that in relationship to more conventional investments that are necessary and illustrate how these things support one another. >> the greatest challenge, i have two that i would like to switch to. i find when talking about infrastructure we are able to do incredible things when you get groups of people solving a

problem. i find that nothing gets done when it is a discussion about an issue so more we if shift from issues to problem solving we will see greater success on the ground. the other which lift item is to drop a lot of a jargon. un come out of the federal government and so i can hold my own on acronyms. bottom line on infrastructures we need to build these things and create multiple types of value. we do not need to bludgeon a community member with the debt and equity discussion. when we say where the money is from and how we pay for these. >> this is something we have been testing out, trying to redefine infrastructure, the word doesn't really mean anything. there is water, transport, when we get to it they are designed and built differently but what you are trying to do in your

firm is to marry these things intentionally. and that is how it is done, or is the way we are trying to break down aggregating infrastructure. >> opportunities are the same. >> we experienced 50 years, we originally built hundred years ago or 50 years ago. desegregating the discussions put the city's added disadvantage because it doesn't give a chance to solve win/win problems. it is easier to put in an empty plate to have the company tear up the street second time, cheaper for the company.

>> we spend a huge amount of time in bureaucratic jiujitsu, we are reminding people just because it hasn't been done doesn't mean it is not allowed and simultaneous translations, we learn to speak government and law and engineering and finance, making the ideas successful. >> you are trying to solve opportunities and infrastructure is the driver, is enabling you to do what you are doing at the end of the day. anyone want to stand on that? >> actually, we are thinking about the growing economy, planning for the future is the new people will be coming again using the infrastructure, and i think the way is, our firm, the

way we're thinking of doing it is the culture change issue as you were saying, not getting into the jargon, creating greater flexibility, greater literacy, and leadership capabilities so you can handle the double discussion with out demming everything down. >> for us in detroit but we of trying to do is make sure the investments are put in place today and many of them are not terribly sexy, as much as detroit. they will yield significant results down the road for generations. these are big plays we're trying to make, 5, 10, 15 year efforts to move things forward. >> long term, looking for immediate relief but looking at

long-term investment -- >> we mediate between immediacy and long-term reality. everybody wants everything tomorrow. there are a lot of folks extreme heat and people in detroit with extreme expectations who don't actually live in that need which is interesting that people understand the issues we are facing and many other cities across the u.s. these cherishes that can be dealt with overtime and will take generations and something we ask ourselves in detroit is to think beyond our own neighborhood and the city at large, not just what makes the most entry in the ground and you have to think of your own time. these things will bear fruit for our children, not perhaps for our souls. is something people need to wrap their minds around. i would add one other piece, what we see as an opportunity down the road given the

infrastructure efforts we worked on today, we see in sharp contrast based on past issues, in the mid 1970s there was a major federal play for the system that would coming to place and be operational by 1992, the year i graduated from high school. that never happened because we had regional cooperation, one county opt out, everything fell through in federal dollars. a small circus train around downtown, doesn't connect anything to be honest. what we see is where detroit is stenciled cancel like city, denver and other cities in which those investments were made, what that made for prosperity to equity and we know how far we have fallen behind.

>> i will get detroit and i say 50 years from now if our economy changes will get infrastructure, a resilience city. can we think about property rules or infrastructure right that all and change those processes to be dynamic? interesting we are looking at each other. >> i have to respond to what eric and dan said on the long term. a deep dark secret with most governments and cities, we lose money today and when we have long-term problems we will lose more money in the long term. not the we are not losing money today. part of helping community find solutions, what they're spending money on today they are not spending money on. a lot have a basement cleanup fund, not allowed to use that money to repair the water mains. it is not about thinking about and certain things 50 years from

now. start with where you are failing now and you'll feel worse in the future. >> a lot of optimism. the one common theme i heard from each of you using different ways was about partnerships. she actually mentioned that and it has become so clear to us, we think about public/private partnerships, the parking meter deal and things like that, it is about different ways public, private, nonprofit coming together to solve problems and the infrastructure stuff is almost derivatives of that. anybody want to echo? how important are the partnerships to deliver things and how different is that from what we're used to? >> the idea is to stick to the project. everyone wants the project for

different reasons and that is okay. we don't need to have one common outcome or message. the idea is if the chamber wants if economic development for air quality, it got bills and everyone is able to use it. that is why the things that are successful about partnerships in utah is we want to see it built. >> for us in d for it there's a sense over the last few years that people have moved beyond pride of ownership for authorship as their own so i don't think anything or much substance would occur if it were not for partner should in detroit. you are talking about public or private arrangements, local and federal, connections and philanthropy and connections to community groups to have access maybe not to financial capital but certainly to cumin capital. we find those moments of

greatest success of when those things brought together. >> i will run with that. >> the partnerships on and atomize level, one person appeared sharing now, people sharing risks, and on the philanthropies side, operating philanthropy, direct and have input on these comments where they usually did things and keep them on track for keeping rest and being brave. these issues are really necessary for the new dynamism that is happening up there. it is essential. no one right now consults these problems alone. >> i don't think that has broken

through yet. i am doing all the talk but throw it open. go ahead and identify yourself, your affiliation, and ends in question mark. >> my name is james with the national association of passengers. how do you succinctly shows the importance? often times economically existentialist importance of these problems showing they are not simply a nice thing to have, something that if we invest in the economy, what will exist without everybody? >> how to make infrastructure -- how do you break through communication, partnership? >> it is finding catalysts,

those places that understand the problem in its assets. as devastating as sandy was it broke up a lot of communities to what happens when they don't do something. there are a lot of different catalysts. pick moments where a resource is stretched to have a conversation with the community about what their lives would look like. >> fundamentally on the grounds or the minneapolis bridge collapse. it stuck around. >> we have to involve cities like hoboken that took an all hands on deck, they are reworking everything, the electricity networks, and the competition to rework the entire city's water and flood management, it has stuck and

changed the urgency of what is involved. wasn't just one sector problem. >> so every time we had a station open up, and we all cheered. we can say the system doesn't work. it was an iterative process come and celebrate and articulate and show every iteration is a win. >> what got that done? you worked in salt lake city? >> really amazing staff. told the my had to do that. >> other questions? >> actually i want to direct this to you and maybe to

shin-pai tsay. i sampled some of these events, we are in a situation of enormous need. some opportunities and spares public--scarce public resources. we have to prioritize, to choose sometimes within sectors, and new needs alluded to resilience. it wasn't even on our radar 5 or 10 years ago, we have to prepare for three or four foot increases in sea levels in the next two decades which is another set of needs. as you know we have been struck by the fact the we do not have in this messy federal republic of hours a really good analytical transportation by 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 comment and what is the role of the federal government in deriving states and localities in metropolitan regions to establish these systems? there are very few places with analytical and decision making processes about infrastructure investments. how do we improve that? >> upon the local side, prioritize on a local level one of the things that is fascinating, the openness and sharing information and data to city government and the public. is catalyzed amazing analysis by the public. they have an interest in

functioning transportation. they released a set of data and the reuben center did a subway delay, there are more trips taken in subway stations, they released that notice of the delay overtaxed. and the transit stations in other places during that time, it was not a recurring trip or commuter trip or a delay. it picked up close to transit stations, and the last mile effort. they actually could use a boost in a getting connected to major transit hubs. they examine various, with open data, there is better potential,

more potential to understand where we should be putting our dollars. >> doesn't have to be a formal process. it doesn't upset mayors or leadership to say how to tie-in to the other plans. i don't think -- i am fortunate in having those divisions under me. about 12 plans, from bicycles to trains to housing and i am constantly asking where -- where they connect and how they overlap or use the same language. and how do all line the existing effort and say you are playing the same thing, representing thing the same way. and the time horizons. which i don't see in what worked before. >> to follow up, this is exactly what we're trying to move forward. despite the handling going on in washington there is actually good stuff going on out there and there is much more

optimistic message and these other folks happening all across the country. we have super sized challenges, things we couldn't have predicted and things you have to wrestle with but it will come from the bottom. it should not be a top-down kind of thing, it will not be done by passing other pledges nation on the federal level. will come from the bottom up and once we start to see taxes going on, you will respond at some point. obviously things like the national freight program, the only industrialized country on the planet, a personal thing the federal government should do direct its resources to but in a time of severe fiscal in strange when there -- we have to focus and prioritize. question here? >> retired government engineer,

critical infrastructure, mostly overseas for 35 years. one of the biggest returns on investment is continuity of operations, ability to do those things they today the we have to do to keep society moving forward. two cities, new york and london, old infrastructure very critical to the financial stability of the plan. have we taken any lessons from those cities, things to learn, lessons to learn, even -- that is my question. >> i would lead off and say particularly in the case of new york following sandy, the dimension of the resilience conversation blossoms nationally. perhaps for issues not similar to those in new york, the world financial center and so on and

so forth it kind of is an issue of equity, tremendous challenge to develop a truly resilient city but also as the greatest need for it. 42% of the population are below the poverty line in detroit. a number of other needs go on with that, i won't list them all but here you have a challenge where just slight disruptions can begin to actually undermine a lot of existing systems, many of them are informal in detroit. you can have a loss of life, significant challenges. what we see is bundling infrastructure. how can we as we move forward whether it is soft or hard systems or whatever it is, how can we bring these things together succinctly so those investments are being made to

launch new businesses to support community action so that everything that happens along the way develops much stronger network to keep things going in a time of challenge knowing there are some folks who will never have the means to escape something like that. >> i will say quickly, learning from new york or london, the affordability of weapons, you have a great example of being able to translate within context and having leadership to do it in a sensitive way that reflects community assets. that is the imperative, really interesting to always be looking for the common challenges but solutionsbuilding are very contexture. >> a very specific example, from the rockefeller foundation after hurricane sandy working with governor cuomo to plan for the

next hundred years. with in that there was an anecdote that i loved, someone from a cable company describing the cable companies knew where the power was out. because set top boxes blink when the power is interrupted and it speeded up operations and restoration of power tremendously and it is not just public to private because industry lives in silence and we need to find those opportunities to create continuity of operations across sectors in private industry underpinning most of the need and resources. >> we barely started to scratch the surface. i want to keep this going. and we raise more questions than

we answered which is not a bad thing but keep the conversation going but please join me in thanking our panelists. [applause] >> our final speaker of the morning, greg kelly, global chief operating officer, a position he has held since 2012. p b is a multi national engineering firm with 14,000 employees. what you may not know is how this fits into this conversation about the future innovation and all that. what we think is going on is employed lessons from metros around world and connecting different areas of infrastructure, the teams we had on this panel, exactly the right way to close out this week. please join me in welcoming greg kelly. [applause]

>> a closing session for infrastructure week, take a moment to acknowledge all the individuals in the organization. our hosts at brookings for putting together a terrific week. the speakers we just heard from this morning from john delaney to our last panel really underscore the import of this topic. give them a quick round of applause. [applause] >> when i first spoke with rob and patrick we talked about the opportunity to come here and speak at brookings at the conclusion of infrastructure week. it was the easiest decision i had to make a long time. to talk about infrastructure, something we have been doing close to 130 years, we take great pride at reshaping cities and regions across the globe and to try to advance the conversation about that and offer some perspective in that regard which is a great opportunity so thank you for

that. as you heard a moment ago we plan and design infrastructure across the globe and in the past year i personally spent time in canada, throughout europe, asia, middle east, australia, new zealand, major cities across the globe. and to use that perspective to talk about what we do and where those differences are in the u.s. i will frame that conversation about four key themes, the first is technology, the second is generational attitudes, the third is delivery and financing, and forth to the role of government. first is something we all face, that change of technology. traditionally our business infrastructure has not been a hotbed for technological change. the romans invented concrete which is a latecomer compared to

the wheel. today new technologies are becoming more and more common in our business, advanced materials, affordable solar power and electric vehicles just a few of the innovations suggest the potential change how we do business. two new technologies stand above the rest in the magnitude of potential effects. one is already with us and the other is not too distant horizon. they will not change how we build infrastructure so much as how we use it. the smart phone, the autonomous vehicle. each by itself is revolutionary. and either action of the two could be a game change your. today the smart phone is ubiquitous in much of the world's. i am fairly certain every person's room has one smart phone on the right now. this little device is already

changing how we use infrastructure. we purchase a rail ticket on a smart phone, and summoned a taxi all on the fly. we could accomplish all these things before. just ask anyone in the business, but more than this the smart phone puts the world in your hand and those spare bits of time which were always inefficient we have time to be efficient and whether we are waiting for an elevator, we use those bits of time in new ways. one of the benefits of transit is the chance do something productive, but the community -- the quality of that time is fascinating. the smart phone has changed as

people use this time. some argue it is one factor behind the trend towards transit. consider this. total vehicle miles traveled in the united states peaked in 2007. you are known for something else. the introduction of the iphone. you be the judge. the transit is not yet a viable choice for many americans. let's past -- fast-forward. and of of roads to autonomous vehicles. this technology could take the most unproductive hour of the day in our commute and make it an hour to read e-mail, watch a movie, go shopping, all on your smart phone. i think you will agree society has a tough time saying no to

that. technology is not the only thing changing. so our attitudes. you all heard the evidence. fewer young people are getting -- cities are cool again. transit use keeps going. this wave has been building for years and shows no sign of slowing down. these changes are happening overseas as well. in germany one half of the men under 25 used to own a car. now is less fun than a third. rate dropping from people in a 20s and falling in japan, the u.k. france and australia. car sales bigger in europe and the u.s.. leading the way are the so-called millennials who are a major force behind what people are calling the sharing economy which is everything from zip car to bike sharing. these services turn underuse to -- underutilized assets from a spare bedroom to a riderless

bite into marketable commodities. who knew? here is where changing technology and changing attitudes may converge. what major capital investment sits unused 90% of the time? the cloud of course. is not hard to imagine a transportation future that looks rather different than today using an apps on my iphone i summon an autonomous vehicle to take me to my next meeting. it might be my car, it might be someone else's. it happens to be close by. it parks itself or picks up another passenger. this may be 15 years off but people are already thinking about it. the consequences for our industry are not yet clear. with everyone has their own chauffeur, at people move further from the city or will

people deemphasized car ownership in favor of an on demand model? will this lead to the lifestyle choices that go with lower rates of car ownership like living in walkable neighborhoods? if so, the infrastructure we invest in will need to change. before we get to that it is important to recognize many things will not change. our existing stock of 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 on this score. technology is not going to save us. to my knowledge, i am in this business, there is no apps to fix a bridge but the new infrastructure we build in the 21st century may in fact look different from what we build in the 20th century. the next wave of investments

could focus on supporting indenture, more urban pattern of living. not so many highways and public transit, fewer single-family homes and more vertical construction. power infrastructure growing inward and upward instead of outward. sustainability will be a non negotiable objective and no matter what we build it will have to handle the world of higher sea levels and more powerful storms. it is interesting. other countries look at our decentralized system of infrastructure planning and wonder how can it ever work? it has its challenges but also its strengths and we heard some of that this morning. different places can try different things, each city is its own little petrie dish of experimentation. the other place is look and learn. as an example we never adopted

the national policy on light rail. but a few cities tried it and other cities liked what they saw. i am sharing work here in washington d.c. and other cities are following suit. as rob was talking about how do we finance and deliver infrastructure? innovative things are happening and we are all encouraged by what john delaney had to say but there mostly happening someplace else. generation ago there was not a big gap and our infrastructure was financed and built and operated in the u.s. versus other industrialized nations. a quite simple model. government collected taxes and allocated funding. private firms designed and built the next project and the government was the operator. pretty standard. in the u.s. this is mostly how it is done except of course we are doing fewer projects year. i will editorialize for a

moment. what once existed in all levels of government doesn't exist anymore in both parties to support reasonable level of infrastructure, investment has broken down. these consequences are serious. everybody here understands it and are getting worse every year. i am not going to be labor the point. you have heard it all too many times before but financing infrastructure has been on the decline in other countries. they have been willing to build a new financing system in its place. we have yet to adopt that. user financing through tolls or fares or rates is increasingly seen not only as acceptable but preferable from mexico to china to europe to australia. most new high-speed roadways are built as toll roads. it is the new normal. user financing has the

advantages and it goes beyond raising money. it allocates resources in a rational way. of the project serves a real demand the market will fund it. it however the market is not interested, maybe that tells us something about the project. look at the decline for the toll roads recently. we all hate consistent but that is different from how much we are willing to pay to avoid it. user financing should be encouraged but it is not a panacea. in particular is not well suited to the task of restoring maintaining the infrastructure we already have. this bread and butter were cost tens of millions annually and it cannot realistically be financed with tolls. broadbased funding white gas tanks and we heard this throughout the week, is and always will be a necessity.

it remains the big ranch in our toolbox, whether we talk about building new facilities or repairing old ones new methods of project delivery can make a big difference. unfortunately we lag a little bit behind in this country. here is what we call design bills, one team designed the project, a different one builds it and the project sponsors operate at the end of the day. we talked earlier about silos. this is a case where traditional methods in this country are very much silo driven. what is happening is a move towards design build, an incremental step ten years ago. where we marry a contractor and the designer and developer contract in concert and eliminate the fictional cost and the fractional time that occurs in developing it in silos. that improves schedule, cost,

and the risks. beyond design another approach goes further in delivery innovation in public/private partnerships and we heard a little bit about that throughout the week. here is where one team could possibly do everything from raising financing, getting permanent, building and operating for period of time. government's role in this case is set standards for performance and pays overtime as people use the facility. let's be honest, some agencies, some governments throughout the country a skeptical of these new practices. they are afraid to give up control. i believe this year is not warranted but it is true that these methods call upon governments to exercise control but in a new way. under the old system the project sponsor can dictate every design choice however small, very hands-on and a lot of time to

reprocess. with new methods the project sponsor, that control is expressed through performance standards the the private sector lets you figure out all the details. this allows government to focus its energy on true matters of public policy, setting objectives, establishing a budget, demanding performance and enforcing rules that get the most out of the competitive marketplace. once these decisions are made the delivery process about how governmental and more amenable to efficiency driven by the private sector. i firmly believe if our public agencies could adopt contracting practices we see as commonplace overseas in london or australia, we can get more infrastructure

built here at home. let me conclude with a couple of thoughts. these reforms will not solve our infrastructure deficit. and if they get more bang for the buck maybe this can lead to greater confidence and every dollar we invest will return the benefits expected. and be managed with the utmost care. this could be the key element in convincing our elected leaders at whatever level of government that infrastructure spending is vital and it needs to be paid for by all of us. given the way our society will change in the future and the challenges we see in building infrastructure, it is vital to keep us growing and thriving as a country. the time to act is now. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you 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 at brooklyn's -- brookings who did work on the whole wheat, taylor stewart, if you have done anything in infrastructure week, i don't think you slept since sunday night. if you see them, pick them up. thank you all for coming out here today on a rainy friday. this is the conversation i have been wanting to get into. we started to scratch the surface as i mentioned but one more comment before we adjourn the program. we highlighted a bunch of projects that were very specific

particularly with the panel and throughout the week. we will keep doing this. this is what we spend a lot of time on at the metro program over the next year leading up to infrastructure weak 2015 because as we travel around the country and talked to public/private nonprofit political leaders across the country this is what they are looking for from us. they want to know who's doing what. what are the innovations that are out there? what can we learn from these people? did they talk to to get that done? no one is waiting for things to happen. we see a lot of energy, vitality, we heard from folks reinforcing that. this is the time to get things done and we are seeing that from a lot of folks around the country. we will have more examples so if you have ideas send them to us. we will go around the country and start to build a clearinghouse of project ideas so those lessons can be shared so we can do this network

approach we talked about so people can turn from one another. we do believe america's infrastructure needs are daunting but not insurmountable. nor is washington's drift and dysfunction and excuse for inaction. we believe states, cities, metropolitan areas and the private/public and civic institutions that leads them to have the talent and have the creativity to move this country forward in this ariane in others and it is time to do so so we can build for the next 100 years. thank you for coming here today. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

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