Cities—especially megacities with populations of ten million or more—are at the forefront of civilization when considering population growth and migration as we progress through this century and beyond. Worldwide, more individuals inhabit cities than rural areas, and that proportion is expected to increase to almost two-thirds by 2050; a vast difference from the three percent that lived in urban areas in 1800 (WPH 2016). Since 1800, the worldwide population has grown from roughly one billion to over seven billion, with the most aggressive growth occurring in the past seventy years where the population grew by a billion roughly every thirteen years (OWD 2015). At the turn of the 19th century, the United States (US) had two of the five largest cities in the world, New York and Chicago (ThoughtCo 2017). Since then, cities around the world have grown at extraordinary rates, especially in Asia (WPH 2016), with current projections also seeing huge growth occurring throughout Africa (WPH 2016). Currently, the US has zero of the top twenty-five most populated cities in the world, with New York falling to twenty-eighth and Chicago falling outside of the top one-hundred (CityMayors 2018). Los Angeles has become the second most populated city in the US, but only ranks seventy-first worldwide (CityMayors 2018). Technically, the US currently does not have any megacities, it is only once you consider neighboring communities that numerous metropolis’ in America have populations over ten million. However, the US is home to thousands of cities with fewer than 500,000 residents (Statista 2018), and nearly half of the worldwide urban population reside in cities of similar size or smaller (UN 2014). In 2014, John Wilmoth, the Director of United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, stated the management of urban areas as
one of the most important developmental challenges of the 21st century (UN 2014), although this is not the case for American population numbers, and their cities, are not expected to grow at such high rates like Asia and Africa (WPH 2016). Nonetheless, a growth is projected, and it will need to be managed effectively to sustain the quality of life most citizens have come accustomed to in the US.
Worldwide, as cities grow and age, stakeholders attempt to understand the features enabling them to be successful, as well as, the ones that limit their potential. Cities themselves are large, complex systems that face several issues presently, as well as, into the future. Some of these issues are aging infrastructure, population growth/decline, resource depletion, energy generation, climate change, and transportation efficiencies. By providing a home to many people, they tend to require a lot of energy, material, and processes to have their systems operate effectively. These systems can be costly due to their complexity, durability needs, and usage rates. While these infrastructure systems were initially designed to handle their population sizes, many are outdated, or designed for a population size that has since changed significantly, as population growth data has shown. Due to this, cities are constantly playing catch up with minor repairs and fixes.
With migration trends showing a growing movement to city centers, added stress is being applied to every infrastructure system in which a city relies on to operate. Nonetheless, as data shows, in the US there is a general improvement in efficiency within cities because of shorter commutes, smaller living spaces, and overall reduction in carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions per capita (Glaeser 2009). So, while there is a large overall amount of energy used, waste generated, and water needed to be treated, there is a silver lining in the reduction per user if the systems can handle the peak loads.
Currently, cities around the United States are facing enormous challenges when it comes to their infrastructure, whether it is due to their aging components or the difficult task to keep up with the growing demand put on their systems. Contrary to their rural counterparts, cities are associated with larger populations, higher CO2e emissions, larger budgets, and more extensive infrastructure. This infrastructure is what drives cities and enables them to sustain the large populations they hold. From water systems to roads and bridges, these systems need to operate safely and effectively, otherwise their populations will be at risks.
This thesis extends and applies a value engineering methodology to entire urban infrastructure systems. This method will be used in a different manner than traditional value engineering projects. The process will be used to analyze the current state of various cities, rather than using the process to directly access alternative solutions to improve a product’s or service’s value. The results can then provide insights into each city's current state and therefore provide substantial information on how to potentially manage their assets going forward. In addition, this works enables a comparison of cities regardless of their differences in size, density, or any other factor. Each city is then capable of being individually tailored depending on their specific needs based on their input values like infrastructure, population, and other assets. This will allow cities to develop infrastructure investment strategies unique to their needs.
The objective of this study, through the lens of value engineering, is to determine if an optimal population size for a major city in America exists. This will be done by quantifying the quality of infrastructure in each city, while considering their amount of debt and environmental footprint.
This study focuses on infrastructure assets, greenhouse gas emissions, and budgets. This study directly leverages state-level ASCE State Report Cards (ASCE 2017), converts them into
city infrastructure scores, and then utilizes the respective city debts and CO2e emissions to determine how major US cities rank against one another. As systems and populations grow, their complexity also grows non-linearly, therefore taking an increasing amount of management to maintain balance (Dininni 2017). Due to this, it is hypothesized that the largest of the US cities—
with populations above 1.5 million—will rank towards the bottom, while the smaller cities—
with populations below 750,000—will score the best.
The thesis goes as follows. In the next chapter, I introduce the background of American infrastructure, and provide a breakdown of value engineering. Followed by methods section, that will cover the parts of value engineering that I chose to focus on, and the equations used to derive my results. Lastly, the results section will explain the significance of each score, and how they are compared city by city.