Rohit Aggarwala, Columnist

Fiscal Games Can’t Hide True Cost of U.S. Roads

April 12, 2012 at 11:15 PM UTC

Rohit Aggarwala is an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and former director of long-term planning and sustainability for the City of New York.

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Last month, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel inaugurated an innovative approach to paying for public works: the , which will help arrange private-investor financing of city projects, seeded with small amounts of government capital.

The concept is not new -- several states, many foreign nations and the European Union have infrastructure banks, and a National Infrastructure Bank has been under discussion in Washington for years. But Chicago’s would be the first to operate on a municipal level, and it indicates the scale of Emanuel’s ambitions for his city.