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In Our Own Backyard Principles for Effective Improvement of the Nation's Infrastructure (1993) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
Pages 13-18

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
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From page 13...
... Once a subject of interest primarily to professionals and politicians, the term has emerged from obscurity to become almost a household word. As a source for new jobs in a siow-growth economy, a means for better protection of the environment, or an essential ingredient in restoring America's global competitive strength, iThe NRC; its constituent commissions, boards, and committees; and its parent bodies the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine are often referred to as "the academy complex." Appendix A presents biographical sketches of the committee's members and staff.
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From page 14...
... Some communities face fiscal stringency and voter rebellion, but in other locales the voters approve bonds and other means to pay for refurbishing aging facilities or building new ones. Nevertheless, even those who question the extreme views of the status of U.S.
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From page 15...
... However, in contrast to the more typical pattern of dealing separately with water supply, waste management, highways, and other distinct elements of infrastructure, this report and the study as a whole consider infrastructure as an institutionally complex, multifunctional system serving a broad range of economic and social activities. This whole-system point of view is most easily comprehended in cities, and this study focuses on urban infrastructure.
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From page 16...
... , they were only touched on in this comm~=e's work. THINKING BROADLY, OBSERVING LOCALLY The three principles discussed in Chapter 4 reflect the committee's firm belief that national policy must respond more effectively to He variety of local conditions, and that construction alone is unlikely to yield real and lasting relief from serious infrastructure problems.
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From page 17...
... of infrastructure, marks an important departure from most earlier policy studies, which have dealt pnmanly with one or two related modes viewed on a national level. The committee sought instead to bridge the gap between local concerns and those of national policy that influence local action and national weD-being.
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Key Terms

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  • local experience
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  • transferable lessons
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  • fiscal impact
  • waste management
  • dire assessments

  • retire infrastructure
  • constituent commissions
  • aging facilities
  • drawn public
  • sudden onset

  • recently appearing
  • consider infrastructure
  • social activities
  • local action
  • infrastructure professionals

  • identifying transferable
  • earlier policy
  • notable successes
  • effectively infrastructure
  • principles discussed

  • dealing separately
  • common elements
  • economic activity
  • describing public
  • modes viewed


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