This all sounds great but a functional government, including the legislative branch and ideally less fragmentation at the local level, is a precondition to change. I work in infrastructure planning and in my experience even attempts to spur investment, like the IRA, end up imposing even *more* rules and funding dubious and wasteful pet projects.

My hope is that we use this dumpster fire as a bunch of natural experiments to point toward a better, much leaner framework for planning and development. But what we’re actually seeing so far seems to be a will to destroy on one side and a clinging to a sclerotic status quo ante on the other. I hope it doesn’t stay this way.