D for Dated

Die Zeit blogger Jörg Lau got my star spangled dander up a tad today describing Boston area infrastructure — in the “power region” of MIT and Harvard even! — as laughable and amazingly unmodern . That was until I saw the the American Society of Civil Engineers has graded its current status as failing though graciously filing a grade D instead of an F, which last time I checked is the traditional grade for failure. Of course, it’s nothing $1.6 trillion can’t fix and Lord knows the US gov has money growing out its ears these days. At least America’s rail and roads are still ahead of China, right? Right? China will spend $200 billion on its railways between 2006 and 2010—the largest investment in railroad capacity made by any country since the nineteenth century—while the US rail system continues to become more and more degraded at a time of great potential renewal. The Chinese also plan over the next twelve years to construct 300,000...