Last summer India had the largest power outage in human history affecting 600m people. So it stung when my visiting Indian mother-in-law pointed out that America’s east coast, including Washington, was “as bad as India”. Then it was a so-called derecho storm, which left 6m US homes without power for days in the searing heat. Last month it was Superstorm Sandy, which left 10m homes shivering. In late December forecasters project a heavy cold snap that is bound to cause blackouts. People are resigned to the prospect.
It is hard to pinpoint the date at which Americans developed an Indian – or perhaps British – fatalism about the declining quality of their infrastructure. When my British mother spent several months in the US in the 1950s, it was dazzlingly futuristic. There was air-conditioning, an icebox in every fridge, ubiquitous neon lights and an open road on which even the working class could afford to drive. But bit by bit over the past 30 years, the world’s first truly modern infrastructure has shown its age. It has been starved by a generation of under-investment. And Americans have adapted around it.
At some point in the next 12 months, we will discover whether the US has the will to bring its infrastructure into the 21st century. If all goes well, Congress will take steps to avert a fiscal cliff before January 1. As part of that deal lawmakers will schedule another ticking time bomb for late 2013 before which they will have to strike a larger bargain or hit another fiscal cliff. The likelihood is that Congress will shrink the already meagre federal investment budget. The hope, as the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Center puts it, is that Congress will “cut to invest” rather than doing so crudely across the board.