If we look around us, we will see infrastructures and buildings of all kinds, such as houses, buildings, streets and transportation routes, parks, public lighting systems, electric towers... And many others that are not so obvious but are there, such as the pipes through which water and gas are transported, the sewage network or, for example, the 27,500 kilometers of underground electrical cable in Catalonia.
Of these constructions, a significant number are the result of public works, whose main objective is to respond to the different needs of society. And it does so by creating the appropriate infrastructures for essential services for the well-being of citizens, which provide them with security and comfort. Likewise, these public interventions increase territorial competitiveness with facilities that help their development and facilitate the integration of the different places, with communication routes that connect them.
The demand for education and training, for health, for the acquisition of food and consumer goods, for leisure, for resources such as water, electricity or energy, entails the construction of facilities such as educational centers, health facilities, municipal markets for sale of food and products for personal use, libraries and parks. And investment in infrastructure also allows the construction of a road network for transport and services related to the water cycle, from collection to distribution, including purification. All this to generate a direct benefit in the form of safety, comfort and well-being in people.
Public investment in infrastructure is also an important source of job creation. During 2021, the Generalitat de Catalunya awarded a total of 3,705 construction contracts to 309 different companies in the construction sector. The total amount of the awards exceeded two billion euros (€2,184,678,971.21). The sector produces a multiplying effect of 1.92, that is, every million euros invested generates 1.92 million euros for the economy as a whole. In addition, for every million euros invested, an average of 25 jobs are created.
Also related to the labor sphere, but already as an indirect benefit, the building for social use is an activator of the economy, since it makes it possible for employment to be created later in the sectors to which the new facilities are directed: teaching, health, services, cleaning or maintenance personnel, among others.
The construction of roads, highways, highways and dual carriageways or railways makes it easier for territories to be connected by land, whether for the transport of people or goods. The Catalan road network is made up of 12,064 kilometers of motorways, dual carriageways, multi-lane roads and a single carriageway; and, as for the train tracks, we find 2,000 kilometers and a total of 564 stations (train, metro and railway).
In this section, it must be taken into account that communication networks seek to unite territories in the most effective way possible, which is achieved with the construction of bridges and tunnels that allow adaptation to the orography of the terrain and reduce distances. . In this sense, the improvement of infrastructures –road connections, healthcare centers, telecommunications– also contributes to mitigating the already popular concept of an empty Catalonia, which threatens many small Catalan municipalities with depopulation and isolation.
Ports and airport infrastructures (such as heliports, airports and aerodromes) provide connection with more distant territories, reducing travel time between them, as well as making it possible to reach other places that could not be accessed by land. This also generates development at an economic level, both because it promotes international trade and because it facilitates the arrival of tourism from different parts of the world. Infrastructures are, therefore, a source of competitiveness for our economy, for the country as a whole.
