There has to be a middle ground. The US did some amazing things without autocracy, such as the public works projects under the New Deal [1] [2] [3], the Marshall Plan [4] for helping to rebuild Europe, the Federal-Aid Highway Act [5] to build 41,000 miles of Interstate highways.
I don't know why things are so difficult now. There's got to be some detailed studies into this problem.
The Federal Highway Act was pretty bad! They plowed interstates through poor (and usually black) neighborhoods to get to the city centers and at least contributed to the urban dysfunction that's been a feature of American cities since.
Then perhaps that’s a point in favour of the current regime which makes large projects difficult to build. If now we have more consultation with stakeholders then it may be less likely for that sort of thing to happen again.
Again, there's got to be a middle ground. It is insanely frustrating that in the 1960s, we were literally able to evict people and destroy their homes in order to plow interstate freeways through downtowns, but in the 2020s it takes years of preparation and meetings to turn a 4-lane road into a 2-lane road with protected bike lanes.
I don't know why things are so difficult now. There's got to be some detailed studies into this problem.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Works_Administration
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal-Aid_Highway_Act_of_195...