Howard Roth is global and Americas leader of real estate with Ernst & Young. He has more than three decades of experience, including extensive work with real estate private equity funds, domestic and offshore real estate investment trusts, and construction firms. He coordinates the firm’s activities across a broad array of related services around the world, including the Ernst & Young and Urban Land Institute’s annual infrastructure survey and report. Institutional Investing in Infrastructure senior editor Drew Campbell spoke with Roth about the 2010 report — Infrastructure 2010: Investment Imperative.

In recent years, your reports have concluded that U.S. infrastructure lags many other countries. What will it take for this to change?

There is a little bit of a political trough right now, and quite frankly, infrastructure, like most everything else political these days, is hard to get people to agree on, but we certainly need the discussion becau