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Build: Investing in America's Infrastructure
A bold plan for the United States to regain the lead in infrastructure development through privatization and public-private partnerships
America's infrastructure—its essential roads, bridges, ports, airports, power grids, and telecommunications systems—were once the pride of the nation and an example for the world. But now, after years of neglect and oversight, this infrastructure is crumbling and causing catastrophic changes in the US quality of life. Build seeks to explain how American infrastructure collapsed and what can be done to repair it.
In a series of colorful, rarely told cases, Build takes readers on a revealing tour behind the scenes of the successes and debacles of key infrastructure projects to show what works, why the United States has failed in recent decades to invest in infrastructure, and how the private sector can help revitalize the sector, spur job growth, and contribute to climate resilience.
Sadek Wahba examines the private origins of US infrastructure and the federally funded megaprojects that came after the New Deal, investigating the role the private sector can and should play in building infrastructure. By drawing comparisons with systems in the United Kingdom, France, India, and China, Wahba shows that while privatization and public-private partnerships cannot solve all infrastructure challenges, they are essential for closing funding gaps, overcoming political paralysis, and driving major infrastructure advances.
Build will appeal to readers interested in public finance, domestic policy, the role of the federal government, tax policy, and urban affairs.
America's infrastructure—its essential roads, bridges, ports, airports, power grids, and telecommunications systems—were once the pride of the nation and an example for the world. But now, after years of neglect and oversight, this infrastructure is crumbling and causing catastrophic changes in the US quality of life. Build seeks to explain how American infrastructure collapsed and what can be done to repair it.
In a series of colorful, rarely told cases, Build takes readers on a revealing tour behind the scenes of the successes and debacles of key infrastructure projects to show what works, why the United States has failed in recent decades to invest in infrastructure, and how the private sector can help revitalize the sector, spur job growth, and contribute to climate resilience.
Sadek Wahba examines the private origins of US infrastructure and the federally funded megaprojects that came after the New Deal, investigating the role the private sector can and should play in building infrastructure. By drawing comparisons with systems in the United Kingdom, France, India, and China, Wahba shows that while privatization and public-private partnerships cannot solve all infrastructure challenges, they are essential for closing funding gaps, overcoming political paralysis, and driving major infrastructure advances.
Build will appeal to readers interested in public finance, domestic policy, the role of the federal government, tax policy, and urban affairs.
- GenresPolitics
392 pages, Hardcover
Published October 1, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 1, 2026
With a blurb from Bill Clinton on the front, you know this book is going to be filled with Davos-esque truisms. Indeed, much of the book is taken up with quotes from muckty-mucks involved in infrastructure, such as Macky Tall of the CDQT Canadian pension fund and former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, even if the quotes serve more to illustrate the fact that the writer knows these individuals than to elucidate any particular point. The writer is a dedicated believer in big infrastructure projects and is uncritically celebratory about Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure law (the only downside is that it didn't include his beloved infrastructure bank, which was removed at the last moment for unexplained reasons.) Yet, strangely, the author is a former PhD economist from Harvard who is a dyed-in-the-wool believer in privatization and who does really understand Private-Public-Partnerships (P3s), so this book contains multitudes.
The best parts of the book are the four chapters looking at the success and, mainly, failures of US infrastructure in roads, water, airports, and ports. Each is focused on a core story or stories (the privatization of the Chicago Skyway under Mayor Daley and the failed privatization of the Pennsylvania Turnpike under Rendell, the government failure in Flint's water and the British success in water privatization post-1989 under Thatcher, the failed attempt to privatize Lambert Airport in St. Louis due to conservative mogul Rex Singuefield's interest, and the private lessee terminals at the Port Authority of New York after McLean's contanerization). These chapters provide both the evidence that privataization works, at least with appropriate oversight and concession terms (he favors 20 year concessions), and the intricate politics of why it sometimes doesn't. The authors main argument, besides the need for more P3s to fund more infrastructure, is that the legacy of the New Deal means US infrastructure is surprisingly socialistic relative to the rest of the world, and that's one major reason we underinvest.
The book does have a significant number of minor factual errors, but it is clear that the author knows his stuff on the big issues. Given that there are so few good books on infrastructure out there, I would recommend this one for those curious about the subject.
The best parts of the book are the four chapters looking at the success and, mainly, failures of US infrastructure in roads, water, airports, and ports. Each is focused on a core story or stories (the privatization of the Chicago Skyway under Mayor Daley and the failed privatization of the Pennsylvania Turnpike under Rendell, the government failure in Flint's water and the British success in water privatization post-1989 under Thatcher, the failed attempt to privatize Lambert Airport in St. Louis due to conservative mogul Rex Singuefield's interest, and the private lessee terminals at the Port Authority of New York after McLean's contanerization). These chapters provide both the evidence that privataization works, at least with appropriate oversight and concession terms (he favors 20 year concessions), and the intricate politics of why it sometimes doesn't. The authors main argument, besides the need for more P3s to fund more infrastructure, is that the legacy of the New Deal means US infrastructure is surprisingly socialistic relative to the rest of the world, and that's one major reason we underinvest.
The book does have a significant number of minor factual errors, but it is clear that the author knows his stuff on the big issues. Given that there are so few good books on infrastructure out there, I would recommend this one for those curious about the subject.
March 30, 2025
Sadek Wahba is an industry leader for a reason: his ability to combine his understanding of public policy, infrastructure, private equity, financial markets, and economics into an appropriate blend to understand the history and rationale for why the United States' infrastructure system is how it is today. Wahba is considerate and logical in highlighting the importance of private capital influence. Government involvement, particularly in regulations, is essential for particular subsectors. Wahba touches on the infrastructure gamut, covering ports, roads, airports, toll roads, and our water systems. I would have liked to see more coverage on the power generation sector, but Wahba does explain how the power market is notably different from other traditional infrastructure assets. My takeaways were that public-private partnerships offer significant merits by allowing private capital to improve our infrastructure's operations and potentially even lower the total life cycle cost despite potentially having higher upfront expenses (especially having the proper maintenance CapEx to avoid any operational disasters). At times throughout the read, Wahba could cover more of a conceptual basis for his analysis, rather than flooding his argument with statistics that leave the reader struggling with engraving information about how important our infrastructure system is. Despite this, the read is delightful for those who have had a brief exposure to infrastructure - I would not recommend this for the general audience.
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February 26, 2026[in progress] Private public partnerships, different models of management and degree of ownership. Different risk loads for the public/private
Private offers benefits: expertise, govt can focus on regulation and monitoring instead of operations. Too much things to do at once, also have to adhere to govt red tape. Govt has no long term horizon, ex. UK water plants moving towards EU wide standards for cleanliness and waste. Privatizing can be thought of as “returning assets to the people”
Chapter in US history of infrastructure was interesting. Suggest that the US rail development was a seminal process for private public partnership. Can imagine that the author thinks of this as a model: government taking on the catalyst role and private sector taking on the risk and upside. Looked into it and seemed like there were issues of fudging numbers to maximize revenue, opaqueness of private processes and the issues with disclosure seem to be an issue with fully entrusting public goods to the private sector. Also suggests that the current weight of municipal bond market is due to New Deal policies that encouraged low interest bonds at a volume that never adjusted as rates rose and windows shortened. Entrenched interests like banks and unions view current model of private participation as necessary to their business
Tbh some sections were kind of frustratng, presents the problem of ex. Government role in infrastructure investment as nuanced but doesn’t explain the cases where one nuance applies or the other. Suppose I will look at some of the papers he cites
Flint case study is interesting. Municipal emergency power extension = turns into normal powers. In effect control over utilities. Maybe this is a vote for anarchocap but also that would probably do worse here? Not sure. Wahba says that the failure of Flint was bc the operator was governmental and thus had no oversight. Regulators have to report to the govt and thus if the govt is running the process there were issues. Private operator would do better but wouldn’t they have to disclose. Seems like disclosure is #1. Bayonne NJ case: KKR blamed for rates rising after taking over the water plant but another issue was the p3 had outlined the rates increase and had oversight from govt. maybe the problem is the govt is not using its powers effectively? They think they always have the political capital in the future to break agreements. Ppl won’t support utility hikes. Kind of like a deflationary recession, commitments on this sort of stuff are like claims and political capital is like the debt - sometimes has to be written off
Govt not good at running infrastructure bc afraid of politics response: “It isn’t that water tariffs went up because of privatization, but that water tariffs never reflected the true cost before privatization.” Proposed that ofwat is good bc it punishes private companies in the uk water system not, by analogy, itself in the US system
Lots of business acumen involved in this job. How hard you need to hold the line, sometimes u realize u needed to do it more. Part of this book was exploring if I feel like this might be a viable career path for me. Maybe
Wahba likes the British and Chinese models where the government oversees many independent agencies that can check for private companies being in line. Whereas in the us the flint crisis was from the overseer where they were reporting to the state but the state owned the plant. In britain he talked abt how they could levy fines. But I feel like this builds a very responsive reliant regulatory Fw for companies where they violate first and then rules are clarified. But this is water we’re talking about not bags of candy. It’s imperative there are no mistakes. Or at least that the mistakes don’t fall on the public. At the same time things a lot of resources. Basically advocating for more taxpayer money to fund these agencies
Chicago bridge was an interesting case study on conflicting interests between private and public partnerships and how you really have to consider how the public sector is going to react and what they are going to use funds for if they are going to sell infrastructure assets in the first place
Pensions align well with p3s bc they have a lot of money, not only can get returns but also benefit their stakeholders
Sentiment of “politicians are using the public to bully the poor investment firms” which I’m sure is not entirely true
Excerpt From
Build
Sadek Wahba
This material may be protected by copyright.
Private offers benefits: expertise, govt can focus on regulation and monitoring instead of operations. Too much things to do at once, also have to adhere to govt red tape. Govt has no long term horizon, ex. UK water plants moving towards EU wide standards for cleanliness and waste. Privatizing can be thought of as “returning assets to the people”
Chapter in US history of infrastructure was interesting. Suggest that the US rail development was a seminal process for private public partnership. Can imagine that the author thinks of this as a model: government taking on the catalyst role and private sector taking on the risk and upside. Looked into it and seemed like there were issues of fudging numbers to maximize revenue, opaqueness of private processes and the issues with disclosure seem to be an issue with fully entrusting public goods to the private sector. Also suggests that the current weight of municipal bond market is due to New Deal policies that encouraged low interest bonds at a volume that never adjusted as rates rose and windows shortened. Entrenched interests like banks and unions view current model of private participation as necessary to their business
Tbh some sections were kind of frustratng, presents the problem of ex. Government role in infrastructure investment as nuanced but doesn’t explain the cases where one nuance applies or the other. Suppose I will look at some of the papers he cites
Flint case study is interesting. Municipal emergency power extension = turns into normal powers. In effect control over utilities. Maybe this is a vote for anarchocap but also that would probably do worse here? Not sure. Wahba says that the failure of Flint was bc the operator was governmental and thus had no oversight. Regulators have to report to the govt and thus if the govt is running the process there were issues. Private operator would do better but wouldn’t they have to disclose. Seems like disclosure is #1. Bayonne NJ case: KKR blamed for rates rising after taking over the water plant but another issue was the p3 had outlined the rates increase and had oversight from govt. maybe the problem is the govt is not using its powers effectively? They think they always have the political capital in the future to break agreements. Ppl won’t support utility hikes. Kind of like a deflationary recession, commitments on this sort of stuff are like claims and political capital is like the debt - sometimes has to be written off
Govt not good at running infrastructure bc afraid of politics response: “It isn’t that water tariffs went up because of privatization, but that water tariffs never reflected the true cost before privatization.” Proposed that ofwat is good bc it punishes private companies in the uk water system not, by analogy, itself in the US system
Lots of business acumen involved in this job. How hard you need to hold the line, sometimes u realize u needed to do it more. Part of this book was exploring if I feel like this might be a viable career path for me. Maybe
Wahba likes the British and Chinese models where the government oversees many independent agencies that can check for private companies being in line. Whereas in the us the flint crisis was from the overseer where they were reporting to the state but the state owned the plant. In britain he talked abt how they could levy fines. But I feel like this builds a very responsive reliant regulatory Fw for companies where they violate first and then rules are clarified. But this is water we’re talking about not bags of candy. It’s imperative there are no mistakes. Or at least that the mistakes don’t fall on the public. At the same time things a lot of resources. Basically advocating for more taxpayer money to fund these agencies
Chicago bridge was an interesting case study on conflicting interests between private and public partnerships and how you really have to consider how the public sector is going to react and what they are going to use funds for if they are going to sell infrastructure assets in the first place
Pensions align well with p3s bc they have a lot of money, not only can get returns but also benefit their stakeholders
Sentiment of “politicians are using the public to bully the poor investment firms” which I’m sure is not entirely true
Excerpt From
Build
Sadek Wahba
This material may be protected by copyright.
December 29, 2025
Overall mixed bag. Much of the book leans too heavily on generic talking points and cherry-picked anecdotal case studies to support the thesis that the private sector should play a greater role in America's infrastructure development. However, the chapter on airports and the conclusion are excellent and I would recommend those (and those alone) to anyone interested in the topic.
January 28, 2025
3.5 stars. Got boring towards the end, but a good overview of the state of US infra (tldr bad)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews