A small collection of metropolitan markets produce, consume and distribute the vast majority of all U.S. goods, a concentration that puts enormous pressure on specific infrastructure, and demonstrates how problems in one market can spread across the entire country.

When Tony Earley was asked recently to identify the most serious issue facing the nation's giant utilities in the next 20 years, the answer was easy. It is, Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s CEO wrote, "the huge need for investment in basic infrastructure, from pipes and power lines to poles, transformers and more."