Water, Bridges, and Sewers: Seven Principles for Achieving Racial and Economic Equity in Infrastructure Planning
Heat waves throughout the summer of 2006 have sorely tested the ability of jurisdictions to deliver sufficient energy to residents, many of whom have also expressed serious concerns about the viability of emergency response systems to alert them to natural or other disasters. Both are infrastructure concerns, but except in times of crisis, most people seldom think about infrastructure and how energy, communications, roads, schools, parks, bridges, and sewers are part of a comprehensive system for supporting communities and regions. 
The devastation that followed Hurricane Katrina, however, thrust the word “infrastructure” into the consciousness of the nation and left many wondering about its meaning in the Gulf Coast and curious about its significance in their own communities.
The hurricanes and floods of last year were, of course, triggered by nature, but the death and destruction that followed were, to a large extent, equally rooted in policy and budget decisions about infrastructure—levees, mass transit, and other factors—made years, even decades earlier. Why didn’t the levees hold? Why was there no public transportation to move people out of harm’s way? In the wake of the catastrophe, these and other questions have been debated on talk shows, websites, and in newspaper opinion pieces, and have been the subject of many engineering and policy studies. The heightened attention makes it all too clear just how infrastructure issues, while vitally important, are often regarded like a computer program running in the background, one that is taken for granted until something happens— levees don’t hold, bridges collapse, water mains break—and infrastructure is suddenly a very real concern.
Across the country, municipalities are struggling to cope with deteriorating streets, inadequate sewage treatment plants, and less than optimal public transportation systems. In New York, two tunnels—the first built in 1916, the other in 1936—bring water to New York City from upstate, while a third currently being constructed won’t be finished until 2020. Population growth and aging infrastructure are precipitating the need for massive modernization of old schools and construction of new ones in urban, suburban, and rural parts of the country. Roads and transit systems have the potential to bring economic benefits to individuals and communities, but need to be planned for in ways that connect people to jobs, services, and education—regardless of access to cars—while reducing congestion and air pollution.
When disasters seize public attention, they hopefully also reinforce why awareness and action related to infrastructure is critical. After decades of relative neglect, infrastructure is becoming a front-page, high profile issue for many communities and in some—this November in California, for example—the electorate will find on the state ballot an unprecedented number of decisions about whether to fund new capital projects. Decisions about infrastructure impact everyone in the community and should be guided by principles designed to ensure that benefits and burdens are distributed fairly throughout the region.
Facing Infrastructure Problems
Increasing populations, resource-intensive development patterns, new technological requirements of a rapidly changing economy, and several decades of underinvestment have combined to create a large backlog of infrastructure projects all over the country. Collectively, they give rise to the need for substantial new investments in the coming years. Building or maintaining schools and colleges, water systems, highways, roads, mass transit, telecommunications systems, and parks all require infusions of financial support. Such support competes with other services for limited federal and local funds, and decisions must be made about when and where to allocate these dollars and in what priority. In a democratic society, it is unfair to address infrastructure needs and costs without considering their impact on all of a region’s residents. Decisions about what needs will be addressed and how they will be paid for should not result in low-income people and people of color bearing the brunt—as witnessed most starkly in Louisiana—of a failure to apply equity principles to infrastructure planning.
Infrastructure is the skeletal support of communities and regions, and it requires effective, transparent government policies to guide its planning, spending, building, and maintenance. Like so many other aspects of life in America, decisions about infrastructure are fraught with persistent disparities of race and class and raise again questions about who benefits, who pays, and who decides. Why were most of the victims of the infrastructure failure in Louisiana poor and black? What can be done differently in the future to avoid similar post-Katrina tragedies in the wake of the inevitable next storm? Beyond the particularities of the Gulf Coast region lie such questions as: How can America’s cities, towns, and communities build the foundation for a competitive and inclusive economy? How can infrastructure decisions and spending be equitable so that low-income communities and communities of color are assured the same protections and services as everyone else?
Such questions are being raised every day in communities across the country, and many groups are applying equitable strategies to the allocation of infrastructure plans and dollars. PolicyLink offers seven principles to guide infrastructure decision making to ensure that everyone—especially people of color and others in low-income communities—benefit equally from infrastructure investments.
Principle 1: Infrastructure decisions have widespread impact on housing, development, investment patterns, and quality of life and the outcomes of those decisions must be fair and beneficial to all.
Principle 2: Infrastructure plans should not have to compete with health, education, and human service needs but should be recognized as equally critical governmental and societal responsibilities that produce equitable results.
Principle 3: Budget priorities within infrastructure areas (for example, repairing levees vs. restoring wetlands to insure storm protection; more buses vs. new rail systems to improve transportation options; building hospitals vs. community clinics to address community health needs) should be thoroughly assessed using an equity lens.
Principle 4: Services and opportunities created by infrastructure decisions should be available and accessible to everyone in all types of communities.
Principle 5: Employment and economic benefits associated with building and maintaining infrastructure should be shared throughout the region.
Principle 6: The means for collecting revenues to support infrastructure improvements should be determined and applied in ways that are fair and not disproportionately burden those with lower incomes.
Principle 7: Infrastructure decision-making should be transparent and include mechanisms for everyone to contribute to the planning and policymaking process.
In the coming months, PolicyLink will release several publications that look at schools, transportation, parks, and other infrastructure needs of America’s cities and towns. The reports will spotlight promising practices for addressing those needs from the perspective of racial and economic equity. In the meantime, we urge you to consider how infrastructure needs impact the work you do. Policymakers, advocates, activists, and community leaders should be aware of how a failure to address inequities in infrastructure can undermine efforts to secure affordable housing, living wage jobs, quality schools, healthy communities, and all the other benefits we all work so diligently and energetically to secure. Infrastructure is indeed the foundation that supports—both literally and figuratively—opportunity, and infrastructure without equity denies opportunity to our constituents.