A recent article in The Economist details just how far behind the United States is when it comes to infrastructure investment. Is the US doomed to stay in "the slow lane"?

‘ObamaRail’ has quickly become the new ‘ObamaCare.’ Much like last year’s divide on healthcare reform, Republicans and President Obama again find themselves at odds; this time on whether or not to build a nation-wide high-speed rail network. Former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, a democrat and co-chair of Building America’s Future, makes his case for spending now on modernizing the nation’s infrastructure.

In the shadow of the recession, a great migration of sorts has occurred in the suburbs. Though, since the rows of houses were first built outside America's city limits, this population turnover has been a long time coming. A Brookings Institution preview of the 2010 Census released last year shows that the nuclear family out in suburbia with its kids and white-picket fences and two-car garages has been a misscharacterization for at least the last decade, if not longer. Racial and ethnic minorities now account for a majority of the population in 17 metropolitan areas, most in the South and Southwest, but regions like New York in the Northeast will soon follow. Also, since 2000, the number of 55to 64 year olds nationwide grew by nearly 50 percent. This past January, the first baby boomers turned 65. Brookings demographer William H. Frey talks to Blueprint America about his findings, and what all of it means to a new kind of suburbia.

Remember your old friend, The Bill? That lovable Schoolhouse Rocks' character? Well... He's gone missing. And the ransom: $6.5 billion... Or he gets it. Maybe that's a little extreme. But, the Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit government watchdog, reported this week that there was "$6.5 billion worth of unspent earmarks from the most recent transportation funding bill" passed in 2005. The group is calling the unspent money, "Disappearmarks."

PROFILES FROM THE RECESSION, a collection of BLUEPRINT AMERICA video and transcribed reports from the field, looks at recovery from this Recession with stories on transportation and the country's infrastructure (its planning, design, and livability).

Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City examines how Detroit, a symbol of America’s diminishing status in the world, may come to represent the future of transportation and progress in America.

An op-ed forum to discuss Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City. Use the below reactions and interpretations of the documentary from various transportation and Detroit-interested groups as a starting point to add your thoughts in the comment section at the bottom of the page.

Two animated sequences in Beyond the Motor City attempt to show what a new transportation system in Detroit might look like. The Blueprint America team collaborated with transportation group America 2050 to create those sequences. America 2050's take on the animation kicks off the group's “A Better Tomorrow” project, an effort to visualize the future of a variety of American communities and transportation systems.

Through two documentary projects (BEYOND THE MOTOR CITY and ROAD TO THE FUTURE), Blueprint America interviews today's thinkers and tells the stories of everyday Americans as an older country looks for its next move. As simplistic an idea as it may seem, a new transportation system could be the answer.

This is our year. Infrastructure is no longer just a word thrown about by policy wonks and engineers. The public, and more importantly politicians, have made public works, especially transportation, a front and center issue.

Two-thirds of all mass transit riders in the United States use the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) of New York’s system. The MTA board voted Wednesday “to enact a series of fare hikes and service cutbacks needed to keep the transit system from going broke.”