Who Actually Builds Your City
When a new road is built, a bridge is repaired, or a city expands public transportation, it is easy
to assume that Washington made the decision. Presidents talk about infrastructure, Congress
passes large transportation bills, and the U.S. Department of Transportation announces billions of
dollars in funding. This can make it seem as though the federal government decides what
communities need and then builds it.
In reality, infrastructure in the United States usually works through a partnership between
federal, state, and local governments. The federal government provides much of the funding, but
states and cities make many of the decisions about where that money goes and what actually gets
built.
Understanding that system matters because it reveals something easy to miss: many
infrastructure decisions are made close enough to home for ordinary residents to influence them.
How the Money Actually Moves
The process often begins with Congress, which passes transportation bills that provide funding
for several years at a time. The FAST Act, signed into law in 2015, authorized about $305 billion
for transportation programs from 2016 through 2020. By providing several years of funding at
once, the law gave states and cities more certainty as they planned future projects.
Congress, however, does not choose every road, bridge, or bus project in the country. Federal
money moves through programs that give state and local governments a major role in deciding
how it is used.
State transportation departments help select and manage projects that receive federal support,
while cities and local agencies then deal with many of the questions that are specific to a
community: Which road needs to be repaired first? Where should a bus route expand? How will
a project affect nearby businesses or neighborhoods?
The closer a project gets to construction, the more local these questions become, and that is also
where residents can enter the process.
Public participation is built into transportation planning. Residents can attend public meetings,
respond to surveys, submit comments, and contact local officials. They do not need to be
transportation experts to contribute useful information. A parent may know that children cannot
safely walk across a certain intersection, while a worker may know that a bus schedule makes it
impossible to reach a night shift.
Government agencies have technical data, but residents understand how infrastructure works in
their daily lives. Local planning works best when officials have access to both.
Columbus and the Smart City Challenge
Columbus actually shows how this relationship can work.
In 2015, the U.S. Department of Transportation created the Smart City Challenge under
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. Instead of telling cities what to build, the federal
government asked them to identify their own transportation problems and propose ways to solve
them using technology and data.
Seventy-eight cities applied, seven became finalists, and Columbus ultimately won.
The city received up to $40 million from the Department of Transportation and another $10
million from Vulcan Inc., along with about $90 million in additional commitments from other
partners.
What made the program important was not simply the amount of money involved. Washington
provided the funding, but Columbus had to decide what problems were worth solving.
Its proposal focused on issues such as access to jobs, reliable transportation, and health care. In
developing the plan, the city worked with residents, local leaders, and other community groups
to understand where transportation gaps existed.
The Smart City Challenge therefore offers a useful example of the different roles governments
can play. The federal government had the money and the ability to encourage innovation on a
national scale. Columbus had something Washington could not have in the same way: detailed
knowledge of its own needs.
Competitive grants like this allow the federal government to provide an incentive without
assuming that every city has the same problems or needs the same solution.
Why Local Leadership Matters
Anthony Foxx understood this difference before he became U.S. Secretary of Transportation. He
served as mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, from 2009 to 2013, where he confronted a city that
was growing but not evenly.
A city budget from Foxx's time noted that approximately half of Charlotte's property-tax base
was concentrated in the city's southern wedge. For local leaders, the question was therefore not
simply whether Charlotte was becoming wealthier, but whether different parts of the city were
sharing in that growth.
Transportation can influence that balance. A new transit line can connect workers to jobs. Better
roads can make an area easier for businesses to reach. Sidewalks and safer streets can connect
neighborhoods to schools, stores, and other parts of a city.
Foxx also had a personal understanding of these effects. He grew up in a Charlotte neighborhood
that had been divided by major highway construction, an experience he later connected to his
views on transportation and access.
These examples show why local leadership matters. National officials can see broad trends, but
mayors, city councils, and residents can often see how a policy affects one neighborhood
differently from another.
Even after federal funding arrives, those local decisions continue. Plans have to be approved,
contractors have to be selected, and community concerns have to be addressed. A federal grant
may make a project possible, but it does not decide every detail of what eventually gets built.
Where Citizens and Residents Fit In
Many people pay close attention to presidential elections while knowing much less about their
city council, mayor, or local transportation agencies. Yet these institutions often make decisions
that people experience every day, from the condition of a street to the location of a bus stop.
For immigrants learning how government works in the United States, this system can be
especially confusing. Federal agencies, states, counties, cities, and regional organizations all
have different responsibilities, and trying to understand the entire structure at once can be .
A better place to start is with one question: Who is responsible for this decision?
If a road in your neighborhood is being redesigned, find out which agency is managing the
project. From there, you can look for public meetings, comment periods, or the elected officials
who represent your area. Participation might mean attending a meeting, sending an email, filling
out a survey, following local news, or working with a community organization.
These steps are particularly important for immigrant communities, which may face language
barriers or have less familiarity with local government. Community organizations can help
residents understand proposals, communicate with public officials, and make sure their concerns
are heard.
Of course, participating does not mean that government will always make the decision you want.
Public officials have to balance costs, safety, competing priorities, and the views of many
residents. However, people cannot influence a process they do not know exists.
That may be the most important lesson of how infrastructure works in the United States.
Washington can pass a bill worth hundreds of billions of dollars, but eventually that money
becomes something much smaller and more familiar: the road outside your house, the bus you
take to work, or the sidewalk your child uses to get to school.
At that point, the most useful question is no longer simply, “What is the government doing?”
It is “Who is making this decision, and how can I make my voice heard?”