Public Works and Water Supply Construction

Abstract

Long before the present depression some thoughtful workers in the engineering field had commented upon the fact that there was little, if any, evidence of conscious planning both as to time and amount of desirable public works. It has been almost universally true in the past that large expansions of public work have taken place during periods of prosperity with enormous retrenchment during periods of depression. This cycle of events has ordinarily been assumed to be due either to chance or to lack of foresight and hence certainly unwise. It is important to note, however, that this has been only an assumption, because upon this assumption rests the conclusion most frequently presented today that this cycle should be artificially adjusted so that large public works construction could be increased during depression and decreased during prosperity. In other words, most of the recent emphasis has been on adjusting past procedure so that public work might take up the slack during the collapse of private industry, permitting private industry to resume its function more completely during periods of prosperity. In view of this and other assumptions, it is time that we review critically the three major aspects of a public works program in order to determine what our position in the determination of such a program should be. In such a critical review several of the problems are susceptible to quantitative measurement. Others, unfortunately, can be evaluated only upon the basis of judgment, emotion, or wish fulfillment. These latter evaluations, again, are by far the most important and are the least likely to be objectively reviewed. The problems concerning us may be approximately limited to three : 1. What is the amount of public work necessary during a given time?