A top headline in today’s R&D Daily announces a new awards program from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to prompt the development of sensor technology to monitor the state of repair of the nation’s roadways, bridges and water systems, some of which “have been in place for many years and are rapidly and dangerously aging.”
No question, NIST’s plan is a smart way to encourage the intelligent spending of tax dollars on infrastructure projects. But it highlights a condition I’ll call the “loss of nerve” effect. Few major new infrastructure projects are being proposed, and with commodity and fuel prices skyrocketing in the face of a sagging dollar, can we really expect states and cities to attempt to replace major bridges and tunnels in a way that will make a meaningful difference in the way our economy grows? With infrastructure spending shortfall in the hundreds of millions of dollars over the next few years, we may be lucky to keep the status quo, sensors or not.
But is this really the mark of a “loss of nerve”? The phrase recently appeared in the New York Times Magazine twice. Once by wealthy architect Bernard Tschumi who bemoaned the loss of a three-hour transatlantic crossing when the Concorde was decommissioned. The other time was by Steven Holl, a New York architect who built an innovative new residential structure in China—one that he concedes would never have been backed in its realized form in the U.S. It’s not just the scale—other economies seem more ready and willing to take a chance on aesthetic departures backed by technical know-how at a rich price.
The fact is, with U.S. growth slowing, we must adjust to watching others make the bold moves in major construction.
What’s interesting and encouraging, however, is that the U.S. continues to supply much of the technology and the architects that make this global growth possible. Let’s hope that nerve never deadens.
