In your own words, answer this unit’s discussion questions in a main post  and respond to at least 2 peers’ postings.

Assignment Details

Please use your own experiences and the knowledge you have gained from this week’s readings to answer the following topics and questions.  You may also use information that you find in the textbook, AIU’s library or the Internet to support your discussion. Make sure you use economic concepts in your main contribution.  

This week, you will discuss how you are affected by fiscal policy. For instance, you could write about how infrastructure projects in your community affect you and your community, and then how they affect the economy as a whole. 

Please identify and explain an important infrastructure project in your city, state, or region that is currently underway or being discussed.  Such a project could be an airport, a highway, a bridge, a light rail or subway system, a tunnel, new school buildings, new landfills and so on. 

Please include information about the expected costs of the project, and how public spending on the project could stimulate the economy in your area. How would the multiplier effect work here?  Do you think that spending on such a project would create new jobs beyond the project itself? 

Student’s responses:

Jaden Thompson

Hello everyone, the city I will be discussing is the city I grew up in the state of Arizona and it’s called Gilbert, Arizona, or more specifically known to locals as downtown gilbert. This street has looked the same since the year 1930, and the only reason I know that is due to pictures being hung up of what it used to look like in some of the buildings on that street. They have been renovating it more consistently for about the last 20 years now. They started off by adding a Mexican food restaurant called barrio queens, and then it was followed by Lo Lo’s chicken and waffles. Since then, they’ve added a frozen yogurt spot called chreamistry, then added a place called the porch aka the yard, and most recently they added a bar called whiskey row. Downtown gilberts were always notorious for being a dirt road with not many places to eat, and now it’s seen as an upscaled town with plenty of options to eat and drink. Now I just found out they’re opening a building called heritage park. Through this process of reading about it I found out a childhood hangout spot was being demolished. It was a burger king that all the kids at my elementary and junior high would go to after school to hangout and has been their 25+ years. It’s still there until they start developing Heritage Park, but when they do it will be destroyed and along with it a lot of memories. The estimated cost of heritage park is $300 million dollars. According to ABC news, “The project is on about 10 acres of land on the west side of Gilbert Road south of Juniper Avenue. Currently the site is a dirt lot used for parking. The project also calls for demolishing a Burger King location on southwest corner of Gilbert and Juniper” (Brown, 2022). I think this would be really good for our economy of our area. It already is known as an up-and-coming area, and I believe it will bring even more business to our area. I think the multiplier work effect work positively here. With the new construction the businesses might experience some difficulties, because not many people want to deal with how it looks and the noise, but once it’s fully built businesses will be booming. I do think this will create countless jobs. Not only will there be a hotel inside it that will need janitors, receptionists, and managers, but there will also be a restaurant inside the building that will allow for many more culinary jobs.

Brown, Brandon. “$300m Downtown Gilbert Mixed-Use Project Gets Go-Ahead from City.” ABC15 Arizona in Phoenix (KNXV), ABC15 Arizona in Phoenix (KNXV), 18 Feb. 2022, https://www.abc15.com/news/business/300m-downtown-gilbert-mixed-use-project-gets-go-ahead-from-city. 

Misha Herrar

In Atlanta built a new I285 highway construction interchange at the I 20 highway. This particular project is an expansion of network of toll lanes. The cost of this project is $800 million of dollars. GDOT which is the Georgia Dept of Transportation has a plan of widening the highway and phases type to help with the traffic in Atlanta. This has caused a lot of backed up traffic. They have completed part of phase 1 which has allowed traffic to move smoother but it’s still a lot of traffic. There are a lot of people in Georgia especially in the Atlanta area. There are going to be a list of different highways. Economically it would be great to have all of these in place to advance different ways to get to work etc. But during the process it takes a toll on everyone especially having to leave 2-3 hours earlier in order to get to work on time.