A big part of the reason America can’t build like we used to is that we’re victims to the tyranny of the minority. A small group of people with strong opinions, and a lot of free time, can block things that are supported by the majority of the population. The people who are willing to show up to community meetings have an outsized say in what gets

Modern development, where the public sector leads and everything is built to a finished state, is a bad party. When someone buys that new house on the cul-de-sac, they don’t want more development around them. To the contrary; new development merely means more traffic, more people using the park, more taxes.