Public works are the construction or engineering projects carried out by the state on behalf of the community. A state is a political association with effective Sovereignty over a geographic Area and representing a Population. In biological terms a community is a group of interacting Organisms sharing an environment.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Utility of investment 3 Cost overrun and demand shortfall 4 Sources and further reading 5 See also 6 External links 7 Some Public Works Communities

Overview

The notion of internal improvements or public works is a concept in economics and politics. Economics is the social science that studies the production distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Politics Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions The term public infrastructure refers only to the infrastructural capital involved in these activities. Infrastructural capital refers to any physical Means of production or Means of protection beyond that which can be gathered or found directly in nature

An internal improvement is some constructible object that augments a nation's economic infrastructure; examples include airports, canals, dams, dikes, pipelines, railroads, roads, tunnels, and artificial harbours. In the fields of Architecture and Civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the Building or assembling of Infrastructure A nation is a Human Cultural and Social Community. In as much as most members never meet each other yet feel a common bond it may be considered Economics is the social science that studies the production distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Infrastructure typically refers to the technical structures that support a society such as Roads Water supply, Wastewater, Power grids An airport is a location where Aircraft such as airplanes, Helicopters and blimps take off and land Canals are artificial channels for water There are two types of canals water conveyance canals which are used for the conveyance and delivery of water and Waterways A dam is a barrier that divides waters. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water while other structures such as Floodgates, Levees LeveeEmbankmentDitch A dike (or dyke) levee, levée, embankment, floodbank or stopbank is a natural or artificial Pipeline transport is the transportation of goods through a pipe. A road is an identifiable route, way or path between two or more places. A tunnel is an underground passageway The definition of what constitutes a tunnel is not universally agreed upon A harbor or harbour (see spelling differences) or haven, is a place where ships may shelter from the Weather or are stored

Public works is a slightly broader term, it can include such things as: mines, schools, hospitals, water purification and sewage treatment centers. Mining is the extraction of valuable Minerals or other geological materials from the earth usually (but not always from an Ore body A school (from Greek σχολεῖον - scholeion) is an Institution designed to allow and encourage Students (or "pupils" A hospital is an institution for Health care providing treatment by specialised staff and equipment and often but not always providing for Water purification is the process of removing contaminants and other harmful microorganisms from a raw water source Sewage treatment, or domestic wastewater treatment, is the process of removing Contaminants from Wastewater, both Runoff ( Effluents Municipal infrastructure, urban infrastructure and rural development are often used interchangeably but imply either large cities or developing nations' concerns respectively. Infrastructure typically refers to the technical structures that support a society such as Roads Water supply, Wastewater, Power grids Note This article provides definition of Rural development See Rural Development for Rural Development Agency of the United States Department of Agriculture ( USDA Developing countries are countries that haven't reached Western-style standards of democratic government free market economy industrialization social programs and human rights guaranties The terms public infrastructure or critical infrastructure are also used interchangeably but suggest the inclusion of some facilities like hospitals, banks and concerns like national security and terrorism which are not under the mandate of municipal officials alone. Critical infrastructure is a term used by Governments to describe Assets that are essential for the functioning of a society and economy A hospital is an institution for Health care providing treatment by specialised staff and equipment and often but not always providing for A banker or bank is a Financial institution whose primary activity is to act as a payment agent for customers and to borrow and lend money National security is the entire scope of measures undertaken by the Governments of Nation-states in providing assurance of national Sovereignty Terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion

Reflecting increased concern with sustainability, urban ecology and quality of life, efforts to move towards sustainable municipal infrastructure are common in developed nations, especially in European Union and Canada (where the FCM InfraGuide provides an officially mandated best practice exchange to move municipalities in this direction). Sustainability, in a general sense is the capacity to maintain a certain process or state indefinitely Urban ecology is the subfield of Ecology which deals with the interaction of plants animals and humans with each other and with their environment in urban or urbanizing Quality of life is the degree of well-being felt by an individual or group of people The term developed country, or advanced country, is used to categorize countries with developed Economies in which the tertiary and quaternary sectors The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM is a civic advocacy group representing many Canadian municipalities Best Practice is an idea that asserts that there is a technique, method process activity incentive or reward that is more effective at delivering a particular outcome than

Utility of investment

In some cases, it is argued that internal improvements can be used to reduce unemployment. Unemployment occurs when a person is available to work and currently seeking work but the person is without work. Opponents of internal improvement programs argue that such projects should be undertaken by the private sector, and not the public sector. In Economics, the private sector is that part of the economy which is both run for private Profit and is not controlled by the State. The public sector is the part of economic and administrative life that deals with the delivery of goods and services by and for the Government, whether national Regional However, in the private sector entrepreneurs bear their own losses and so private sector firms are generally unwilling to undertake projects that will result in losses. Since it is politically unpopular for governments to use public revenues to bail out private firms that lose money, many times the preferred alternative is to have governments undertake unprofitable projects directly. Consequently, almost all significant infrastructure in the U. S. , including the Transcontinental Railroad, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Interstate highway system, were created through federal investment (often employing private subcontractors). Transcontinental Railroad is a Railroad that crosses a Continent from "coast-to-coast" The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA is a federally owned Corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide The Dwight D Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly called the Interstate Highway System (or simply the Interstate System) Large public works are associated with the opening of internal frontiers, as in the case of the Erie Canal and Trans-Siberian Railway. The Trans-Siberian Railway or Trans-Siberian Railroad (Транссибирская магистраль Транссиб in Russian, or Transsibirskaya magistral'

Cost overrun and demand shortfall

Cost overruns and demand shortfalls frequently haunt public works projects. Cost overrun is defined as excess of actual Cost over Budget. A benefit shortfall results from the actual benefits of a venture being lower than the projected or estimated benefits of that venture The main causes of cost overrun and demand shortfall are optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation (Flyvbjerg et al. Optimism bias is the demonstrated systematic tendency for people to be over-optimistic about the outcome of planned actions Strategic misrepresentation is the planned systematic distortion or misstatement of fact—lying—in response to incentives in the Budget process 2002, 2005). Reference class forecasting was developed to curb optimism bias and strategic misrepresentation and thus arrive at more accurate cost and demand estimates. Reference class Forecasting predicts the outcome of a planned action based on actual outcomes in a reference class of similar actions to that being forecast

Sources and further reading

• Bent Flyvbjerg, Mette K. Skamris Holm, and Søren L. Buhl (2002), "Underestimating Costs in Public Works Projects: Error or Lie?" Journal of the American Planning Association, vol. 68, no. 3, 279-295.
• Bent Flyvbjerg, Mette K. Skamris Holm, and Søren L. Buhl (2005), "How (In)accurate Are Demand Forecasts in Public Works Projects?" Journal of the American Planning Association, vol. 71, no. 2, 131-146.
• "Political Economy of Very Large Space Projects", Journal of Evolution and Technology. vol. 4. November 1999.
• Fighting Hunger and poverty in Ethiopia (Peter Middlebrook)

See also

• Demand shortfall
• Jean-Baptiste Colbert
• New Deal
• infrastructural capital
• Public Works Administration
• Opera Publica
• Cost overrun
• Terraforming

External links

• Planete TP - The world of public works
• American Public Works Association - Professional society

Some Public Works Communities

• Pennsylvania
  • Derry Township
  • Harrisburg
  • Hummelstown
  • South Hanover
  • transylvania

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