The City of Champaign, Ill., (population 88,000), where I have worked as the planning and development director for the last 31 years, maintains a 10-year capital improvement plan (CIP) and updates it annually to ensure we are addressing the highest priority infrastructure projects. This is a process that requires a considerable commitment of staff time, as well as energy and focus from our city council. This is an effort that the city is committed to because of the firm belief that investment in maintaining and expanding the city’s infrastructure is critical to the city’s success as a growing and developing community.

One aspect of this is the importance of making routine investments in our infrastructure to extend its life to the extent possible. A few years ago, the Government Accounting Standards Bureau began requiring that a value be established for a community’s infrastructure. In 2017, the value of the City of Champaign’s infrastructure, as reported in the cityâ