As the chronic housing shortage and affordability crisis destabilized the reigning political order internally, America’s greatest external threat has been the rise of China, a superpower that many now fear and even envy. How could they build so much as we struggled to complete even simple projects? As sluggishness and process came to feel like the defining features of American governance, it became common, even at the heights of American power, to hear China’s speed and capacity spoken of wistfully. “Sit and watch us for seven days—just watch the [Senate] floor,” Senator Michael Bennet said in
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