The world has not turned suddenly upside down with Katrina; it has been decades in the process. The failure to adequately maintain the levees has been much discussed for years. What should be more disturbing, though, is that the devastation in New Orleans is just one of many calamities still waiting to happen.

		David Tessitor is co-organizer of the proposed Open Government Amendment to the Pittsburgh City Charter. He is an independent candidate for the mayor of Pittsburgh in November's election (www.tessitor.com).

Across the United States, every level of government has turned a blind eye toward adequately maintaining our public infrastructure. Instead, public resources have been thrown into one speculative venture after the other. In some cases, we will again awaken to another cataclysmic disaster; in others, such as in southwestern Pennsylvania, the consequences are likely to be more drawn out.

While a storm of Katrina's force would indeed wreak considerable havoc regardless of our readiness, its destruction was multiplied when the poorly maintained levees gave way after it passed. We have flood walls, not levees in the Pittsburgh area. Fortunately, the death and destruction from our recent flooding pales in comparison to that experienced down south. Still, natural disasters aren't the only cause of death and destruction due to bad infrastructure.

Inadequate maintenance of our nation's highways and bridges now leads to 13,000 deaths each year, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. If we are on par with the national rate, then at slightly less than 1 percent of the country's population, our region is likely experiencing over 100 needless deaths each year due to inadequate maintenance. But the numbers are lost upon our region's leadership.

The civil engineers' society also estimates the current rate of spending on all public infrastructure -- transportation, utilities, sanitation, etc. -- is barely more than half the amount needed over the next five years to avoid further deterioration. Unfortunately, just increasing the amount we spend will not in itself solve our problems.

As the initiator, a member, and later chair of the Citizen Advisory Panel to the Southwestern Pennsylvania Regional Planning Commission from 1994 to 1998, I was part of a small team who uncovered some disturbing facts. We found that SPRPC (now called the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission), which was/is responsible for the allocation of all federal transportation spending in southwestern Pennsylvania, had not even identified the amount of money needed to maintain our existing highways and bridges.

Yet, at the same time, SPRPC was budgeting billions of public dollars for new construction to provide access to the holdings of large land speculators.

After I and other Citizen Advisory Panel members repeatedly complained, in 1996 SPRPC finally identified the amount of annual spending necessary to provide the bare minimum maintenance for our highways and bridges. It equaled all the federal, state and local funding available. The commission members ignored this, and, after 20 minutes lauding each other for collectively splitting the pot, they diverted 40 percent of the money needed for maintenance to instead fund new capacity projects, including projects such as the Southern Beltway that are solely designed to subsidize land speculators (its environmental impact statement specifically says it will not add one more vehicle to the airport than if it were not built; its stated purpose is to stimulate real estate speculation along its route).

No wonder one Citizen Advisory Panel member, a former Louisiana resident, said he used to think the corruption was bad where he came from, until he got involved here.

Highway deaths are not the only consequence. A recent study by the Brookings Institution attributes our region's continuing decline to inefficiencies which it erroneously held to be due to our number of municipalities. The fact, however, is that these inefficiencies are the direct product of a regional strategy dictated by our region's unelected shadow government, the Allegheny Conference for Community Development, which seeks to have us misallocate more infrastructure spending to publicly subsidize more and more real estate speculation.

Foremost among the subsidies for real estate speculation is highway construction, but it is by no means the only. We need over one billion dollars to replace our region's aged utilities, yet the Allegheny Conference and other speculation interests are currently seeking approximately $7 million in state funding for additional new sewer and water infrastructure that will enable land speculators bordering the first leg of the Southern Beltway to convert thousands of acres into more sprawling uses that will drain people, businesses and investment from our existing communities -- most notably the 260 acres of Downtown Pittsburgh.

So, where is the city's political leadership on this matter? As usual, they're in lockstep with the Allegheny Conference.

Following the Allegheny Conference lead, the city itself is now preparing to push a new round of real estate speculation with $25 million of subsidies in the form of new infrastructure which must ultimately be paid for by city residents. As people and businesses merely change their location, the empty chairs from an ensuing round of investment musical chairs will end up as more abandoned buildings in our already distressed city neighborhoods, and poor residents who may own property there are likely to eventually lose their whole investment.

So, while inadequate maintenance of public infrastructure wrought extensive death and devastation on the poorest neighborhoods of New Orleans, the Pittsburgh region's failure to maintain our existing infrastructure -- at the same time building new to stimulate more real estate speculation -- is wreaking widespread destruction upon our poorest communities, albeit without such a dramatic loss of lives.

It doesn't make sense, but it does make big dollars for the speculators and players with the Allegheny Conference. Until our leaders wake up or are replaced by the voters, the Pittsburgh region will continue to suffer from decaying transportation, breaking water lines, leaky sewers, etc. and higher taxes, while we subsidize more real estate speculation and cause the further deterioration of our region's existing communities.

Bad public policy which results in destruction and thrusts the greatest burden upon the poor is not just the province of the bayous.