The U.S. is home to many of
the world's most valuable companies.
It's often thought of
as the land of opportunity
for anyone with a big vision.
It's been home to cutting-edge inventions like
the light bulb,
the airplane,
the iPhone,
but when it comes to its infrastructure
a different story is slowly unfolding.
The top 10 fastest train systems in the world:
None are in the U.S.
The world's tallest buildings:
The U.S. doesn't even make top 5,
and the 7 longest bridges in the world:
They're all in Asia.
Let's rewind and remember what historically
made the U.S. ahead of its time.
First, the bridges.
The Brooklyn Bridge was the first steel wire
suspension bridge ever constructed.
When it first opened it was the longest
suspension bridge in the world.
In fact, it was twice as long as
any other of its time and
built to sustain an unprecedented
amount of weight.
The Golden Gate Bridge,
well it opened in 1937,
and for a few years it was the world's
largest suspension bridge span.
Then there's the skyscrapers.
The Empire State Building was the world's
tallest building for almost 40 years.
It was surpassed by the
World Trade Center's North Tower,
soon after it was taken over
by Chicago's Sears Tower.
The public transit systems.
More than 1,000 miles of
train tracks connected many
different parts of Los Angeles
and for a time it was even
recognized as the best public
transportation system on the planet.
And even irrigation.
Los Angeles created a 233 mile
water duct back in 1913,
and at the time,
it would come to be known as
the world's largest water project in history.
And even though the city's population
was only 300,000 at the time
the system could supply enough water
for a population of several million,
which ultimately would come to enable
the region's explosive growth
that was soon to come.
Fast forward to today,
many of these titles
have not only been dethroned,
but some cities are in need of major help.
In fact, an 800 million emergency rescue plan
was recently approved for New York City's
troubled subway system.
Just take a look at the
World Economic Forum's list of countries
with the best infrastructure,
which judged economies based on their
transport system, power,
and communications networks.
The U.S. doesn't even make the top 10.
The top 3: Hong Kong,
Singapore and the Netherlands.
Now imagine for a second that a country
was like a company.
Even with massive revenues,
a big company often has a harder
time innovating than say, a start-up.
A corporation's goal after all
is to maximize profits while minimizing risks,
but if a company isn't able to innovate,
you could end up with a Blockbuster or Kodak,
both of which dominated their industries
until the lack of ability to adapt
meant they would come to fail.
Take even a relatively new company,
like Facebook.
A large portion of its innovation
is coming through acquisitions
of companies including
Instagram,
WhatsApp,
and Oculus.
Now many of the locations
leading the way in infrastructure
are building smart cities
and they tend to be smaller.
Think the United Arab Emirates' Dubai,
and city-state Singapore.
The population of the United States
is 323.1 million.
It has an extensive layer of government,
including county, local, state,
federal governments, and many agencies.
Now of course many of the world's
most ambitious ideas are
coming out of the U.S.
But ideation and execution are
two different things.
Take for instance Elon Musk's Hyperloop.
The first proposed Hyperloop was between
here in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The 2013 proposal would
take a five hour drive
and turn it into about a
35 minute ride on a high-speed rail.
But a few years after that initial proposal,
the first Hyperloop isn't likely to be here.
But instead it likely could launch in
the UAE in 2020,
connecting Dubai and Abu Dhabi,
home of titles like,
the world's tallest building
and the world's largest indoor theme park.
So if innovation tends to come
from a nimble team, company,
and even country,
is the United States just too big to innovate?