The idea of implementing large infrastructure projects has begun to replace the quick fix as a means of revitalizing an economy under duress.

In last summer’s issue, noted technology observer Jim Chiles (who just missed crossing St. Paul’s I-35W bridge before it collapsed) called for a “Third Industrial Revolution” to fix the growing failures of our “industrial web” and spur technological innovation. Even before the recession began in earnest, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that repairing the nation’s highways, bridges, levees, sewage treatment plants, and other public systems would cost $1.6 trillion.

Can throwing large amounts of federal money at public works projects lead to prosperity or only result in expensive and wasteful boondoggles? We decided to look back over two centuries of American history and examine the results of large-scale infrastructure construction projects. See “America’s Top 10 Public Works Projects.”

In the early years of our Republic, many citizens believed that the Constitution prohibited the Federal government from implementing and funding large interstate projects. Some opposed Federal intrusion on state prerogatives when proposals emerged for a national road system in the early 1800s. President Thomas Jefferson reluctantly agreed to support the National Road after he was persuaded there were implied powers in the Constitution’s “necessary and proper” clause. Construction began on the National Road in 1811. Shortly thereafter, the Union admitted Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois as states.

The American engineers and entrepreneurs, who built the National Road, and later, such technological triumphs as the Hoover Dam, the air traffic control system, the national interstate road network, and the Internet, did not believe in limited possibilities.

Perhaps the best way to jump-start our economy is to recapture the same “can-do” spirit and the innovation that has defined and shaped our nation from its earliest days.

Edwin S. Grosvenor

editor@americanheritage.com