In Our Own Backyard

This volume takes a fresh look―primarily from a technological perspective―at the nation's "infrastructure": a collection of diverse modes that function as a system supporting a wide range of economic and social activities. Within an infrastructure system, operating and maintenance procedures, management practices, and development policies (i.e., the software) must work together with the facilities' hardware.

This study has a strongly local perspective, drawing valuable information from workshops held in Phoenix, Cincinnati, and Boston. These workshops illustrated common elements of local experience that offer infrastructure practitioners, policymakers, and the public at large both understanding and guidance in the form of specific strategies that can lead toward "win-win" situations, where parties with potentially opposing interests seek a way to resolve infrastructure issues so that all parties gain.

Local issues, combined across many regions, give infrastructure its strategic national significance. The book recommends specific principles that should be applied in national policy to support effective local infrastructure development and management.

This report is one of a series issued under the Building Research Board's strategic program on physical infrastructure. As a unit of the National Research Council, the Building Research Board has embarked on this strategic program to address problems of infrastructure policy and opportunities for new infrastructure technology. The program is designed to bring together expertise from many fields and decision-makers from all levels of government and the private sector.