Tonight, on October 1, 2038, we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the millennial omnibus infrastructure bill that showed that all three major political parties could come together to address this nation's economic and security future. Urban infrastructure has already changed, in large part because of the efforts of engineers and the Millennial Legislation.
How did we get here? At the beginning of the third millennium, over six billion people lived in the world, and we had a projected population growth rate of 1.25%, which would have resulted in 9.6 billion people today. But the terrorist states' war, the regional nuclear conflict and last decade's food shortages and pandemics took a toll, limiting today's world population to eight billion. The food shortages further accelerated the movement of people into cities as every acre of arable land was pressed into production. Urban population now accounts for nearly 90% in more developed countries.
Infrastructure decay that began in the last quarter of the 20th century continued and reached crisis proportions similar to those experienced by New York City's subways in the 1970s, Boston's arterial highway network in the 1980s and England's collapsing rail infrastructure in the present millennium. Water pollution was the largest environmental killer in the world, and the majority of the urban population in the then-developing countries did not have access to proper sanitation facilities. But here at home, we faced tremendous issues in potable-water supply and subsidence from excessive groundwater extraction. In addition, power grids suffered from "disinvestment."
The beginning of this century also gave witness to the intimate coupling between the cityscape we see every day and the tightly interwoven infrastructure that allows a city to meet the full range of its peoples' economic, social, political and intellectual needs. The sudden, blatant attack of Sept. 11, 2001, targeted what were iconic symbols of cities in the developed world. But out of that destruction and subsequent disasters— called Katrina, Fukushima, Sandy and Horatio—came a newfound awareness. Just this year, we have made a new urban infrastructure paradigm our preferred implementation approach. We now recognize the importance of our urban infrastructure, resilience and infrastructure's intricate linkage to the "development" it ties together. The core tenets of the new paradigm include a comprehensive and integrated systems view of development and urban infrastructure; a recognition that deferred maintenance represents a real cost and a real risk; and an understanding that operation and emergency response training is an integral element of critical infrastructure.
还有另一个重要的变化：第三千年中的城市和基础设施不仅仅是一个热情的梦想。工程师的冷，分析方法必须移至最前沿。工程师掌握了众多社会科学的概念，强调了工程学与基础设施经常寻求解决的广泛社会问题之间的微妙但至关重要的关系。这种社会意识是对公共利益的承诺，再加上领导力和责任感，直到最近才被广泛接受，感谢这些学院的努力。2018年，美国最终以一种长期的系统性方式解决了基础设施。今天，在2038年，重建过去的代际挑战已被一种世代的机会所取代。国家科学院挑战我们实现我们现在拥抱的未来。一个挑战不是言语，而是行动和领导力，是希望和成功的未来。这和您的参与必须继续。作为总统，我需要您的支持。
Robert Prieto, a senior vice president of Fluor Corp, Irving, Texas, is responsible for industrial and infrastructure group strategy and can be reached at Bob.Prieto@fluor.com.
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