Infrastructure Modernization: Key to Development Infrastructure modernization in Virginia implies modernization against a rapidly changing background of growing complexity, interdependence and technology change. This is particularly true in the energy and communications sectors – the first being driven by deregulation and the second by internet-based facility management and control of both buildings and energy delivery services. With more than 650,000 miles of fiber optic cable, already home to more than half the world’s internet traffic, and a preferred site for merchant power plants, Virginia can only expect these interdependencies to increase. According to a recent article in USA Today, the next five years could find the bulk of all domestic gas and electric business transactions conducted via the Internet. The challenge for the Commonwealth is to first understand and systematically map the cross-linkages, identify the potential for cross-sectoral ‘cascading’ failures, assign priorities to the most critical weak links, and attempt to mitigate the potential for failure through a combination of hardware, software and institutional measures. An illustrative example cited in a recent workshop held by the U.S. Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection (OCIP) points out how a failure in a natural gas compressor station in one region of the U. S. could impact electric power generation facilities and transportation – traffic controls and lights – in another region of the country. This example is particularly relevant in that it demonstrates the connections between different infrastructure components in different regions of the country and at different levels. Concern about this increasing interdependency of today’s infrastructures is recognized at the state, federal and international levels. Virginia also is experiencing other cross-sectoral impacts of development, such as increased demands on housing stock, local transportation infrastructures, and air and water resources. Although they do not represent the potential for catastrophic ‘failure’ as do power brownouts or blackouts, their modernization – and their incorporation into development planning – ultimately can be even more critical for Virginia ’s overall economic future.