Repairs

Throughout Latin America, infrastructure is aging in a way that billions must be spent in the coming decade just to maintain or replace what is there, never mind upgrading. Roads, bridges, dams and ports in nearly every country require significant repairs just to keep running.

If you're looking for things that may hold the region back, this is one of them. There are a number of brand new infrastructure projects from the Baluarte Bicentennial Bridge in Mexico to Brazil's transcontinental highways that capture the imagination, but keeping up with repairs on some of the more mundane bridges and highways that are decades old is going to drain public resources and hold back new projects.

We should be looking for ways to turn this negative into a positive. What innovation, either materials or techniques, can be brought by paving a road? What smart technology can be included while we're working on the old infrastructure? How do we make the decisions whether to repair or to tear down and build new?