Todd BenDor, an assistant professor of city and regional planning at UNC and a 2009 GSK Faculty Fellow at N.C. State University's Institute for Emerging Issues, and Martin Doyle, an associate professor in the Geography Department and Institute of the Environment at UNC, have penned an very interesting editorial in the News and Observer. It concerns stimulus funding, the creation for green jobs, and environmental restoration. Check it out:
"The $787 billion federal stimulus package will help North Carolina improve its infrastructure and create jobs. And by putting the environment front and center as we build the roads, bridges and waterworks that we need, we can put even more people to work.
"North Carolina needs money for its infrastructure. The first glimpses of our 2009 infrastructure report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) are awful. Our roads get a D and our drinking water systems a C+. Even our dams receive a D, with some 22 percent of them labeled high hazard, i.e., in poor condition and located upstream of residential or commercial areas.
"Using the stimulus package to improve roads, repair bridges and reinforce levees is an absolute necessity. Better infrastructure doesn't just prevent disaster. According to White House estimates, 105,000 jobs will be created here through the stimulus package. Many of these jobs will come from new investments in public infrastructure."
Read the rest at:
http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/columns/story/1428828.html
