Estimating Rural and Urban Infrastructure Needs

Abstract

The results of an investigation designed to determine the infrastructure needs of a typical midwestern state such as Indiana are presented. One general finding is that the infrastructure condition of small communities appears to be worse than that of larger cities or metropolitan areas. These results should challenge conventional thinking that infrastructure is a “big city” problem. In fact, since Indiana is a state of small to medium sized communities and since the U.S. population is moving in the direction of non‐metropolitan areas, considerable attention should be given to the management, technology and financing of infrastructure for small and medium sized communities. The study also generated a large number of comments. Numerous city and county engineers mentioned that they were not prepared to complete the questionnaire until they had conducted a comprehensive survey of the public facilities under their jurisdiction. One significant beneficial result of this statewide investigation, therefore, is that infrastructure studies were performed in localities that had not previously taken the opportunity to catalog their needs.