The Obama Boomtowns

In Pictures: The Stimulus Cities

As part of his plan to revive a flailing economy, President-elect Barack Obama recently pledged to "Create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s."

His plan would include potentially hundreds of billions of dollars for infrastructure projects. And while economists debate whether this is the most effective form of fiscal stimulus, the mayors of the nation's cities line up at the trough. Schools, roads, rails, pipes and airports? Can we have some more, sir?

Even by Washington standards this would be a once-in-a-lifetime spending spree on projects that would be called pork in less-prodigal times. Cities across the country are ready to pig out.

On Dec. 8, just two days after Obama's pledge for massive infrastructure spending, the U.S. Conference of Mayors released an 803-page report--a wishlist of some 11,391 infrastructure projects they would love to press ahead with.

Talk about a dream scenario. Build all those projects, do it with federal money, say you're rescuing the economy with the spending and, since it's not your local taxpayers' money, don't even stress too much about whether or not the project's cost effective.

Give the money to banks or individuals and they might just horde it. Give it to states or the federal government and it will get stuck in the bureaucracy. But give it to the cities and they'll spend, says Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, the president of the Conference of Mayors. (Not that the governors are sitting idly by--they have $136 billion in plans they'd like to initiate.)