This is essentially what Marc Andreesen's point was in his "build" essay. Most local governments have gotten stuck in a perfect storm of rentier interests, envi

This is essentially what Marc Andreesen's point was in his "build" essay. Most local governments have gotten stuck in a perfect storm of rentier interests, environmental regulation barriers, union disputes, lack of public interest, etc. I guess it's a kind of short-termism, with each interest group looking out for its constituents. And there are too many interest groups at too many levels. There's a great analysis of transportation infrastructure costs that came out in the New Yorker, as part of a story on the new head of the NYMTA, Andy Byford (Bynum?). The bottomline is that we can't blame any specific political section, like saying that it's all the unions' fault, or all because we regulate the environment too much. Other OECD countries have the same concerns, in terms of protecting worker safety and the environment. But in the US, the number of competing groups has gotten past some critical point that it's making the whole system move way too slowly.