State of public infrastructure today and motivations for developing InfraInput.org

1. InfraInput.org
BGSA Brown Bag Series
September 27, 2011
Parfait Gasana,
MS in Economics
pgasana2@illinois.edu

2. Public Infrastructure
• Def. - the wide array of assets and facilities that
enable the functioning of a society and economy
– All installations that house, transport, transmit, and distribute
people, goods, energy, resources, services, and information
• Public goods managed by government bodies
– Externality and spillover traits and non-exclusionary/non-rival in
consumption

3. Aging System
• Policy of new construction over maintenance
• Industry practice of segmented life cycle
(Design-Bid-Build method)
• Lack of performance measurement, inventory
data, and infrastructure management system

4. Why InfraInput?
• To start conversation on public works issues
• Local citizens as stakeholder (user and owner)
• Inefficient political process (i.e., lobbying,
earmarks)
• Needed coordination of agencies, policymakers,
builders/contractors, engineers, & citizens)

5. Website Development
• Literature reading on infrastructure
• Wikipedia articles (public capital, metropolitan
economy, public infrastructure sidebar & portal)
• Microsoft Access database (tables and forms)
• Online interface (html & php coding, mysql database)
– BlueHost webhost/server and domain account, FileZilla FTP
client, PhpAdmin, Apache

6. Website Features
• Simple website/minimalist design
– Function > Design (i.e., craigslist.com, google.com)
• Fifteen user forms and database output tables
• Includes other pages: About, Contact, Form
Directions, Form Guidelines

7. Site Concerns
• Complaint site against companies
• Security/Hacking
• Fraudulent entries
• Publicity/Word of mouth
– Champaign/Urbana, IL beta launch

8. Future Enhancements
• User accounts (sign-in/log-in)
• Pagination of output tables
• Excel, PDF, CSV, Print-out plug-ins
• Query page for searches by area, issue, etc.
• Comments section for interaction
• Ideas ???