That's the main difference with France indeed! We have strong regulations over landuse that allows you to build infrastructure over constructible areas (often l

That's the main difference with France indeed! We have strong regulations over landuse that allows you to build infrastructure over constructible areas (often located around city center). For this type of large-scale projects you will need to go deeper the countryside but we don't have much desert areas here. You'll always end-up close to housing area or historical monuments.