[CaptainZapp]

the US tendency for regulation by judicial settlement instead of legislation and the much more democratic decision making process

I'd wager that the democratic decision process in Switzerland is far more stringent and the public is far more involved.

On every level, be it a local tram line, a canton wide, or intra-cantonal rail system, or projects of national importance and great expense, like [1], the public is virtually always consulted via referendum and has to green light the project.

This is also a huge strength of the system. Because once a project is approved, the funds are secured and politicians can't pull shenanigans to pull, or divert funding.

I'd wager that a high democratic involvment into major (and expensive) projects is rather an asset, than a liability.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel

[retiredcoder]

We have the chance to participate in the US too, now to what extend it is effective, I don’t know.

For example, even in big cities like NYC, there are public meetings about the projects, etc. Yet, I still believe that past certain point, people just stop either caring or not having the energy to follow thru the whole process.

Just a side note, it might sound pedantic but after living in Scandinavia, one thing I noticed that the expectation of “participation” during the decision making is not same even here. I bring this up because somewhat it contributes for more or less polarization and inefficient processes, I’d say.

[maxxxxx]

I think Switzerland with its long history of democratic participation has developed a pretty mature population that generally makes (relatively) informed decisions. If you introduced this in the US I bet people would vote for abolishing taxes while increasing government spending on their pet issues. It would probably take a while until people have learned that this doesn't work.