<div dir="ltr">Camille!<div><br></div><div>Thanks so much for this. This story and your comment on it reminded me of Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns and his critique of the American Society of Civil Engineers, including the ASCE's infrastructure report card. We could probably add Infrastructure Week too. Marohn argues that these efforts serve specific professional and industrial interests, and that they typically burden localities with infrastructure that we simply cannot afford. </div><div><br></div><div>In this space, "infrastructure" often means new construction, not taking care of what we already have. And sadder still, "maintenance" is a euphemism not for simply restoring what already exists to working order but to overhauling and expanding existing structures - think of roads that are widened with new kinds of sidewalks, new control systems, etc., all of which adds to the infrastructural debt/overhead.</div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/3/12/revisiting-the-asce-infrastructure-cult">Here's Marohn talking about "the infrastructure cult."</a> And here is my favorite door into the Strong Towns world, <a href="https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/">the multi-part essay titled "The Growth Ponzi Scheme."</a></div><div><br></div><div>Personally, I believe that the ASCE and Infrastructure Week are doing *some* good, and we should tip our hats to the positive steps made, especially raising awareness! But I equally believe that people like you and Marohn are leading us to ask tough questions about whose interests are being served by infrastructure policy. We certainly shouldn't use the word "infrastructure" as a synonym for GOOD; nor should we pretend that advocacy for infrastructure automatically serves the needs of *the people*. </div><div><br></div><div>So, all of this is a long way of responding to your question, "Maybe we should spin up a Maintainers lobby?": RIGHT ON! YES, PLEASE!! SIGN ME UP!!!</div><div><br></div><div>Thanks as always,</div><div><br></div><div>Lee</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr">On Sat, Nov 10, 2018 at 7:23 AM Camille E. Acey <<a href="mailto:connect@camilleacey.com">connect@camilleacey.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">NYBG represents the concerns and infrastructure priorities of big industry...Maybe we should spin up a Maintainers lobby? 🤔 <a href="https://citylimits.org/2018/11/08/cityviews-citys-deep-infrastructure-needs-demand-new-thinking-broad-action/" target="_blank">https://citylimits.org/2018/11/08/cityviews-citys-deep-infrastructure-needs-demand-new-thinking-broad-action/</a><br>-- <br>Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity._______________________________________________<br>
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</blockquote></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>Assistant Professor <br>Department of Science, Technology, and Society<br></div><div>Virginia Tech<br></div><div><a href="http://leevinsel.com" target="_blank">leevinsel.com</a><br>Twitter: @STS_News<br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>