Why Policy Won't Save Us (But Aesthetics Might)

So what would it mean to take aesthetics seriously? Not as decoration, but as infrastructure. It would mean understanding that a public square that is beautiful makes people feel that the public is something worth belonging to. It would mean understanding that a train station that feels like a cathedral makes people believe in the future of trains.

It would mean, yes, spending money on things that don't immediately 'pay for themselves' because the return on a beautiful public life is a public that believes in the project of having a public at all. You cannot quantify this, but you can feel it. And right now, despite the projects made possible by $275 million in federal funding from Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), known as the bipartisan infrastructure law, what you feel is the absence of care for infrastructure.

In fact, the IIJA does not have a dedicated, standalone funding category specifically for general public parks and local spaces. Instead, it relies on the development of roads, bridges, and other infrastructure hoping the cities and counties enhance the areas as they money is used. Anyone who pays any attention to local government knows that is a real shot in the dark.

I am not saying aesthetics replaces policy. I am saying policy without aesthetics is a sermon preached to an empty, and probably drab, room. And I, for one, am tired of it.