TheReview_Nov_Dec_2021_FlipBook

HUMAN INFRASTRUCTURE Can No Longer Be Ignored if We Want to Sustain Our Communities By Valerie Kindle

T here has been a lot of talk lately across federal and state governments about the need to invest in infrastructure. That is a welcome relief to many municipalities but, perhaps more importantly, the conversation also has started to turn toward addressing “human infrastructure.” The human infrastructure of a place involves things like healthcare, childcare, education, and job training. Overall, it’s about the well-being of a community because it focuses on the well-being of a community’s members. In Southeast Michigan, the City of Harper Woods encompasses only 2.6 square miles. The amount of utility-type infrastructure is relatively small compared to other communities. But the latest census counted over 15,000 residents, many of them renters or homeowners facing property maintenance and upkeep for the first time in their lives. Harper Woods is a community ready to have an ongoing conversation on ways to assist homeowners and renters on how to maintain their property, including discussing how to make available the tools and education they might need to do so.

Many people are starting to realize that there also needs to be further conversations throughout the state around skills training for good-paying jobs. For example, Harper Woods recently experienced several power outages. Many people will point to the utility infrastructure, but it is a human infrastructure problem, as well. The electric companies are struggling to maintain a workforce that can do the work to ensure power lines aren’t at risk from storm damage. DTE has been known to recruit people from all over the world who have the skills for the work that needs doing. Addressing the human infrastructure needs of a community could help provide that workforce locally. Offering more skills training to the members of a community so they can become self-sufficient means the human infrastructure can build and support the hard infrastructure. It’s time for communities to look at how these two types of infrastructure are tied together. You cannot build and sustain one without the other.

20 THE REVIEW

NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2021