[fanzhang]

That's probably also the answer to the time series question as well -- i.e. why construction is more costly today in the US than 100 years ago.

Interestingly, I think those complexities are not imposed by any monolithic person or organization, but is a the bulk result of lots of little regulations. I'm not sure any one specific person is saying "on the whole, this system of complexity is worth it" but rather each one by itself has a specific good (e.g. environmental study) without explicit accounting of the costs.

To be silly and meta, perhaps in addition to a mandatory environmental impact study of each large construction project, there should be a mandatory economic impact study on the environmental impact study.