Sanders, AOC Unveil $180 Billion Green New Deal for Public Housing

The legislation aims to repair and upgrade public housing by securing renewable energy sources for approximately one million federally owned public housing units, affecting some two million people.

Safe, affordable housing is a right.

"Under capitalism, housing provision is based on what will make developers, lenders, and landlords rich -- not what average people need to survive. That’s why we’ll never get decent, affordable housing for everyone under the free market.
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"The hyper-financialization of home mortgages in the mid-2000s is perhaps the most dramatic example of how treating housing like a speculative commodity can spiral out of control, grotesquely distorting the provision of a basic necessity.

"After the 2007–2008 financial crash, many liberal capitalists argued that better regulations on the secondary mortgage market might have prevented the worst aspects of the crisis. There might even be good reason to welcome such regulations. But the constant oscillations of housing prices will never disappear under capitalism, because these boom-bust cycles are inherent to any kind of capitalist commodity."

The rest of the story: Capitalism Can’t Give Us Affordable Housing by Robbie Nelson (Jacobin)

This is what neglect of infrastructure looks like

‘It looked like Armageddon’: Gas explosions trigger deadly chaos in Massachusetts by Karen Weintraub, Frances Stead Sellers Cleve R. Wootson Jr. (Washington Post). Gas Explosions Drive Thousands From Homes in Boston Suburbs by Nate Raymond and Brian Snyder (Reuters).

Bookkeeping

Spend like there is a tomorrow.

Liberals and progressives should be wary of making an issue of deficits, despite the imbalance resulting from the GOP's hypocritical tax cuts. The federal debt, per se, is not a problem. If the government used deficit spending to invest in the nation's future prosperity, as it must and should, there would be no occasion for complaint. What needs to be attacked is our retrogressive tax system, corporate welfare, and military waste and adventurism. Deficit funding -- on efficient and economically competitive infrastructure; health care; lifetime education (not just pre-K to college and technical school, but skill-maintenance and retraining to avoid obsolescence); housing; and guaranteed basic income -- would be a bargain in the long run.

From the What-Could-Possibly-Go-Wrong Desk:

Four nuclear waste canisters with a potentially defective design have been loaded with spent fuel and buried in a “concrete monolith” yards from the beach at the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. With the seas rising, it shouldn't be long before Southern Californians won't need to rely on the sun to get a tan. (The Orange County Register)

Fish Story

I'd bet the word I use most often in political discussions is "infrastructure." Along with education, it was infrastructure that gave us our biggest advantage over economic rivals in the 20th century. Natural resources are abundant in North America, of course, but it was government infrastructure spending in the form of railroads, electric grids, highways, port facilities, and so on (and a workforce trained and educated in publicly financed schools) that enabled us to convert resources into wealth. Forty years of feckless leadership has squandered this advantage; a succession of Democratic and Republican regimes has presided over the transfer of public wealth into private hands, leaving virtually nothing to spend on the commons.

The penalty for allowing our government to devolve into kleptocracy is coming due, however.

Take water as an example. Even though it is more important to life than any other factor, we treat it with about as much consciousness as goldfish in a bowl. Even now, with two-thirds of the country in severe drought, with aquifers, lakes, reservoirs and rivers drying up -- even the Mississippi is close to being unnavigable for lack of water -- we routinely waste unconscionable quantities of H2O. And the crumbling infrastructure is making a bad situation worse. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, we "lose" 1.7 trillion gallons of water each year -- enough to supply 68 million people -- to aging, leaky pipes (650 water mains burst on the average day). As the population grows and the supply of water declines, we will be forced to make changes in everything from agriculture to personal hygiene. And security planners say international tensions caused by water disputes will be a further burden on our ability to be the World's Policeman. Upgrading our water infrastructure will cost a bundle, at least $1 trillion, probably a lot more, but the costs of not doing anything -- in disease, productivity, unrest, and so on, are sure to be far greater. If we fail to act, and access to clean water dries up, we won't last much longer than goldfish flopping next to a broken bowl.

Like all our infrastructure problems, we have to resources to set this right, but doing so would require two seemingly impossible changes in our politics: we would need to raise taxes significantly and we would have to reorient our national priorities away from militarism and corporate welfare and toward spending for the common good. Neither of these outcomes is possible unless there is a radical updating of our political system to make it more democratic.

Constitution 2.0 is long past due.

From the Won't-Be-Fooled-Again Desk:

It's outrageous that America is the only developed country that doesn't provide paid family leave. If you agree join Hillary's campaign today! -- Daily Kos

Really? That's the criterion we're supposed to use to choose the next president?

How about out-of-control military spending? Is that outrageous? What's she going to do about that?

Banks too big to fail? Pretty outrageous, you'd think. Will Goldman Sachs let her do anything about them?

Economic injustice? Outrageous. She's a big populist now; what's her plan?

Aging, crumbling infrastructure: Outrageous. Will she rebuild it?

Surveillance State abuses: Outrageous. If she has a solution, it's a secret.

Her actions at State that helped to create outrageous messes in Afghanistan, Honduras and Libya. What will she do about them?

The chaos in Syria and Iraq: Outrageous. Does she have a fix?

The PATRIOT Act is still pretty much intact. That's outrageous, too.

More outrageous, even, than that America is the only developed country that doesn't provide paid family leave, outrageous as that is.

Rail: Fail

One measure of American political dysfunction is the not-so-slow collapse of infrastructure during the last four decades, including passenger rail service, an area where the U.S. is dead last versus all its economic rivals.

"In the 1960, the United States had an extensive network of passenger rail trains. All the major cities in the Midwest and South were linked by regular train service. You could get service on smaller routes, like the one from Boise, Idaho, to Portland, Oregon, three times a day. Then a lot of lines got shut down in the late 1960s and 1970s, as this animation shows."

(Maps from the National Association of Railway Passengers and Malcolm Kenton. Animation by Joss Fong)

Source: Watch American passenger rail shrivel up and die in this animated map by Timothy B. Lee (Vox).

Resource: National Association of Railroad Passengers

Civilization does not depend on the automobile

Probably our closest cohort among nations, Germany has a lot to teach us: "Compared to Americans, Germans own fewer cars, drive them shorter distances and less frequently, and walk and cycle and ride transit more often. They have slimmer waistlines to show for their active transport habits and suffer fewer traffic deaths whether in a car or not. They spend less household income on getting around even as they pay much more in driving costs. They use less energy per person on ground transport, resulting in lower carbon emissions."

(Source: The Atlantic)

The rest of the story:
All the Ways Germany Is Less Car-Reliant Than the U.S., in 1 Chart: There are rather a lot of ways, as it turns out. (The Atlantic/CityLab)

Alternative and shared-use bridges

While we await the opportunity to cap the I-10 and reunite Santa Monica's neighborhoods, we can do a lot for the city's walking and biking populations by building three or four pedestrian/bike bridges. The I-10 overpasses at 4th St. and at Lincoln Blvd., also, are in especially desperate need of makeovers to make them safer and more attractive to walkers and cyclists.

(Credit: CityLab.com)

More:
The Bright Future of the Pedestrian Bridge: Top engineer Ted Zoli says the era of shared-use structures has arrived.
Can a Beehive-Inspired Overpass Unite a City?: New Britain, Connecticut, is split by a highway overpass—which is also the city's main street. Will a high-design walkway bridge deep divisions?

Planning tool

Santa Monica has introduced an online interactive tool to evaluate various options for the future of the Civic Auditorium. Anyone interested in the costs and benefits of public investment in amenities such as parks, theaters, restaurants, retail spaces, offices, hotels, parking, etc., can get a better understanding through playing with the options. Plus, it's possible that you will help influence the outcome of the Civic Auditorium development process. The tool will be available through February 14th.

Go to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium website.

The Future of Wi-Fi Could Run Through Old TV Infrastructure

Free, high-capacity Internet access using old television frequencies

"Two academics are recommending that governments develop free, public Wi-Fi networks using obsolete TV frequencies. The researchers believe this could potentially lead to 'Super Wi-Fi' systems popping up across the globe.

"Broadcasting TV via old-school frequencies received through antennas has almost entirely given way to digital services, leaving blank channels or 'white spaces' -- TV frequencies that are no longer in use. In a new study, researchers suggest transforming these abandoned frequencies into a 'wireless commons.'

"Distributing public Wi-Fi through underused TV infrastructure, they say, has many potential benefits: Wi-Fi traveling through antenna and radio frequencies can extend beyond six miles, according to a recent report. Moreover, it may have the capacity to penetrate through walls, buildings, vegetation, and other obstacles that often disrupt current Wi-Fi infrastructure. This range, coupled with public access, could result in 'unprecedented low-cost,' the new study suggests, because 3G and household wireless services would likely be less in demand.

"'Individuals, institutions, and companies would be far less dependent on expensive mobile communications networks in conducting their digital communication,' says Arnd Weber of Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and a co-author of the new report."

The rest of the story: http://www.citylab.com/tech/2014/11/the-future-of-wi-fi-could-run-through-old-tv-infrastructure/383231/

Brian McFadden takes on America’s D+ infrastructure

US economic progress in the 20th century was based on having first rate infrastructure. Our decline is a direct result of our failure to maintain and improve it.

Water, water everywhere...

I'd bet the word I use most often in political discussions is "infrastructure." Along with education, it was infrastructure that gave us our biggest advantage over economic rivals in the 20th century. Natural resources are abundant in North America, of course, but it was government infrastructure spending in the form of railroads, electric grids, highways, port facilities, and so on (and a work force trained and educated in publicly financed schools) that enabled us to convert resources into wealth. Forty years of feckless leadership has squandered this advantage; a succession of Democratic and Republican regimes has presided over the transfer of public wealth into private hands, leaving virtually nothing to spend on the commons.

The penalty for allowing our government to devolve into kleptocracy is coming due, however.

Take water as an example. Even though it is more important to life than any other factor, we treat it with about as much consciousness as goldfish in a bowl. Even now, with two-thirds of the country in severe drought, with aquifers, lakes, reservoirs and rivers drying up -- even the Mississippi is close to being unnavigable for lack of water -- we routinely waste unconscionable quantities of H2O. And the crumbling infrastructure is making a bad situation worse. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, we "lose" 1.7 trillion gallons of water each year -- enough to supply 68 million people -- to aging, leaky pipes (650 water mains burst on the average day). As the population grows and the supply of water declines, we will be forced to make changes in everything from agriculture to personal hygiene. And security planners say international tensions caused by water disputes will be a further burden on our ability to be the World's Policeman. Upgrading our water infrastructure will cost a bundle, at least $1 trillion, probably a lot more, but the costs of not doing anything -- in disease, productivity, unrest, and so on, are sure to be far greater. If we fail to act, and access to clean water dries up, we won't last much longer than goldfish flopping next to a broken bowl.

As with all our infrastructure problems, we have to resources to set this right, but doing so would require two seemingly impossible changes in our politics: we would need to raise taxes significantly and we would have to reorient our national priorities away from militarism and corporate welfare and toward spending for the common good. Neither of these outcomes is possible unless there is a radical updating of our political system to make it more democratic. Constitution 2.0 is long past due.

It'll pass Congress in a New York minute

Just call it the, I dunno, Ronald Reagan National System of Interstate and Defense Highspeed Rail.

With a new plan for a high-speed system, Amtrak execs hope they can revive both American rail and American cities: Why High-Speed Rail Could Spur a Golden Age in the Northeast by Yoni Appelbaum (The Atlantic)

Creeping Socialism

[This is from an email making the rounds. Anonymous scores again. - J.]

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by my Municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the Federal Communications Commission-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and Federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door, I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the Congressionally-regulated US Postal Service and drop my kids off at our local government-owned and Department of Education mandated public school.

After work, I drive my NHTSA-approved car back home on the DOT-maintained roads, to the house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshall's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log on to the Internet, which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration, and post on FreeRepublic and Fox News Forums about how our GOVERNMENT is a horrible SOCIALIST TYRANT who can't do anything right and needs to stay out of my life.

Transportation: 1965? When will the US start spending again on infrastructure?

Here's an excellent example of celebrity in service to reform:

Is an infrastructure bank a practical proposal?

This week President Barack Obama announced steps to boost economic growth and job creation, including a national infrastructure bank. The Brookings Institution's William Galston reviews the proposal and the various factors that will contribute to whether it is successful.

The rest of the story: Infrastructure Bank Proposal Would Spur Economic Growth by William A. Galston (The Brookings Institution 2010-09-07).

Economy: The United States of Inequality

Must read: The Great Divergence 2010: What's causing America's growing income inequality? by Timothy Noah (Slate 2010-09-03).

Wrecked town points the way to economic recovery

With all eyes on US efforts to combat climate change at next week's UN summit in Copenhagen, one Kansas town is going green in a big way -- and setting an example for American communities.

The U.S. dominated the world economy in the 1950s and 1960s partly because its infrastructure was unparalleled. Without going in to other reasons for our long, slow decline since the early 1970s, any discussion of the process by which this nation can be restored to greatness must begin with how we will rebuild our physical plant. One small Kansas town is providing lessons in the ways disaster can be greeted as opportunity. Lets hope it won't require that conditions become as dire in the rest of the country as they have in Greensburg before we are motivated to act.

On the evening of May 4, 2007, a category-five tornado swept through the rural midwestern town of Greensburg, killing nine people and obliterating 95 percent of the urban landscape, including the school, the hospital and more than 900 houses.

But this community of 1,400 is rebuilding stronger than ever, in a remarkable comeback billed by Greensburg GreenTown -- a grassroots organization involving town residents, local officials and business owners -- as a "model for sustainable building and green living."

In the wake of disaster, local leaders vowed to rebuild their town as the first in the United States to have all municipal projects constructed to the highest environmental and efficiency design standards.

The rest of the story: Destroyed US town a model of eco-living as it rebuilds (Agence France Presse/AlterNet)

See, also:
After tornado, town rebuilds by going green (CNN.com 2009-04-29)
Greensburg, Kansas: Rebuilding After the May 4, 2007, Tornado (Earth Gauge 2009-03)
Rebuilding Greensburg, Kansas (EPA)
Better, Stronger, Greener! — City of Greensburg, Kansas (local government site)
Greensburg GreenTown (nonprofit)