Key Stakeholder: The Baby Boom

I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel, folks. Talk of infrastructure is dormant at the moment, with the media coverage focusing on QEII's iPod. It's looking more like the Sudeikas-Armisen Act (a.k.a. Obama's second infrastructure package, the one with High-Speed Rail, a mass transit bailout and more funding for NEW road/bridge projects) is not going to even brought up due to a lack of political capital stemming from the worries of men like Evan Bayh. The transit news is more regional right now--for example, the Los Angeles County MTA has decided a route for the Expo Line--with a view towards 2030, when I'll be 41. Due to those limitations, I am going to "freebase" on a key stakeholder in the infrastructure debate--the Baby Boom. The political culture and the aging of the Baby Boom affects many disparate policies in this country, infrastructure chief among them. The Baby Boom grew up in the 1950s and 60s, at a time when cities were ripping up their streetcar lines and not replacing them with efficient busings. Couple that with the White Flight occuring in the 1960s, and you get a disdain for mass transit (The man pictured at right has riden mass transit in his hometown on a handful of times). It's unlikely that we will get substantially better mass transit in cities like Los Angeles and Atlanta until the Baby Boom changes its attitude about riding it...perhaps coming at a time when a large percentage of dah boom is unable to drive from cataracts/fat around the eyes.

Thank you to Jeremiah Axelrod and Mike Shedlock