<\/a>This week, NIMBY [\u201cnot in my back yard\u201d] became LIMBY [\u201cliterally in my back yard\u201d] when bucket trucks, backhoes, stump grinders, wood chippers and men in hard hats wielding chainsaws converged on the utility easement behind my house in suburban St. Louis. All week, I\u2019ve been watching them clear-cut what has been, for nearly 40 years, the natural buffer that screened my house from my neighbors\u2014and them from me. The work starts at 8 am, and the noise, accompanied by an intermittent snowfall of sawdust, continues until 4 pm. They\u2019re turning the eastern boundary of my once park-like yard into a bare-earth wasteland.<\/p>\n

So, why am I smiling?<\/p>\n

What they\u2019re doing is one small part of a giant [$1 billion, I\u2019m told] stormwater\/sanitary sewer remediation project. All of the cutting and clearing is prep work for replacing the sanitary sewer line that runs through a creek just inside my property line. Over the years, upstream development and its accompanying impermeable surfaces have sent an increasing volume of water rushing through the creek, transforming the flow from a trickle to a tsunami. The stream bed has transformed from something my kids could jump over on their walk to school into a dangerous, 20-foot-wide gulley.<\/p>\n

So\u2014full disclosure\u2014I have a selfish motive to like this project. I\u2019ve hoped for\u2014and lobbied for\u2014enclosing the stormwater creek for years, mostly as a way of correcting the growing safety hazard that the creek has become. But there\u2019s more to my tolerance of the noise, the mess, and the destruction of greenery.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The project in my back yard is just one small example of a priority that is too often ignored. It\u2019s a lot more fun to use tax money to fund a new sports stadium, while ignoring the hundred-year-old power grid that keeps the lights on during football games. We\u2019d rather give tax credits to a Wal-Mart than fix the aging sewer pipes and water mains running under it. We blithely drive huge, expensive SUV\u2019s over bridges awaiting funding for repairs that never come.<\/p>\n

Okay, I admit it: I\u2019m a nerd for infrastructure. As a kid, I didn\u2019t play with trucks or obsess over construction projects. But as an adult, I\u2019ve learned that what lies beneath is just as important as the superficial, cosmetic projects that dominate the physical and political landscape of 21st Century America.<\/p>\n

Some people contend that America\u2019s \u201cjob creators\u201d are the corporate executives who sit behind desks monitoring the value of their stock options. I disagree. There are thousands of jobs waiting to be created\u2014not in corporate boardrooms, but under our streets, on our bridges and in places like my back yard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, NIMBY [\u201cnot in my back yard\u201d] became LIMBY [\u201cliterally in my back yard\u201d] when bucket trucks, backhoes, stump grinders, wood chippers and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[869,128,47],"tags":[2487,1746],"yoast_head":"\n