Get this in perspective. We have a rail network, many third world countries walk miles to get water. Be grateful for what you have because it will get much worse before it gets better.
The wider question, as someone has already touched on, is that governments and private contracts are too short-term with no incentive to make long-term investments that cost money or votes in the short term. What we need is decisions affecting infrastructure to be : a) taken out of the private sector who are only interested in making short-term profit (or else commit them to long-term contracts with penalties for failures) b) taken out of politicians hands. Strategic decisions constantly being made and reversed by alternate governments and that costs us public more in the long run.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.