I have read numerous accounts of Western do-gooders building wells for various African villages. Hand pumps, easy to maintain, designed exactly for the conditions. Problem is, within a short time, some men will cut up every bit of metal from the well head and well to sell for scrap to buy beer. Sigh. What can you do, when the concept of “enlightened self interest” (ie “don’t tear up the new village well for beer money”) simply doesn’t exist?
And Americans who own small properties and would build and maintain their own infrastructure necessities and businesses are obstructed by frivolous regulations, HOAs and other rackets from doing so—regulations and rackets devised by effete and worldly residents to keep the redneck riff-raff from becoming neighbors. Currently, foreclosures are on hold all over the country in an effort to continue the anti-development regime. After those foreclosures go through, its all over for the local regulators (big decreases in property values, taxes and other revenues).