But if there were nice things then other people would profit from that too. Especially those people [gestures vaguely]. /s

In the country of individualism, options that are better but would also help other people who haven't directly contributed to it aren't very popular.

it's funny that there instances of collectivism in the US when there's either a monetary incentive or the desire to keep the "others" out

for example, the restrictive residential permitting systems in many urban areas, which just happens to be another thing Japan gets right

Culturally, in current USA we would rather have lots of $10B networth John Galts than lots of $10B infrastructure projects.