Smart Tech: Where's My Stimulus?

I just read through the BusinessWeek article that Aravind sent via Doug. It's very interesting. It mentions investing in technology for such purposes as traffic reduction. I also happened to write about how social networks might reduce/improve traffic flow for my first paper.

It seems to me as though this economic stimulus may need to be a hybrid of the two approaches (technology vs. physical infrastructure) to an economic stimulus. In Minnesota, we know better than most that there needs to be an investment in our physical infrastructure to protect the safety of our communities. At the same time, technology certainly has a role to play in maintaining and preserving that infrastructure. One major challenge of the stimulus will be getting technology and physical infrastructure to work together effectively.

One concern I have with the "shovel-ready" approach is that it may not promote long-term imporvements to the nation's infrastructure. The projects that require more planning and cannot immediately mobilize large amounts of workers will be neglected. However, these projects probably also have some of the greatest potential to effect societal change.

I guess we will see.