OVERVIEW

The energy crisis of 2001 taught California a tough lesson – infrastructure systems are critical to a healthy economy and failure of these systems can have a devastating impact on businesses and citizens. Unfortunately, it is not just the State’s energy systems that are in crisis. Recently, the Governor’s Commission on Building for the 21st Century suggested that California faces a severe infrastructure deficit. The Commission reports estimates that the State suffers from an $82 billion shortage in infrastructure investment.

The quality of life for California’s current population and its future generations depends upon our ability to compete for business and jobs on a global basis, and we need to identify what best supports California growth. Clearly, California must avoid these crises of infrastructure provision to allow for continued growth and development. What was truly surprising about the energy crisis was that it was a surprise at all. A look at the data for 1999 and 2000 shows that the mismatch between electricity demand and generating capacity was obvious. Thus, the need for timely, credible, unbiased and accurate information about California infrastructure has never been more apparent.

With the support of a generous grant from Sempra Energy, the UCLA Anderson Forecast has launched the California Infrastructure Project to examine this issue. Specifically, the California Infrastructure Project will serve as a research and study project that seeks to uncover the relationship between infrastructure systems and economic development within the State. The Project will follow a number of avenues in examining this relationship. They include the following:

• Create a California infrastructure inventory dataset. This data will allow researchers to conduct statistical analysis of the influence of infrastructure on economic development.
• Produce an annual engineering and econometric study of the current adequacy of the various aspects of California’s infrastructure systems.
• Deliver an annual Infrastructure Conference that will serve as an opportunity to release the inventory and annual survey in concert with the quarterly Anderson Economic Forecast for the Nation, State, and Los Angeles. The conference will also function as a forum for policymakers, providers, businesses, academics, and the media to come together and discuss pressing infrastructure issues.
• Produce a working paper series that highlights progress made in infrastructure research.
• Provide a web-based resource that will allow members of the various interest groups concerned with infrastructure issues to communicate and access a broad and coherent set of resources related to infrastructure policy, provision and data.

We hope that this research project will contribute to a deep understanding of the infrastructure – economy relationship, and that it will help California to recognize and respond to infrastructure needs before they become crises.