Tim Oolman is an engineer with a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering who lives in Charleston, South Carolina. He told us about attending a City Council meeting and a State of the City address to learn more about his home.
Infrastructure initiatives and maintenance activities are largely overseen by state and local governments. These entities play a key role in funding, building, and operating roads, bridges, transit, airports, water, sanitation, and countless other forms of infrastructure. Some projects, like road repairs, seek to improve the local economy and the public’s quality of life, and other initiatives, like upgrading water systems, keep the community safe and healthy. The federal government plays a more influential role in capital investment, but state and local spending still accounts for the majority of public capital spending. With reduced federal capital investment, and unpredictable funding from states, local governments have taken on an even greater responsibility of fiscal infrastructure policy.
Tim Oolman is an engineer with a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering who lives in Charleston, South Carolina. He told us about attending a City Council meeting and a State of the City address to learn more about his home.
Jennifer Boehme is a marine scientist and advisor at the International Joint Commission in Windsor, Ontario, which is a commission of the U.S. and Canada that has oversight of border waters. She attended a city council meeting to understand local priorities for sustainable development, green infrastructure, and mass transit.
As an innovator and "maker" at the nexus of the built environment, energy, and transportation sectors; John Sarter frequently needs to integrate first-of-their-kind electrical systems with other building technologies. To accomplish this, he uses new materials and construction techniques that exceed, and help to advance, existing codes and local regulations. Even in a forward-looking city like San Francisco, though, the development of a building like Sol Lux Alpha – the first multi-unit residential nanogrid project in the United States – wasn't easy.
