[Elvis van Foster]

Most government bureaucrats are pricks who see the public as impinging on their comfort. They will use capricious reasoning to block any reasonable development effort. Equal parts nimbyism and laziness. Property rights and tradition don't even enter the mix.

[muawiyah]

Actually, most government bureaucrats are pretty much like everybody else. After all, the government has no special hiring hall and has to use the same processes as everybody else.

I'll guarantee you that if government employees were subject to being dragged into court at their own expense by upset citizens nobody would take the jobs.

[muawiyah]

BTW, most development effort are probably as illconceived as the one in my neighborhood that would have built some 3 story garden apartments next to a subway station.

The builder was initially upset when his plan was rejected by the Board with the recommendation that he come back with something real.

Rent on a garden apartment wouldn't have paid the taxes on the land.