Blueprint America: Public Works, an effort by 18 public television stations, concentrates on the state of local infrastructure, economies and living across the country.

Blueprint America has found that communities — big and small, urban and rural — are, for the first time, rethinking their purpose. Is a city a place where people live, a place where they go to work, or both? What about after work, between home and the grind — is it a half hour by car or an hour by bus?

Do these questions even matter given the state of the national economy?

The thing of it is that the majority of our money goes to where we live and how we get from here to there and back again. Addressing those costs is the same as addressing the Recession.

PBS stations are producing radio and television segments, hosting discussions between policy makers and their communities, and offering further content online, all as a part of Blueprint America.