Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s interest in US transportation and infrastructure began well before Boston’s record-setting 2015 snowstorms focused national attention on the downside of deferred maintenance for aging public transit systems. In February 2014, following 20 months of research in conjunction with the HBS US Competitiveness Project, Kanter convened a national summit at HBS that drew leaders from government, business, labor, technology, and community coalitions. Together, they worked on overcoming barriers that have prevented the United States from keeping pace with many other countries in areas such as public transit, cell phone and Internet service, and efficient rail, air, and highway transportation.

Inspired by ideas that emerged during the summit, Kanter traveled throughout the country to gather facts, figures, and stories for her new book, Move: Putting America’s Infrastructure Back in the Lead.

“The good news is that government and business want the same outcome,” says Kanter, the School’s Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration. To bring about “the cross-sector innovation and collaboration that are big parts of the solution,” Kanter urges a new national conversation. “This should be a story about mobility,” she writes in Move. “We’re not just fixing infrastructure; we’re building communities and a nation.”

(Published May 2015)

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