Throughout American history, infrastructure investment has played a critical role in economic development; infrastructure is one of the basic building blocks of economic opportunity. Long written off by much of the national media the American Heartland of America has been displaying new signs of life. Made up of thousands of rural small towns and hundreds of second andthird tier cities scattered across America, the Heartland represents the vast regions outside themetropolitan areas. Many retain strong ties to agriculture, forestry, mining or fishing but many also have made a steady and successful diversification to globally competitive manufacturing, energyinformation and other service industries.
In this paper Delore Zimmerman (CEO Praxis and N2TEC board member) and Joel Kotkin (Senior Fellow, New America Foundation) lay out their vision of infrastructure as the new competitive imperative for realizing the full potential of the Heartland.