I came across this YouTube video from Patrick Schwerdtfeger which highlights one important factor of infrastructure- Age:
For me, the take-home messages were-
Another example from a few days back which highlights the importance of the need of regularly upgrading infrastructure was the termination of the telegraph service by the Government of India. I was home at the time and didn't give it much thought but now that I reconsider the event, I think that telegraph about 20 years ago was as important to people as email is to us now. Though people might have sentiments attached to them but society has to move on- using telegram as a means of communication today simply seems ludicrous.
Another aspect of the 'age' dimension would be being too futuristic. As an example, maybe 10 years from now 3-D printing might be available at every nook and corner just like a photostat machine. But investing in it today may not actually bear fruit. A real example is that of Facebook's mobile app- they banked heavily on HTML5 but a low adoption rate by browsers and operating systems lead to poor user experience (one might say that the technical community was just not ready for it at that time even though they might be today).
This is like building a high capacity highway to an area which has not yet started developing.
Thus, I would like to add a 7th dimension to our list of characteristics of a good infrastructure project- 'relevance over time'. Even a project that is not relevant may be made for public use, may lead to economic development in the future, may provide services, may serve as a network on which other services may be integrated and may even lead to lifestyle optimization in the future but unless it is immediately relevant, it will end up being of little use.
For me, the take-home messages were-
- 'New Infrastructure lubricates the wheels of business'
- 'Think bigger about your business, think bigger about your life', 'Bank on countries investing heavily in infrastructure'- Other factors being constant, it would be better to bank on the growth of countries that are investing in new infrastructure. This was also supported by the following GDP comparison between India and China on equitymaster.com. Though India and China had similar growth rates in the 90s, China has been one of the leading investor in infrastructure ever since. Here are some of its futuristic projects.
- Aging infrastructure can not only stagnate but even slow down business and reduces GDP.
Another example from a few days back which highlights the importance of the need of regularly upgrading infrastructure was the termination of the telegraph service by the Government of India. I was home at the time and didn't give it much thought but now that I reconsider the event, I think that telegraph about 20 years ago was as important to people as email is to us now. Though people might have sentiments attached to them but society has to move on- using telegram as a means of communication today simply seems ludicrous.
Another aspect of the 'age' dimension would be being too futuristic. As an example, maybe 10 years from now 3-D printing might be available at every nook and corner just like a photostat machine. But investing in it today may not actually bear fruit. A real example is that of Facebook's mobile app- they banked heavily on HTML5 but a low adoption rate by browsers and operating systems lead to poor user experience (one might say that the technical community was just not ready for it at that time even though they might be today).
This is like building a high capacity highway to an area which has not yet started developing.
Thus, I would like to add a 7th dimension to our list of characteristics of a good infrastructure project- 'relevance over time'. Even a project that is not relevant may be made for public use, may lead to economic development in the future, may provide services, may serve as a network on which other services may be integrated and may even lead to lifestyle optimization in the future but unless it is immediately relevant, it will end up being of little use.
1 comment:
Nice point about the telegram. The fact that it's been around this long makes it quite clear that we've not been planning out our infrastructure development well enough. It should have been phased out a long time ago.
More than "relevance over time", I think we should call your 7th dimension "infrastructure longevity", which is how long the asset is going to remain valuable. An example of this would be the MRTS becoming practically obsolete once the metro is fully operational in Chennai.
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