the world's most valuable companies.

It's often thought of

as the land of opportunity

for anyone with a big vision.

It's been home to cutting-edge inventions like

the light bulb,

the airplane,

the iPhone,

but when it comes to its infrastructure

a different story is slowly unfolding.

The top 10 fastest train systems in the world:

None are in the U.S.

The world's tallest buildings:

The U.S. doesn't even make top 5,

and the 7 longest bridges in the world:

They're all in Asia.

Let's rewind and remember what historically

made the U.S. ahead of its time.

First, the bridges.

The Brooklyn Bridge was the first steel wire

suspension bridge ever constructed.

When it first opened it was the longest

suspension bridge in the world.

In fact, it was twice as long as

any other of its time and

built to sustain an unprecedented

amount of weight.

The Golden Gate Bridge,

well it opened in 1937,

and for a few years it was the world's

largest suspension bridge span.

Then there's the skyscrapers.

The Empire State Building was the world's

tallest building for almost 40 years.

It was surpassed by the

World Trade Center's North Tower,

soon after it was taken over

by Chicago's Sears Tower.

The public transit systems.

More than 1,000 miles of

train tracks connected many

different parts of Los Angeles

and for a time it was even

recognized as the best public

transportation system on the planet.

And even irrigation.

Los Angeles created a 233 mile

water duct back in 1913,

and at the time,

it would come to be known as

the world's largest water project in history.

And even though the city's population

was only 300,000 at the time

the system could supply enough water

for a population of several million,

which ultimately would come to enable

the region's explosive growth

that was soon to come.

Fast forward to today,

many of these titles

have not only been dethroned,

but some cities are in need of major help.

In fact, an 800 million emergency rescue plan

was recently approved for New York City's

troubled subway system.

Just take a look at the

World Economic Forum's list of countries

with the best infrastructure,

which judged economies based on their

transport system, power,

and communications networks.

The U.S. doesn't even make the top 10.

The top 3: Hong Kong,

Singapore and the Netherlands.

Now imagine for a second that a country

was like a company.

Even with massive revenues,

a big company often has a harder

time innovating than say, a start-up.

A corporation's goal after all

is to maximize profits while minimizing risks,

but if a company isn't able to innovate,

you could end up with a Blockbuster or Kodak,

both of which dominated their industries

until the lack of ability to adapt

meant they would come to fail.

Take even a relatively new company,

like Facebook.

A large portion of its innovation

is coming through acquisitions

of companies including

Instagram,

WhatsApp,

and Oculus.

Now many of the locations

leading the way in infrastructure

are building smart cities

and they tend to be smaller.

Think the United Arab Emirates' Dubai,

and city-state Singapore.

The population of the United States

is 323.1 million.

It has an extensive layer of government,

including county, local, state,

federal governments, and many agencies.

Now of course many of the world's

most ambitious ideas are

coming out of the U.S.

But ideation and execution are

two different things.

Take for instance Elon Musk's Hyperloop.

The first proposed Hyperloop was between

here in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The 2013 proposal would

take a five hour drive

and turn it into about a

35 minute ride on a high-speed rail.

But a few years after that initial proposal,

the first Hyperloop isn't likely to be here.

But instead it likely could launch in

the UAE in 2020,

connecting Dubai and Abu Dhabi,

home of titles like,

the world's tallest building

and the world's largest indoor theme park.

So if innovation tends to come

from a nimble team, company,

and even country,

is the United States just too big to innovate?