The Governator was the star panelist in a discussion last weekend in the National Governors Conference about the infrastructure crisis. It was generally a smart and useful chat. (We’ve got more to say about it, in fact — stay tuned). But this moment really jumped out at us:
SCHWARZENEGGER: [Gov. Rendell, Mayor Bloomberg and I] happen to be very passionate, all three of us, very passionate about infrastructure. [...]
We in California have made a big move forward in that area because the people of California have approved $42 billion of infrastructure.[...]. I think that was a really big, big step forward and I think that the federal government has to do obviously the same thing.
The important thing is that we look at how do we get the people enthusiastic about the subject? Because the word infrastructure means nothing to the majority of people of America. We have to come up with a sexier word than infrastructure. So the key thing is that you have to go out and promote and market this the right way like with everything in policy.
[In California] we went out and didnʹt talk about infrastructure but we talked about are you angry about getting stuck in traffic every day, and you cannot spend enough time with your family and with your children? That really aroused anger in most of the people and we said vote yes on those propositions.
So we got them really focused on those things you know and talked about that the levees that we have in California are 100 years old and if thereʹs an earthquake or if thereʹs a big storm it would be disastrous and hundreds of thousands will get wiped out and it actually will make Katrina look small compared to what would happen in California.
That woke them up.
This actually seems like a rather serious point (and one that public works guru Felix Rohatyn made yesterday). It’s not a good word. It’s long and twice in rapid succession entails three ugly consonant sounds all jammed together. So let’s throw it open: Can you come up with a snappy word for “infrastructure”? Post any suggestions (serious or not) in the comments section. Over coming weeks we’ll revisit the question and hopefully field some legitimate options.
Tags: CONTEST
I’m terrible at naming things, so I’m just gonna spit out some words, stream-of-consciousness, and let someone else refine them further:
Bones, skeleton, foundation, ecosystem, spine…and that’s all I got.
I’ve seen this idea pop up a few places lately, it seems. And I think it brings up a bigger issue – that people respond to media. If we want people to be excited about making it easier for them to travel through their everyday spaces, it seems like a great way to do it is to present to them in various forms what it would be like for them after the changes. For instance, a video of someone nicely dressed pedaling calmly on a bicycle through the streets of Portland, with text like “the Portland commute, home to work in 20 minutes, with no traffic jams.” I think people tend to feel like it’s just some other crazy policy that their politicians are coming up with that has little to no connection to them, and if we bring it to them on a more everyday level, it might have a bigger impact. Maybe we don’t need to use the word at all, but simply to convey the idea. I don’t know for sure, but it seems like it might work
I agree with Dave. Words won’t do any good without an image to conjure up, and right now America is so immersed in an auto-centric culture most of us can’t even imagine what a different paradigm would look like. So first we need a *visual* ad campaign. From there, I expect the right words would coin themselves rather quickly.
At any rate, I think the word needs to emphasize that we’re creating/enabling a high-mobility, light-weight, low-stress *lifestyle*.
Maybe we should go with the tech-influenced idea of a “platform” on which you can “run” a lifestyle. But how to make it “sexy”, there’s the rub…
The Flow.
Traffic flow. Energy flow. Water flow.
The Flow.
Nobody likes it when the Flow gets clogged. When bridges collapse, the Flow starts flowing. When the power grid is overburdened, the Flow of electricity slows to a trickle. When levees collapse, we get drowned by the over-Flow.
The Flow.
Er, that should say, “When bridges collapse, the Flow *stops* flowing.”
The crucial aspect of infrastructure that is oft under-appreciated is it’s role in shaping communities. Infrastructure is the basis of well-functioning communities, and any new term should highlight how well organized community services create the platform for healthy, happy living. Instead of “infrastructure” perhaps it would be better to refer to “community resources” or “community platforms.”
That said, right now “infrastructure” is a pretty popular word. Perhaps the reason the word has failed to resonate is simply that people in the media and political words don’t use the world with the regularity needed to push it into the public consciousness. More people would know what it meant if it was more commonly used. According to (Republican) pollster Frank Luntz, 84% of Americans support increased investments in “infrastructure” by government.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-luntz23-2009jan23,0,2761866.story
That’s easy: PUBLIC WORKS.
Am I the only one who thinks infrastructure IS a sexy word? I am being completely serious here. I think it’s very sexy.
I’m going to veto “flow” because it connotes toilets.
The environmental movement gained sexiness with the terms sustainability and green, so maybe we need to go with terms like solidity and gray. Maybe…
public goods / public works
In my opinion, this is just an attempt to start a euphemism treadmill to sway public opinion (as all euphemism treadmills do…) away from the reality of the situation to some abstract notion of something else that is (better?) than what infrastructure is. If you really want people to vote for infrastructure spending, hire a marketing firm to come up with some catchy phrase to sum up all the positive outcomes of moving resources (power for your vibrator, or hooker-friendly street design). You could extend this logic of re-naming to all aspects of life to further remove us from our environment and its realities. If we call work play, and play super-fun-time; wouldn’t we just be moving everything up one euphemistic notch in our consciousness? What purpose does this serve the general public?
The act of naming is critically important to the understanding of things. If something is to be re-named, it should be done to elucidate something. If we created some nomenclature that could empirically summarize the qualities of an object better than we currently do, great. To re-name something to sway public opinion toward or away from it is a fascist maneuver. However noble the cause for re-naming may be, we must always be careful not to glaze over the function of the name.
I’m flabbergasted that “the Flow” makes you think of toilets, Alice. I’m sure that’s not the first image that would come to most people’s minds.
Nevertheless, I have to express admiration for Thomas Kelly’s matter-of-fact suggestion, “public works.” It’s not sexy, but neither is it jargony. It’s got punch. Its meaning is self-evident. It’s an Everyman phrase.
Thanks for that comment, Catbus. “Public Works” is what we used to call “infrastructure” before the conservative movement systematically defamed the ethic that our society had responsibilities and that acting through government, people collectively could solve problems besetting everyone. The term “infrastructure” obscures the fact that these facilities benefit everybody and are owned by everyone, and that maintaining and improving these systems is a “public” (i.e. “our own”) responsibility.
[...] sexy? Well, I don’t agree with Arnold Schwarzenegger that we need to come up with a better word. I like that word. But I think what he means is that the people who know what infrastructure is [...]
[...] the Governator: We in California have made a big move forward in that area because the people of California have [...]