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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.
- GenresNonfictionPolitics
533 pages, Kindle Edition
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.
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)
January 24, 2026
I like Wahba’s high level analysis of how the P3 (public private partnership) ecosystem works. It’s an interesting insight into how a partnership at one of the top infra funds thinks. He is a big lover of history. He talks about how many public private partnerships in rail and water today are built on how assets were set up post New Deal. Private sector takes on risk and government gives the capital. This is why pension funds (and even IRAs) could be good candidates for capital since the money eventually goes back to benefit the public anyways. It seems like a pretty straightforward relationship and what I found interesting was all his analysis on how this tends to fail.
One big issue seems to be communication. Improper set up for downside scenarios may accelerate deployment and be less work but when things go south these are normally the things that are to blame. Like in Flint, where emergency powers were reporting to the people who would be liable. Or in Bayonne NJ where the KKR driven increase in rates was outlined in the contract but still caused immense public pressure. Or the Missouri airport privatization where the investor group ran into an opposing campaign they couldn’t overcome. Since the government is so vested in the public and public officials inherit deals from their predecessors that they might not agree with this seems like a hairy part of infra finance that is overlooked by more junior people. Who is supposed to advertise the proper use of proceeds from a public asset sale? It is not in the govts interest to subsidize private investment risk even more and it makes the investment profile even more unpredictable if the burden is on the private sector. Wabha likes the idea of independent agencies to check back the private sector in this case like in British water and China. This seems like a good idea but I can imagine there are a lot of reasons this has not been implemented in the US.
One of which seems to be another issue with US infra which is the control individual states have. Wabha takes about how congestion pricing in NYC got the govt sued by New Jersey for price discrimination. In order for there to be an effective deal it seems like it needs to be sort of like a 147 exemption where the proceeds and capital are within the domain of an individual state to avoid hairy situations. Like for the Chicago Skybridge. In this case the regulatory risk is decreased and the highest risk is the public sentiment.
At the same time parts of this book were kind of annoying. He is extremely pro private sector and at some point it is fair for there to be so much fuss about any possible downside for the public given that these are critical assets. There are many times that private sector firms try to cut corners on disclosure and there is nothing to check back on this as it is just the nature of greed. There are other times where I wish Wahba was more detailed as to the public sector opinion on why things didn’t work as well as how much the private sector knew going on. A lot of the “anti private sector” campaigns he discusses are introduced in an opaque way that seems like people are hating on private equity for no reason. All in all though the book was informative and it was a side of infrastructure investing that I had not considered in the “manifestation” of before.
One big issue seems to be communication. Improper set up for downside scenarios may accelerate deployment and be less work but when things go south these are normally the things that are to blame. Like in Flint, where emergency powers were reporting to the people who would be liable. Or in Bayonne NJ where the KKR driven increase in rates was outlined in the contract but still caused immense public pressure. Or the Missouri airport privatization where the investor group ran into an opposing campaign they couldn’t overcome. Since the government is so vested in the public and public officials inherit deals from their predecessors that they might not agree with this seems like a hairy part of infra finance that is overlooked by more junior people. Who is supposed to advertise the proper use of proceeds from a public asset sale? It is not in the govts interest to subsidize private investment risk even more and it makes the investment profile even more unpredictable if the burden is on the private sector. Wabha likes the idea of independent agencies to check back the private sector in this case like in British water and China. This seems like a good idea but I can imagine there are a lot of reasons this has not been implemented in the US.
One of which seems to be another issue with US infra which is the control individual states have. Wabha takes about how congestion pricing in NYC got the govt sued by New Jersey for price discrimination. In order for there to be an effective deal it seems like it needs to be sort of like a 147 exemption where the proceeds and capital are within the domain of an individual state to avoid hairy situations. Like for the Chicago Skybridge. In this case the regulatory risk is decreased and the highest risk is the public sentiment.
At the same time parts of this book were kind of annoying. He is extremely pro private sector and at some point it is fair for there to be so much fuss about any possible downside for the public given that these are critical assets. There are many times that private sector firms try to cut corners on disclosure and there is nothing to check back on this as it is just the nature of greed. There are other times where I wish Wahba was more detailed as to the public sector opinion on why things didn’t work as well as how much the private sector knew going on. A lot of the “anti private sector” campaigns he discusses are introduced in an opaque way that seems like people are hating on private equity for no reason. All in all though the book was informative and it was a side of infrastructure investing that I had not considered in the “manifestation” of before.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews