The well-chronicled devastation brought by Hurricane Katrina has put new focus on essential elements of public infrastructure that would have been considered obscure or even banal when the summer began. Yet, now the expenditure of billions of dollars on preventative maintenance looks to many like a sound investment. Though Southern California does not necessarily worry about hurricanes and levees, a host of other natural and man-made dangers threatens the countless bridges, pipelines, and structures that might not have been properly built, inspected, and retrofitted. In this exclusive essay for MIR, Richard Little, director of Keston Institute for Infrastructure at the University of Southern California, explains why hope, complacency, and even budgetary concerns do not provide adequate reasons for deferring preventative maintenance.
