In the US, the time consuming part is not really the eminent domain, but rather the environmental regulations: even if the regulations themselves do little or n

In the US, the time consuming part is not really the eminent domain, but rather the environmental regulations: even if the regulations themselves do little or no actual difference to the process of building, the amount of time you need to spend on doing analyses, getting reviews and approvals is very high, and it’s pretty expensive too. You also need to deal with vindictive environmental litigants, who use the environmental law to either block the project altogether (by requiring more and more analyses and reviews), or extract spoils in exchange of dropping litigation. There are real benefits to environmental laws, the US is cleaner and nicer than it’s been for greater parts of 19th and 20th centuries. At the same time, it is important to recognize the very real costs carried by environment protection. People these days seem to be all about “green” and “environment”, and seem to be for any and every environment protection measure. What does not happen is analysis costs vs benefit of these measures.