[sokoloff]

There are many other forms of government which are less subject to the influence of the people and their silly preferences.

If you don’t want to switch forms of government, formulating a holistic plan, addressing weaknesses in the plan, laying out how the transition will work, educating the people about it, and convincing them why your plan is better is what I’d recommend.

[AnthonyMouse]

The general problem is the "democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner" thing. If you can get at least 51% of people to vote for "I've got mine" then you've created a system of injustice. Which is nominally why we use a republic rather than a direct democracy.

But those checks and balances have been eroded over time, or weren't strong enough to begin with, so then the majority e.g. votes to constrain new construction because they value their own short-term financial gain over the greater harm they're causing to the minority.

And then the same dynamic plays out for some other issue, but this time you're in the minority and you take -50 damage instead of a +10 gain. So the problem is that it's in everyone's interest to stop this from happening in general, but only in the minority's interest to do it on any particular issue, and democracy in and of itself isn't structured to handle that.