The "Future" is the Enemy of the Present
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Planning for the “future” has become an excuse not to act for the here and now. Across cities, infrastructure, and government, long-term visions are used to justify delay, complexity, and inaction. Strategic plans promise transformation decades from now, while basic services fail today. Bureaucracies defend outdated rules in the name of foresight, then fail to adapt when the future arrives differently.
Building for the “future” drains resources from building for today. We see this in megaprojects that consume billions before delivering a single benefit, in regulations written for technologies that never came, in emergency responses that outperform permanent systems because they bypass the usual inertia.
The present is full of urgent problems. Addressing them requires willingness to act. It requires recognising that speculative futures cannot justify neglecting lived reality. Action deferred is action denied. Every expenditure has an opportunity cost.
Intercity Highways of the 1950s vs Intracity Highways Today
In the 1950s, the construction of the US Interstate system, reflected a strategic goal that aligned with tactical capacity and logistical feasibility.1 These highways connected cities, supported freight and long-distance travel, and leveraged federal investment with broad political and economic support. Costs were high but justified by national cohesion, defence, and economic growth.2
Later intracity highway expansions, by contrast, lacked this alignment.
Suburban freeways, like MD 200 (The Intercounty Connector), part of Washington, DC’s outer beltway, first mapped in 1950!, ultimately opened after much back and forth in 2011 as a toll road, with greater environmental sensitivity in its design, to the extent a 6 or 9 or 10 lane toll road can be environmentally sensitive, to a deafening silence compared with the uproar the construction caused, with far less traffic than projected.3
Urban freeway widenings and tunnel projects are enormously expensive: To take a local example, Sydney’s WestConnex cost at least $AU21B for 33 km, and can be highly disruptive to established communities. They displace people and degrade neighbourhoods.
The disruption and expense of the early intercity highways solved real accessibility problems at the time, and were tolerated because they addressed then-current issues. Urban highways now fulfil outdated visions of automobility, saving time for some travellers from some places at the expense of others.
Rail vs Tactical Bus Improvements
Urban rail megaprojects, especially metro systems, often promise transformative change far into the future, but their costs are immense (and underestimated) and timelines long.
Metros in Australia can exceed AUD 1 billion per kilometre [SRL]. Even the Western Sydney Airport Metro costs over AUD 11 billion for a 23-kilometre line in an area that would be generously described as a greenfield.
The Georgetown Light Rail Transit project, connecting Bethesda and Silver Spring Maryland, saw planning beginning in the 1980s. It has been under construction since 2017 as the 26 km long Purple Line, with its scope extended to New Carrollton. It may open this decade (2027), if all goes well (and nothing has gone well so far). The cost to build (and operate for 30 years) is reported as $9.53 billion, more than half of that is apparently for building.
In contrast, tactical improvements to bus systems: network redesigns, all-door boarding, pre-payment, dedicated lanes, and bus priority at signals, can be implemented at a fraction of the cost and much faster. A comprehensive bus network overhaul in a large city might cost tens of millions, not billions, and can dramatically improve service coverage, frequency, and reliability.
When measured in passengers served per dollar, the contrast is stark. Greenfield metros may eventually serve dense corridors but do require massive upfront investment and long lead times. Urban and suburban light rail are more likely to serve dense corridors, but do require just as much cost to placate the neighbouring golf clubs, it seems. Tactical bus improvements do boost reliability and frequency, and thus accessibility, for existing riders while attracting new ones across a broader area (and if they don’t, you can redeploy the buses). Dollars spent on buses today can serve orders of magnitude more people per year than the same dollars locked into future metro or LRT capacity.
Here, the strategic obsession with rail consumes political capital and funding. Tactics and logistics that could improve outcomes now are neglected. The vision delays the present.
COVID-19 Streetscapes and Pop-up Bike Lanes
The early months of the COVID-19 pandemic saw the rapid emergence of tactical urbanism. With cities under lockdown and travel patterns disrupted, transport agencies and local governments acted quickly to reclaim street space. Pop-up bike lanes, widened footpaths, temporary traffic calming, and slow streets programs were introduced in days or weeks.
These interventions were not the product of grand strategic plans, though many implemented aspects that had long been drawn on maps and left unbuilt. They responded directly to the immediate tactical reality: people needed safe, distanced ways to walk and cycle as public transport ridership dropped and roads emptied of cars. The logistics were straightforward: cheap materials, simplified permitting, and frontline staff empowered to act.
What these changes revealed is that flexible, well-executed tactical responses can reset public expectations and shift transport behaviour more effectively than any long-term blueprint. Some cities used the moment to formalise these changes, integrating them into their long-term transport strategies. Others allowed the temporary installations to fade away.
The success of COVID-era street reallocation showed how logistics and tactics, aligned with observed need, can create momentum for durable change. It wasn't strategy first, it was action first. The crisis removed procedural drag and allowed ideas long discussed to be quickly implemented. The result: safer streets, more active travel, and a reminder that change doesn't need to wait.
Climate Change: Nuclear Power vs. Renewables
Addressing climate change demands decarbonisation at speed and scale. In this context, nuclear power is often proposed as a strategic solution. Nuclear portends low emissions, high reliability, and long-term potential. But nuclear projects are capital-intensive, politically contested, and slow to deliver. In most democracies, a new reactor can take decades from proposal to operation. This was a core issue in the 2025 Australian federal election, and the voters saw through the Nuclear proposals of the Liberal Party as a delaying tactic.
By contrast, renewables like solar and wind are tactical tools available now. Their modularity allows rapid deployment, and their falling costs make them economically attractive. Paired with demand management, energy storage, and grid improvements, renewables can drive immediate emissions reductions. The logistics of installation, grid connection, and workforce training are manageable with today’s institutions.
The risk is that nuclear distracts from what can be done today. Like other visionary technologies, it may lock attention and funding into uncertain timelines. Renewables aren’t perfect, but they are here, scalable, and improving. In the climate race, action now beats promises later.
Housing
We are continuously told we are in a “housing crisis.” The cost of housing is too damn high, so young adults can’t buy homes at the same age their parents could. There are many explanations: houses are larger, so they require more resources to build; interest rates are higher, so affordability falls; construction is too slow, trades are understaffed, and planning regulations—driven by NIMBYs in desirable neighbourhoods and government unwillingness to fund services on the urban fringe—are too tight.4 Add to that historic preservation overlays, growth in international students, second homes, underused investment properties (especially by international owners in places like the UK and Canada), Stamp Duty in New South Wales,5 Airbnb removing supply from the long-term rental market, and tax distortions like negative gearing (in Australia) or the mortgage interest deduction (in the US), and the picture is crowded.
But most of these are symptoms. Demographics are shifting. People are marrying later, having fewer children, and forming smaller households. Yet we persist in measuring housing outcomes as though every single adult should have their own detached house in their twenties—when a generation ago the norm was more kids per family, and a generation before that, multi-generational households were common.
As shown in the figure below, there is likely more enclosed residential space per capita in developed countries than ever. Overall building stock is rising faster than population. The problem is not absolute supply, but inefficient allocation. Much of the available space is locked behind private doors. Preferences matter: people with spare bedrooms rarely want to rent them out. Design matters: houses are rarely built with separate entrances or easy subdivision in mind, people prefer large open spaces rather than smaller walled-off rooms. Incentives matter: renting out rooms is taxed, and in countries like Australia, tax law doesn’t facilitate offsetting expenses against rental income. The system penalises flexibility.
The focus on future supply — megaprojects, greenfield expansion, and massive rezoning — defers action. It ignores the underused housing we already have. The housing “crisis” is framed as a problem of future scarcity, but it is equally a problem of present misallocation. This is not a call to abandon building or rezoning, but a reminder: the enemy of the present is a future that never quite arrives. It is far faster to exploit what we have, now.
Contra Future-Proofing
Future-proofing often becomes a ritual of misplaced foresight: rules made in the name of tomorrow that obstruct today's needs. As David Brin has noted: Los Angeles mandated flat roofs for heliports that were rarely used, only to repeal the requirement just as rooftop air taxis may finally emerge, serving not the public, but elites. The future was planned badly, enforced rigidly, then arrived differently.
Invest in the Present, the “Future” can take care of itself
Public investment should focus on the needs of people living today in existing places, not hypothetical future residents in speculative new developments. There is deep uncertainty about the shape, location, and scale of future growth, yet complete certainty about today’s problems: inadequate transport, unaffordable housing, aging infrastructure, and poorly maintained public space. These issues affect millions now.
Every dollar spent preparing for a future population is a dollar not spent solving known problems. Expanding the urban footprint imposes long-term costs in transport, utilities, and emissions. Intensification, improving existing neighbourhoods, is almost always more cost-effective. Yet governments often fund new highways over repairing old streets.
We don’t have the budget to do everything. If we had solved our current problems, eliminated congestion, modernised schools, upgraded water systems, then perhaps future-focused investment would be a luxury we could afford. But until then, the moral and practical priority is clear: fix the present before projecting fantasies forward.
Causes: Bureaucracy and Governance vs. The Environment vs. The Money vs. The Power vs. The People
The tension between present needs and future projections is often amplified by the machinery of an ABC institution (Arrogant, Bureaucratic, and Complacent), especially when bureaucracy shifts from a tool of governance to a self-perpetuating structure. We might consider some other functions of bureaucracy beyond the nominal: administering the process and providing specific services. In one sense, a bureaucracy is a type of jobs program for its employees. It keeps people busy, provides them with social service benefits, and ideally, out of the way of other people. Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy captures this transformation: organizations begin with people pursuing substantive goals, but over time, control passes to those who prioritise the organisation itself. When this shift occurs, institutions become arrogant, believing they are indispensable simply because they exist, while growing increasingly complacent, acting as if legitimacy can substitute for relevance.
Government can be
both necessary and legitimate (basic rule of law, defence, public health);
necessary but not legitimate (emergency powers bypassing democratic norms);
legitimate but not necessary (such as outdated regulatory bodies clinging to power);
neither (redundant agencies functioning as job programs for political allies
established in questionable circumstances).
Bureaucracies often persist in the last two categories. The more effort is spent justifying their continued existence, the less responsive they become to real-world problems. In this way, the future, defined by abstract planning and career advancement, becomes the enemy of the present, where unmet needs, crumbling systems, and frustrated citizens remain.
Still, that can’t be all of it, where does the source of delay lay? Is it environmental regulations?
[Fred Salvucci, father of the Big Dig] made a point any queueing theorist could appreciate. He argued that environment regulations are not slowing down transportation projects as a whole. There is only so much federal (and state) funding, and that is the real bottleneck. Loosening environmental regulations will not make any more projects get built in any given year.
Stephanie Pollack on the Statecraft Podcast noted that the planning time is really political time, the time required to find consensus on large disruptive projects. In short the problem is not inherently the bureaucracy, but it is also the people.
Both of these points are true, but beg the question of why focus on these very large projects to begin with when there are many quick wins that can just be done, and provide greater benefit per dollar spent.
While it is fair to ask “Why can’t we build big things anymore?”, I think it is fairer to ask “Why do we obsess about building big things when there are many, many small things we also don’t build?”.6 7
Power is a really interesting problem. People have power because other people believe they have power. Power, like money, and planning about the future itself , is a consensual hallucination. If everyone agrees someone doesn’t have power, they will no longer do the formerly powerful person’s bidding. If everyone agrees little sheets of paper are not in fact worth anything, they are not worth anything. It is hard to change everyone’s beliefs simultaneously of course, which is why power (and money) persists.
In short, if the powerful people use regulations to stop, or make very expensive, the kinds of things we used to do, we can spend years fighting them in court, in public opinion, and with the levers of government, which might be morally satisfying, or we can route around them, like the internet routes around failures, and do things they do not have the attention or capacity to block.
Urgency and Delay
If there were a war on, we’d get things done. We would mobilise resources, simplify approvals, fast-track delivery, and coordinate action. But in infrastructure, even for relatively simple projects, we accept delays of five, ten, or sixty-one years from conception to completion. This complacency is dangerous.
We are facing a new era of international conflict and disruption. It may yet be defused, but we should not assume it will be. The geopolitical environment is unstable, supply chains are fragile, and critical systems are vulnerable. Yet our institutions do not act with urgency. We plan and replan, consult and defer, and in the process, do very little.
The systems we rely on must be made resilient and responsive now, not after a crisis makes inaction impossible. Strategic drift must be replaced with tactical execution. We know how to act quickly when we must. The question is why we don’t.
For clarity:
Strategy sets direction.
Tactics decide what to do now.
Logistics make it possible.
They were accompanied by a big-city-supported urban freeway scheme that destroyed local communities for the benefit of non-local auto commuters. This has been well-documented and much decried.
Maybe the silence is because all the vehicles are electric? Nah. More seriously: It was 30.3 km and $US2.38B (2011), now serving about 60,000 vehicles per day at Georgia Ave (MD97, roughly in the middle, and at the high end of the traffic counts) (which would amount to about 21,900,000 per year). The forecasts I have seen are in terms of VMT per year, and at 10 miles per trip (generous estimate), that ~220,000,000 VMT is about half of earlier forecasts of 433,000,000 VMT per year).
Housing upzoning has a tick-tock behaviour as political parties switch control. Liberals upzone Labor electorates and vice versa. Given there is some irreversibility after construction begins, this helps upzone the whole region. In New South Wales, the State took over real zoning powers on “projects of state significance” from local Councils, defusing some NIMBY influences.
On a $1M house in NSW, stamp duty on a new purchase is about $40,000 (or 4%). The percentage goes up with the size of the purchase, depends on whether the buyer is first-time, and whether the residence is a primary residence or investment property. The magnitude of this of course makes it more difficult to finance a house. If the stamp duty went away, would buyers be able to get a better house, or would existing land owners capture the rents, and just raise the asking price.
Three issues
Incidence
Amount
Timing
In Abundance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson propose an "Abundance Agenda," advocating for a shift from a politics of scarcity to one that emphasises building and growth. They suggest that by reevaluating and adjusting regulatory frameworks, it's possible to foster innovation and address pressing societal challenges. I haven’t actually read the book, just the discourse around the book, so won’t comment too much.
Similarly, Netscape founder and venture capitalist Marc Andreesen wrote “It’s time to Build”.
FIN
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