Infrastructural Insanity.
What is that? (I can hear you asking.)
It’s what we’re dealing with now.
A friend of mine has a 6:25 AM flight out of LaGuardia. He gets to the airport at 5 AM. Hundreds, HUNDREDS of people are backed up at security. He misses his flight. Somehow the airlines are not prepared for the number of people booked on their flights!
What is anyone going to do about it? Nothing.
Our infrastructure is a disaster.
Airports. Overrun, overcrowded, outdated. Take New York City. Have you ever flown through JFK, LaGuardia or Newark? They are three of the worst airports in the world and they only serve one of the most important cities on the planet. Who builds a multi-billion dollar train to JFK with a starting point in Queens? Has anyone actually taken their family, luggage and all the stuff you need for a trip and tried to get to JFK via this monorail? Why is New York one of the only cities on earth without a simple, direct, public route to its airports? Why do air traffic controllers use equipment less powerful than your iPhone?
Roads. Important, right? Our roads suck. Falling apart. Potholes everywhere. The only people benefitting from our disastrous road conditions are the auto repair shops who have a never-ending stream of income from the damage caused by these rampant potholes. Cities pay millions in damages each year instead of just FIXING THE ROADS!
Energy grid. Have you read about how antiquated our country’s system is? Do you remember in 2004 when a relatively minor problem resulted in a huge blackout affecting tens of millions of people?
Major portions of cities are in disrepair, desperately needing upgrades. Bridges are collapsing across the country. Schools are closing due to mold and asbestos. Senior centers lack the resources to properly feed their constituency. Hospitals are drastically understaffed.
WHY ARE WE OKAY WITH ALL OF THIS?!
I’m not.
The definition of insanity, often credited to Einstein, is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. If we don’t DO anything, if we don’t go out and clean up the street in front of our house or help our neighbor with their cracked stoop, why would we expect anything different on the larger scale?
We can’t easily fix the airports or roads or energy grid. But we can do our part to combat Infrastructural Insanity. If we don’t, the Bridge Over Troubled Water will find itself at the bottom of the lake.
Art Gurwitz
Founder, Areena
Author
