Adam Cohen: Public Works: When "Big Government" Plays Its Role
At the dedication of the Triborough Bridge in 1936, Franklin Roosevelt made an impassioned case for public works. There was a time when no one complained, he said, “that our schoolhouses were badly ventilated and lighted” or that “there were no playgrounds for children in crowded tenement areas.” But times had changed. “People are demanding up-to-date government in place of antiquated government,” he declared, “just as they are requiring and demanding Triborough Bridges in place of ancient ferries.”
The Triborough was built by Roosevelt’s Public Works Administration, or P.W.A., one of his “alphabet soup” agencies. The New Deal public works programs are mainly remembered for giving jobs to victims of the Great Depression, but as Robert D. Leighninger Jr. argues in his recent book “Long-Range Public Investment: The Forgotten Legacy of the New Deal,” they also transformed the American landscape and greatly improved the nation.
The story of the 1930s public works programs is timely again, because much of America is falling apart. The deadly collapse of a Minnesota highway bridge in August shined a light on the poor state of the nation’s bridges, many thousands of which are “structurally deficient” by federal standards. Georgia’s failure to build enough reservoirs has contributed to a water crisis that could cripple metropolitan Atlanta. We should be thinking today about replicating some of the successes of the Depression-era programs.
The P.W.A., the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps were primarily undertaken to put people to work at a time when the unemployment rate approached 25 percent, and to restart a woeful economy. Forward-looking officials like Harry Hopkins, the relief administrator, and Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins argued, however, that public works should be directed to socially useful programs.
Not all of it was. But the vast majority were enormously valuable. Great institutions were built, including the Bay Bridge, the Hoover Dam and Washington’s National Airport — now named for Ronald Reagan, Mr. Leighninger notes, even though it is “a product of the type of ‘big government’ program that he spent most of his political career opposing.” The New Deal programs also built thousands of important buildings, many beautiful, including the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland, the University of Texas Tower and a reconstructed French Market in New Orleans....
Read entire article at NYT
The Triborough was built by Roosevelt’s Public Works Administration, or P.W.A., one of his “alphabet soup” agencies. The New Deal public works programs are mainly remembered for giving jobs to victims of the Great Depression, but as Robert D. Leighninger Jr. argues in his recent book “Long-Range Public Investment: The Forgotten Legacy of the New Deal,” they also transformed the American landscape and greatly improved the nation.
The story of the 1930s public works programs is timely again, because much of America is falling apart. The deadly collapse of a Minnesota highway bridge in August shined a light on the poor state of the nation’s bridges, many thousands of which are “structurally deficient” by federal standards. Georgia’s failure to build enough reservoirs has contributed to a water crisis that could cripple metropolitan Atlanta. We should be thinking today about replicating some of the successes of the Depression-era programs.
The P.W.A., the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps were primarily undertaken to put people to work at a time when the unemployment rate approached 25 percent, and to restart a woeful economy. Forward-looking officials like Harry Hopkins, the relief administrator, and Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins argued, however, that public works should be directed to socially useful programs.
Not all of it was. But the vast majority were enormously valuable. Great institutions were built, including the Bay Bridge, the Hoover Dam and Washington’s National Airport — now named for Ronald Reagan, Mr. Leighninger notes, even though it is “a product of the type of ‘big government’ program that he spent most of his political career opposing.” The New Deal programs also built thousands of important buildings, many beautiful, including the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland, the University of Texas Tower and a reconstructed French Market in New Orleans....