A Roadside View of the East

Anyone visiting the East, especially China or India, will be awestruck by the amount and size of the roadways being built. Even in India, where infrastructure development is slow, numerous highways are being built and commissioned for use.

On the other hand, WSJ has an interesting report on the conversion of some asphalt roads to gravel because the local governments are short of money. Clearly, corporate profits are booming, and quite a few folks are making a lot of money, especially the bankers. It is to be expected that a few areas will be well supported, but many parts of the country will be hard hit by lack of tax dollars. Infrastructure will be one of the casualties of this bifurcation in the USA.

Economic Crisis Forces Local Governments to Let Asphalt Roads Return to Gravel - WSJ.com:... "'When [counties] had lots of money, they paved a lot of the roads and tried to make life easier for the people who lived out here,' said Stutsman County Highway Superintendant Mike Zimmerman, sifting the dusty black rubble through his fingers. 'Now, it's catching up to them.'

Outside this speck of a town, pop. 78, a 10-mile stretch of road had deteriorated to the point that residents reported seeing ducks floating in potholes, Mr. Zimmerman said. As the road wore out, the cost of repaving became too great. Last year, the county spent $400,000 on an RM300 Caterpillar rotary mixer to grind the road up, making it look more like the old homesteader trail it once was.
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Paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue. State money for local roads was cut in many places amid budget shortfalls....

In Michigan, at least 38 of the 83 counties have converted some asphalt roads to gravel in recent years. Last year, South Dakota turned at least 100 miles of asphalt road surfaces to gravel. Counties in Alabama and Pennsylvania have begun downgrading asphalt roads to cheaper chip-and-seal road, also known as 'poor man's pavement.' Some counties in Ohio are simply letting roads erode to gravel."