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What we need is a Maintain America Movement

In the US and other industrialized nations and in those countries that seek to emulate and even compete with us old pros, the concept of growth is largely a vertical construct. We grow up, capital investment has decreased, our economy shows an upward trend, new housing starts are down, high stakes testing scores are on the rise, profits are down, there is an up-tic in the rate of unemployment, the markets are down; you get the picture.

The vertical growth model implies positive potential but it is extremely limited in its ability to accommodate change. Why? Because change isn't vertical. It isn't horizontal. It's not even oblique. Change just is. Moreover, change is active and dynamic.

The Minneapolis, MN bridge collapse in the summer of 2007 is the perfect metaphor for the limitations of the vertical growth construct. When cars first drove I-35W and crossed the Mississippi both the highway and bridge were new. However pleasant though, the Interstate Highway System was not created to make driving easier for the common motorist. It was designed in large part for Cold War escape routes and military force movements; some stretches were deliberately laid down on very long flat portions of the landscape to accommodate aircraft take offs and landings. Despite the angst that funded this new nationwide web of concrete, it was a testament to our greatness.

What happens though when the newness wears off? You know the answer: we forget about it, ignore it, discard it, or let it go to seed. Like children, we love all that is bright, shiny and new. That's what happened in Minneapolis on the I-35W Bridge.

There are warnings out everywhere on the state of the infrastructure in every country, not just bridges but highways, tunnels, sewers, water systems, the thousands and thousands of miles of underground pipelines, mines, canals, and even the state of an inhabitable Earth. In response to these warnings we hear people, agencies, organizations, businesses and governments everywhere say, "We just don't have the money " But we do find the money ... for "new" projects or expenditures that are perhaps more "sexy", "fun", "exciting", and rife with "signatures of increased growth".

We have the money. The problem is we just don't want to set mature priorities. Vertical has very specific limits. And, vertical always implies the probability, even the inevitability, of collapse.

There is another more sustainable model: The lateral growth model. You

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