What happened?:‘Mayor Pete’ Buttigieg has embraced the idea that infrastructure policy can bring about social change.

The position of Secretary of Transportation typically has a much lower profile compared to other US Cabinet positions. But it still has power and influence and is now at the centre of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. Emanuele Monaco writes that the new Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, will use the office to help Joe Biden fix not only America’s crumbling roads and bridges, but US society more broadly, by expanding the definition of ‘infrastructure’ and the scope of the federal government.