Infrastructure Research

Contributed by Claire Kelly

Explanation of source links: Throughout the research below, you will find links of three types. The first and most frequent type is to primary sources such as governmental agencies. The second is to nonprofit groups that generally use government data or their own research to support their philanthropic mission. We have tried to use the least biased of these, or when in doubt, we have identified their bias. The third is to articles in periodicals or newspapers that we find to be of interest. These are not meant to be construed as original sources, and in some cases may not be accessible, depending on a reader's frequency of prior visits to the linked periodical or newspaper.

WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF INFRASTRUCTURE?

Infrastructure is commonly defined as the physical systems that underlie the operation of a society and “enable, sustain or enhance societal living conditions.” Applied to a nation, infrastructure includes the systems of transportation, communication, sewage, water, and electricity. This includes both public works such as roads, water, and sewage systems and private works such as information and communication networks.

WHY IS INFRASTRUCTURE IMPORTANT?

Fragile Foundations: A Report on America’s Public Works, which established the use of a grading system to evaluate the country’s infrastructure status, stated that “the quality of a nation’s infrastructure is a critical index of its economic vitality. Reliable transportation, clean water, and safe disposal of wastes are basic elements of civilized society and a productive economy. Their absence or failure introduces an intolerable dimension of risk and hardship to everyday life, and a major obstacle to growth and competitiveness.”

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) 2017 report on the state of US infrastructure, “Infrastructure is the backbone of the U.S. economy and is a necessary input to every economic output. It is critical to every nation’s prosperity and the public’s health and welfare. Each Failure to Act study demonstrates that deteriorating infrastructure, long known to be a public safety issue, has a cascading impact on our nation’s economy, impacting business productivity, gross domestic product (GDP), employment, personal income, and international competitiveness.”

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR US INFRASTRUCTURE?

In the US, the private sector is the largest contributor to infrastructure, owning approximately $40.7 trillion of net fixed assets. This is four times the size of state and local government assets and 27 times larger than federal assets.

The cost of public infrastructure is shared by federal, state, and local governments, but the majority of spending comes from state and local governments. State and local governments own over 90% of non-defense public infrastructure assets, and they account for 77.7% of public infrastructure spending. States own most transportation, water, and sewer system infrastructure, while the federal government owns intellectual property (R&D assets) and park infrastructure.

Despite the importance of the private sector, many of the key moments in US infrastructural history have been supported by substantial federal investment. Public investment in infrastructure can be a catalyst for private investment, and federal regulations influence state, local, and private investment.

WHAT ARE THE KEY MOMENTS IN THE HISTORY OF US INFRASTRUCTURE?

Energy Infrastructure: The development of a national grid established a system of electrical transmission that powers nearly every aspect of our society. The grid was initially designed as a centralized, hierarchical system that clearly defined producers (power plants) and consumers separately, and is now three interconnected grids branching out across the country and into parts of Canada and Mexico. In 2003, the Office of Electric Transmission and Distribution (TD) and the Office of Energy Assurance (EA) were created by the Department of Energy (DoE), and later merged into the Office of Electricity.

The Federal Power Commission was established in 1920, creating a federal role in the regulation of hydroelectric power production. While most dams were and continue to be owned and operated by the private sector, during the New Deal the federal government took the lead in creating the largest dams in the US, such as the Hoover, Bonneville, and Grand Coulee.

US oil production has risen sharply since the early 2000s, as charted by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (Jan 2020).

Transport of this oil has required the construction of approximately 76,000 miles of crude oil pipelines. A third of these were constructed before 1960.

Transportation Infrastructure: In the early nineteenth century, the New York legislature authorized the funding and construction of the 364-mile Erie Canal. Its success launched a boom in public and private canal construction partnerships. Although the effort was initially led by the states, ultimately the federal government participated by providing land grants and subscribing to canal company stock offerings.

In the 1840s, Congress undertook the planning for the completion of the transcontinental railroad system. The Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for the initial route surveys, and in 1862 President Lincoln signed legislation providing land and financial incentives to the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroad companies to complete the project.

Our interstate highway system was inspired by the Reichsautobahnen, Germany’s high-speed road network. Under the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, $26 billion was authorized to construct over 41,000 miles of interstate highways. Ninety percent of the funds came from the federal government, and the other 10% came from state governments. New taxes on gasoline, buses, tires, and trucks went toward a Highway Trust Fund to pay for this construction and future maintenance. Construction of the interstate was a bipartisan effort that extended from the Kennedy to the Carter presidencies.

Information and Communications (ICT) Infrastructure: In 1934, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was created pursuant to the Communications Act in order to organize and regulate communications by phone, telegraph, and radio. Beginning in the late 1960s, the networks that became the modern internet were largely sponsored by federal funding and developed by government agencies (Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, and NASA). A 1994 report on ERIC Digest advocated for the necessity of government financial support and R&D to support the “burgeoning infrastructure” of the internet, saying that “the potential of global networking to test the very fabric of society [has] become more evident” (Bishop, 1993).   

WHAT IS THE STATE OF CURRENT US INFRASTRUCTURE?

There are three principal organizations that evaluate the state of US infrastructure. The first is the National Council on Public Works Improvement (NCPWI), which was established pursuant to the Public Works Improvement Act of 1984. Consisting of five members appointed by the president and the Congress, the council is charged with providing an annual report on the state of American infrastructure.

The second is the ASCE, a civil engineering professional society founded in 1852, and representing 150,000 members in 177 countries.

The third is the World Economic Forum (WEF). The WEF was founded in 1971 as a nonprofit foundation and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It is independent, “impartial, and not tied to any special interests.” The mission of the WEF is to “engage the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.” The WEF published a Global Competitiveness Report 2019, in which it provided competitiveness ratings for 141 countries. Competitiveness in this context refers to the capacity of a country to compete, innovate, and grow into the future.

Both the NCPWI and ASCE have routinely found that the state of US infrastructure is poor, assigning it a “D” average grade since the 1980s. The most recent was a “D+” in ASCE’s 2017 Failure to Act report.

Although the US ranks second in overall competitiveness (behind Singapore) according to the WEF, it ranks only 13th in infrastructure. Specifically, the various categories that contribute to the ranking are as follows:

The Grid: The ASCE rated the US power grid a “D+” and observed that “a large portion of the system [exhibits] significant deterioration” and there is a “strong risk of failure.” According to Gretchen Bakke in her book “The Grid,” “Significant” power outages have climbed from 15 in 2001 to 307 in 2011. Over 70% of the country’s lines and transformers are more than 25 years old, and power plants are an average of 38.5 years old. Similarly, 60% of people in charge of running the grid are within five years of retirement. As noted in the table above, the WEF ranked the US utility infrastructure 23rd in the world.

Electricity is produced as it is used, and fluctuations in usage force utilities to continuously manage production, routing electricity to open “sinks.” Smart meters help by closely monitoring demand, yet, according to Peter Asmus, our system relies on twice as many power plants as we need due to inefficiencies.

The US grid is also unequipped to deal with the growing importance of renewable energy generation, as it was designed to accommodate large, consistent sources of electricity such as that provided by coal and natural gas plants. In the first eight months of 2019, however, renewables accounted for 18.49% of US electrical generation. The 10-year change in energy sources as monitored by the EIA is as follows:

The “variable generation” produced by renewable power plants depends on the source (such as wind, sun, or water), as opposed to oil, gas, and coal plants that can be controlled. Furthermore, peak production in places such as the Columbia River Gorge where there are thousands of wind turbines can exceed the capacity of our infrastructure, requiring these plants to shut down during some conditions. As a result, the grid will require a significant redesign in order to accommodate the shift to renewables necessitated by climate change.

Transportation: The US has more than 4 million miles of roads and bridges. In 2018, 65% of highways were in “less than good” condition, and a quarter of bridges needed significant repair, with an estimated $836 billion in unmet capital and investment needs. Despite this and the fact that public transportation is safer, cheaper, and reduces emissions, US transportation relies heavily on car ownership. Seventy-six percent of US commuters drive their own cars, and 45% of Americans have no access to public transportation. The WEF ranked US transportation infrastructure 12th in the world.

Waterway and Buried Infrastructure: The treatment and distribution of water and wastewater in the US is highly decentralized and local in nature, with approximately 156,000 public water systems in existence. Many of these systems are now approaching 50 years in age, have been challenged by growing populations, and have not been able to keep up with growing public health and environmental standards. Parts of the water supply system in New York City have never been emptied for inspection because they have operated at full capacity since their installation. By 2025, 70% of our 90,000 dams will exceed a dam’s average life expectancy of 50 years. The ASCE estimates the total funding gap between now and 2040 at $152 billion, while the EPA estimates that upgrading our water distribution systems will take a decade and cost $200 billion.

WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF OUR DETERIORATING INFRASTRUCTURE?

Financial: Lack of infrastructure investment leads to deteriorating transportation, water, grid, and other systems and “effectively clips [an] economy’s wings” according to S&P Global.

In their 2017 Failure to Act report, the ASCE estimated that our increasingly dilapidated infrastructure could cost each household $3,400 per year in disposable income. By their calculations, if the infrastructure investment gap is not addressed by 2025, the expected impact on the US GDP could total almost $4 trillion and result in a loss of 2.5 million jobs. To close this gap, an additional $2.1 trillion would have to be invested between 2016 and 2025.

We lose an average of seven billion gallons (about 16%) of our clean drinking water to leaks every day. Buried infrastructure can be a century old, and an average of 650 water mains fail every day. A 2010 explosion in San Bruno, California, that destroyed a dozen homes and killed eight people was the result of increased pipeline pressure caused by growing demand on a pipeline installed in 1956. Pacific Gas and Electric, the owner of the pipeline, was fined $1.6 billion for violating safety standards. The lead pollution crisis in Flint, Michigan, was precipitated in part by the city’s struggle to meet high maintenance costs for aging, deteriorating water infrastructure, which led them to draw water from the local Flint River rather than from Detroit.

Power outages cost business billions in lost productivity. As an example, the 2003 East Coast Blackout cost the businesses affected $6 billion, equal to $60,000/hour per business.

Outdated surface transportation is costly in terms of the productivity lost due to daily congestion. In 2014, 6.9 billion vehicle-hours of delay were caused by congestion across 470 urban areas, with projections of a 20% rise by 2020. In 2016, surface transportation delays cost an estimated $36 billion in productivity loss. When vehicle operating, safety, and environmental costs are included, the total reaches nearly $147 billion.

Infrastructure and Climate: Increases in catastrophic events across the world have posed serious challenges to infrastructure. Wildfires in California have increased fivefold since 1972, with part of the blame falling on outdated electrical utility equipment. In October of 2019, Pacific Gas & Electric—which had been implicated in one of the state’s deadliest fires—chose to cut electric supply across large areas of northern California due to forecasts of strong winds after a dry summer and fall, leaving more than two million people without power.

Increasingly fluctuating temperatures reduce the lifespan of asphalt, add stress to expansion joints on bridges, and cause buckling of railways. Rising sea levels will expand New York’s 100-year floodplain (the land predicted to flood during a 100-year storm), putting a majority of the city’s transportation infrastructure at risk of storm surge. A projected 20% of lower Manhattan could be subject to daily tidal inundation by 2100, putting $4 billion in property value at risk.

Over 85% of the country’s 100,000 miles of levees are privately owned without a standardized system for monitoring reliability. Many are a half-century old and protect large residential developments. After Hurricane Katrina’s catastrophic flooding, $14 billion was invested in levees and floodwalls in greater New Orleans. In 2019, the Army Corps of Engineers reported that these will only provide adequate protection for another four years due to rising sea levels and the levees’ natural settling.

Security: Our grid’s age and dilapidation make it vulnerable to the risk of cyberattacks. In the spring of 2019, the first disruptive cyberattack on the Department of Energy was reported. In January 2019, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testified that adversaries—particularly China and Russia—were capable of utilizing cyber capabilities to attack the grid and to conduct espionage. Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff views the grid’s vulnerability as a “real national security issue,” stating that “power and energy is the core of almost everything we do.” A Critical Infrastructure Protection report from the US Government Accountability Office outlined the actions needed to “Address Significant Cybersecurity Risks Facing the Electric Grid.” They found that other nations, terrorists, and criminal groups are increasingly capable of exploiting the vulnerabilities of our grid. The growing utilization of smart meters as part of the grid augments this threat.

ARE WE INVESTING SUFFICIENTLY IN INFRASTRUCTURE?

No. As a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), public infrastructure spending has decreased from 2.5% in 1967 to 1.3% today. As maintenance requirements grow for our aging systems, spending on infrastructure operations and maintenance has risen (by 9.5% over the past decade), while capital projects (building new systems or making significant upgrades) dropped by 16%, as illustrated below from the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program’s report, “Shifting into an Era of Repair: US Infrastructure Spending Trends.” 

President Obama included $105 billion in infrastructure investment in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, a stimulus spending program undertaken as a catalyst for economic growth. According to Jeffrey Sachs, the spending produced “few, if any” lasting results. According to Harvard Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter in her book, Move, most of the funds were directed toward labor-intensive public work projects to primarily “repair and renew” rather than “reinvent”. Since ARRA, public bus and rail transportation investment has increased due to maintenance spending, but capital investment has dropped.

According to the ASCE 2017 Failure to Act report, total infrastructure spending is projected to fall $5.2 trillion short by 2040, as follows:

HOW DOES OUR SPENDING COMPARE WITH OTHER DEVELOPED NATIONS?

Infrastructure investment as a share of GDP has declined in 11 of the G20 economies since the global financial crisis. Despite that, the US ranks 12th in infrastructure spending as a percentage of GDP, indicated by the WEF in their recent study entitled “The World Is Facing a $15 Trillion Infrastructure Gap by 2040. Here’s How to Bridge It.” Several European countries spend as much as 5% of GDP on infrastructure, and the result is superior systems in several categories.

HOW DOES OUR INFRASTRUCTURE COMPARE GENERALLY TO THE REST OF THE WORLD?

As noted previously, America is ranked 13th in infrastructure according to the WEF’s Global Competitiveness Report, behind countries including Japan, Spain, and France, as illustrated by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation below.

Energy and Power: America has the highest number of outage minutes of any developed nation. (A 2011 analysis by Massoud Amin, then director of the Technological Leadership Institute at the University of Minnesota, found that Japanese customers lost power for an average of 4 minutes a year, while those in the US Northeast lost power for an average of 214 minutes.

Roughly half of US customers have advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), but deployments have slowed as utilities approach market penetration limits. In the EU, Member States are obligated to ensure 80% of consumers have intelligent electricity metering systems (the AMI equivalent) by 2024. In Great Britain, the Smart Metering Implementation Programme has overseen the upgrade of over 16.6 million electricity and gas meters from traditional analog, driven by the government’s aims to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. The program is estimated to result in a total of £5.6 billion of savings for customers and a reduction in carbon emissions by 45 million tonnes.

Transportation: In the WEF’s 2019 GCR, the United States dropped to 17th place from 10th in 2018 in quality of roads, behind Japan, Spain and Austria. US cities are ranked below international metros including Madrid, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Vienna for internal transportation. European suburbs were designed around train and metro stations, while US suburbs were built along highways. Paris’s RER rail network (built to connect the city’s fragmented suburbs) moves more people annually than all US commuter railways combined. Canada, more geographically analogous to the US than Europe, has also successfully implemented internal transportation in cities. Of the North American metros analyzed, only Canadian metros and New York increased ridership (in a range of 5-46%) between 2012 and 2017, while the other 13 metros showed a decrease.

High-speed rail (HSR) is an efficient transportation option that reduces congestion and oil consumption. Though a number of state and federal proposals have included HSR funding, the US currently does not have a single mile by some definitions (trains with speeds that start between 120-155 mph and can be sustained). America’s fastest train, Amtrak’s Acela Express, reaches a top speed of 150 mph in one section, but averages only 68 mph. Globally, Japan’s Shinkansen HSR trains regularly run up to 200 mph, France has the TGV, Spain has the AVE, and China has more HSR than the rest of the world combined. The Shanghai Maglev reaches speeds of 267 mph.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Adoption and Security: Korea, China, and Russia lead in the adoption of ICT, posing cybersecurity threats to the US as they become increasingly capable of accessing our energy control and information systems. Over 54% of responders to a survey of electric utilities around the world were expecting an attack on critical infrastructure within a year. The encompassing report recommended that in order to respond to these threats, the countries must keep up with their adversaries’ technologies and attack modes and utilize AI and big data to enable detection of these attacks. Further, plans for response to successful cyberattacks should be established, which 35% of respondents reported their organization did not have. The average response time to past malware attacks was reported to be 72 days after an outage.

Resilience: The resilience of infrastructure is the measure of the ability to respond to and recover from disruptive events such as natural hazards and cyber risks. On the FM Global Resilience Index, the US falls behind a number of European countries including Switzerland, Germany, Norway and Finland. Cybersecurity is considered a key aspect of resilience. In their efforts to protect against cyberattacks, several developed countries have improved their position from the year before on the ranking of inherent cyber risk. Germany rose 24 places (to 54th), France rose 12 (to 89th), and the US rose 9 (to 32nd).

HOW CAN A MODERN INFRASTRUCTURE BE ACHIEVED?

The 1988 Fragile Foundations report called for government, private industry, and the public to make a national commitment to “vastly improve America’s Infrastructure,” and stated that the problems could not be solved through a crash program and that a sustained effort was needed. The same is needed now, beginning with increased investment.

For every $1 invested in infrastructure, as much as $3 in economic activity is estimated to be created, a much more efficient fiscal stimulus than almost any form of tax cut. As shown below from the Economic Policy Institute’s report The Potential Macroeconomic Benefits from Increasing Infrastructure Investment, studies frequently find that infrastructure investment yields high rates of return. Further, studies have found that public capital investment yields a higher rate of return than private (S&P Global, 2019).

Our infrastructure spending has fallen despite the breadth of research illustrating the economic benefit of infrastructure investment, and a number of attempts by politicians to implement programs that do so. President Trump has repeatedly advocated for investment in US infrastructure and had pursued a bipartisan $2 trillion infrastructure plan with leading Democrats before negotiations halted due to other political tensions. The lack of progress in Congress, according to Brian Pallasch from the ASCE, is in part because of our “broken” budget process. Pallasch and a coalition of government affairs professionals outlined five steps to creating a better budget process.

Multiple sources for these funds have been proposed. The Highway Trust Fund (HTF) gas tax, which funded the interstate system, has been fixed without adjustment for inflation since 1993, resulting in a 40% decline in purchasing power as illustrated by the graph below.

Some propose raising this tax and directing the funds toward infrastructure. Trump’s $200 billion infrastructure plan aims to use direct government spending to stimulate $1.5 trillion from private industry and state and local governments. His consideration of a gas tax increase has been met with some backlash. Arguments against one include that gas taxes can impact those with lower incomes disproportionately. Yet the CBO estimated that without an increase the HTF will reach a $174 cash deficit by 2025.

Today, the UN’s three core strategies for mobilizing infrastructural change (according to their Bridging Global Infrastructure Gaps report) are making the most of existing infrastructure; recruiting the right talent and building the right skill sets; and investing in data, collaboration, and governance. Money from both private and public investments needs to be directed to projects that will yield stable, long-term returns.

These programs should focus on innovation of new technologies and investment in education to train a highly skilled workforce to manage the new systems. Major infrastructural revolutions historically require a much longer schedule for implementation, but the significance of the need should stimulate new strategies for accelerated change and development. This project would need to consider also that disruptive technologies will change infrastructure needs “in ways we cannot yet quantify.” The disruption of coal and fuel industries will substantially shake current economic systems, including patterns and volumes of bulk freight traffic.

COUNTRIES THAT SET AN EXAMPLE

As noted above, several countries spend considerably more than the US does on infrastructure, as measured by percentage of GDP. Also, as discussed elsewhere (see Defense Policy and Social Welfare Research), the large allocation to defense spending in the US is not replicated by any other industrialized country. While dollars are fungible and no direct relationship can be proven, it is logical to assume that a reduction in military spending in the US would enable a material increase in infrastructure spending. It is also clear that spending in most industrialized countries is far more centralized than it is in the US. As noted above, the federal government, by contrast, plays a relatively small role (financially, but not in leadership and regulatorily).

China: While China’s infrastructure only ranks 36th on the Global Competitiveness Report, China spent substantially more than their estimated needs between 2016 and 2019. They also established a National Development and Reform Commission, which organizes investment priorities and financing for the country’s infrastructure and has been partially responsible for the country’s foreign investment market program. A potential side effect of their focus on infrastructure spending is that some studies have found that some of China’s infrastructure investments cost more money than they generate. One 2014 study estimated that infrastructure cost overruns accounted for a third of China’s $28.2tn national debt.

China currently has more than 20,000 km of high-speed railroad. This transport system has connected their vast country, as the US Interstate did in the 1950s, enabling cheap and efficient travel that increases productivity through employment opportunities, cheaper goods, and reduction of rural-urban inequalities. Rural populations have also benefited from residential infrastructure provision of electricity, running water, and telephone lines.

Chinese companies are also aiding other countries in development of their infrastructure. Projects across Africa and other countries such as Afghanistan provide China access to resources and diplomatic opportunities. In 2017, China funded more than 6,200 km of railways and 5,000 km of roads in Africa. The $4 billion Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway connects Africa’s fastest-growing economy, Ethiopia, to the Red Sea. These efforts in Eurasia and East Africa are known as the Belt and Road Initiative, estimated by the Center for Foreign Relations to be “one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects ever conceived,” harkening back to the original Silk Road, which connected Europe to Asia centuries ago.

France: France ranks ninth in the Global Competitiveness Report for infrastructure. In 2012, France was ranked second in Europe for high-speed rail lines, and number one for their road network. They also produce half of the CO2 emissions per capita compared to the United States. A number of regional and federal initiatives, including their Bourgogne Développement program, have advanced their generation of renewable energy. They established a goal of generating 23% of domestically consumed power from renewables by 2020, with 10% from wind power alone. They are also investing to phase out coal-fired power plants and reduce nuclear energy production—their largest energy source—by 2030. In 2013, wind-power grid connections exceeded 7,000 mW, and in 2018 alone 2,494 mW of new renewable projects reached grid connection. The government is also considering construction of a 500 mW wind farm off the coast of Dunkirk. In 2013, the country’s Network & Information Security Agency (ANSSI) formulated the first mandatory critical infrastructure cybersecurity installation and maintenance requirements in Europe, in an effort to make critical infrastructure more resilient to cyberattacks.

Germany: Germany is ranked eighth in infrastructure and number one for innovation capability, though they fall behind in ICT adoption, at 36th. While public and private agencies are jointly responsible for US infrastructure, the integrity, reliability, and accountability of German critical infrastructure (including transportation, health, water utilities, telecommunications providers, and finance and insurance firms) are the responsibility of the central government and its security agencies.

Munich has more than 500 km of subway, and the S-Bahn commuter rail and feeder buses enable transport across the city in a half hour. Denver, with a comparable population to Munich, only has 158 km of light and commuter rails and limited feeder transportation to stations. While Germany’s transit system is run by a number of different agencies, a traffic union coordinates fares and schedules so it functions as one system to users.

Germany leads the globe in solar power and has the largest installed wind power capacity in Europe; renewables account for 38% of their energy production (up from 3.2% in 1991). In the first half of 2018, renewables produced 118 billion kWh —enough to power every household in the country for a year. Energiewende, their plan for transition to a low-carbon, nuclear-free economy, aimed to reduce CO2 emissions by 40% from 1990 levels by 2020, but these goals require increased grid expansion and efficiency to accommodate this influx of power. As seen below, greenhouse gas emissions were estimated to have been reduced by 30.8% by 2018.

Onshore German wind turbines contribute the largest share of renewable energy. Because Germany has continuously modernized its grid system, the country is able to employ wind turbines with significantly greater capacity than can the US. The most common turbine in Germany is rated up to 7.5 mW, while the most common in the US are only 1.5 mW–2 mW. The development and relative scale of these turbines are illustrated in the following graphic.  

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Claire Kelly is a part time researcher for OurFutureAmerica®. She studied Neuroscience and Anthropology at Union College, before completing a post-graduate fellowship in India where she worked with a rural development social enterprise. She is interested in how people and policy can drive both domestic and international rural development.