Supporting Infrastructure Development for More Resilient Communities

Written by: Harriet Tregoning

It’s National Infrastructure Week, and at HUD, we’re recognizing the vital role infrastructure plays in creating opportunity for people across the country, from large urban areas to rural communities. America’s infrastructure helps people get to work and school, brings us fresh water to drink, removes and treats waste, provides safe and healthy homes, connects us to the internet and the world, and keeps our economy moving forward.
But our infrastructure systems are stressed, and we’re at a major inflection point in many of our major infrastructure sectors. Demand and technology are rapidly changing how we live, and our roads, sewers, and electrical grids are struggling to keep pace.
Fortunately, HUD is one of 11 agencies working on the White House’s Build America Investment Initiative, which is encouraging more and better infrastructure, and new partnerships and resources to fund resilient, equitable projects that create opportunities for communities and regions. Supporting infrastructure is an important part of HUD’s work as exemplified by our Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program. One half of State CDBG funds and one third of local funds are directed towards infrastructure.
The White House hosted a roundtable last week on infrastructure predevelopment—all of the activities that happen before the first shovel hits the ground. The White House also released a Federal Resource Guide for Infrastructure Planning and Design that provides federal programs and technical assistance that can be used to support predevelopment work, and predevelopment principles. As part of the Build America Investment Initiative, we are encouraging our grantees to invest in predevelopment that reflects the considerations contained in the principles.
These principles reflect what we’ve learned from working in communities hit by recent disasters—like Superstorm Sandy—as well as the collaborative approach that the Partnership for Sustainable Communities has fostered across federal agencies and with local communities. The recent work of many Sustainable Community grantees offers great examples for how to build the framework for smart infrastructure investments.
The predevelopment principles are intended as a guide to shape federal, state and local infrastructure work. Influencing this early stage has an outsized impact on shaping infrastructure priorities, design, funding and financing, and development.
I believe the processes we’ve used to advance single purpose infrastructure in the past are not going to serve us well in the future. Communities need to get the most possible value out of their investments, so how we plan, design and implement infrastructure needs to reflect solutions offering multiple benefits. Smart predevelopment practices, or even great infrastructure, shouldn’t be the ultimate goal. We should aim to answer these questions: “What’s the best solution to the community problems we are trying to solve? How can we be ready for the future? How can our infrastructure investments create more and better outcomes and opportunities for all?”
Answering these questions starts with collaboration to understand what communities need and then planning the infrastructure that addresses those needs now and into the future.