Infrastructure and the Future
Sarah Williams Goldhagen I would object to that. Look at the Millennium Park in Chicago which was a public-private thing and in which there were millions and millions of dollars poured into the civic realm. I do think that one of the focal points is that the Federal Government is doing good things but there has to be some way of getting it down to a regional level and a regional vision. Politically, that is a very difficult thing to do. Picking up on the constitution, which Hubert was exactly right bring to the forefront, I’m not interested in the American bashing, as in ‘Americans are bad people and selfish.’ I don’t think they are and I think that’s wrong. What I’m trying to get at and figure out—and I think we are getting somewhere—is what are the structural issues that make it so difficult for long-term visions about civic good to be implemented through infrastructural initiatives in the United States, and to some extent in Western Europe? I don’t think it’s necessarily a lack of will on the individual basis, but there is something there, whether it’s a political structure or the training of architects. Somehow it needs to be addressed and reconceptualized in useful ways. Marcel Smets FDR generated the community of this country and he did it politically. He did it through the WPA with photographers and artists and writers, so that the entire country felt that they were engaged in rebuilding the common infrastructure. Why aren’t we engaging in the public purpose? Sarah Williams Goldhagen That’s a pivotal question. Why aren’t we? Marilyn Taylor I have one theory. Having watched Europe, where there is European Union investment bank, having watched China, where there is the government, having watched Singapore, where there is a government that is so wise in its investments and its structure of the related development that is also in the network
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