Obama Declares End to Suburban Sprawl

This exchange is from a town hall meeting today in Fort Myers, Florida. The questioner is a local politician. It’s a great moment:

1:07 p.m.: Question: How can you help with infrastructure and transportation?

OBAMA [actual answer]: Well, we targeted billions of dollars at infrastructure spending. And states all across the country are going through what Florida is going through. There was a study done by the American Association of Engineers — that might not be the exact title — but engineers from all across the country. We get a D in infrastructure all across the country.

We saw what happened in Minneapolis, where a bridge collapsed and resulted in tragedy. And not only do we need to rebuild our roads, our bridges, our ports, our levees… our dams. But we also have to plan for the future. This the same example of turning crisis into opportunity. This should be a wake-up call for us.

You go to Shanghai, China right now… and they’ve got high-speed rail that puts our railroads to shame. They’ve got ports that are state of the art. Their airports, are– compared to the airports that we…you go through Beijing airport and you compare that to Miami Airport?

Now, look — this is America. We’ve always had the best infrastructure. We were always willing to invest in the future. You know, Governor Crist mentioned Abraham Lincoln. In the middle of the Civil War, in the midst of all this danger and peril, what did he do? He helped move the Intercontinental Railroad. He helped to start land grant colleges. He understood that even when you are in the middle of crisis, you got to keep your eye on the future.

So transportation, when it is not just fixing our old transportation systems, but it’s also imagining new transportation systems. That’s why I’d like to see high speed rail where it can be constructed. I would like for us to invest in mass transit. Because potentially that’s energy efficient and I think a lot more people are open now to thinking regionally in terms of how we plan our transportation infrastructure. The days where we’re just building sprawl forever? Those days are over. I think that Republicans, Democrats… everybody recognizes that that’s not a smart way to design communities. So we should be using this money to help spur this kind of innovative thinking when it comes to transportation. That’ll make a big difference.”

(CSPAN video doesn’t embed, unfortunately — but click here to see the exchange. It’s at 55:00.)