Rural Infrastructure Research Needs

This chapter highlights two broad areas of research need for rural infrastructure policy: data generation/classification and analyses that sort out the relationships among the allocation of the governmental responsibilities for the infrastructure, alternative financing mechanisms for service delivery, and rural management capacity. Widely varying cost estimates on infrastructure needs make the rural infrastructure problem seem intimidating. More attention should be paid to highlighting the costs of the average individual infrastructure project. More research must be addressed to development of an infrastructure management system that recognizes the diverse possibilities for satisfying the demands for infrastructure, evaluates them realistically, and implements the best options. Finally, the linkage between the communications technology and the measurement of “need” for the public community facilities is necessary to uncover, since the improvements in the communications technology are likely to exert increasing influence on transportation and other policies.