During his tenure as commissioner with the Texas Department of Transportation, Ted Houghton oversaw the rollout of $20B of road work. Private companies helped foot the bill in some of them. These public-private partnerships — P3s — seemed like a dream come true.

One project burst the bubble. The private operator behind a $1B highway partnership went bankrupt, making Houghton realize involving the private sector in a public project is not a panacea to the nation's infrastructure issue.

“I don't think one size fits all,” Houghton said.

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For a long time, Russia's real estate market was struggling as badly as its national football team.

Political sanctions and a sluggish domestic economy caused by low oil prices combined to create a challenging environment for Russian real estate these past few years, with Moscow office rents dropping by 33% between 2011 and 2017 while the rest of Europe saw a recovery. For the past three years Moscow has come dead last in the list of investor city preferences in the Urban Land Institute and PwC's Emerging Trends report.

At the same time Russia has seen its national football team fall from relevance. A side led by Andre Arshavin reached the semi-finals of Euro 2008, but even with home advantage they are 40/1 outsiders for the 2018 World Cup, which starts on 14 June.

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