I wonder if it's reasonable to talk about some of these things separately from the rest of the economy. San Francisco can't build a bus lane, but it can build the hell out of some software. (You might argue that our productivity has gone down there too, but I'd say the social impact has never been higher.)

Maybe with "hard" infrastructure being a bit old-fashioned, or bogged down in red tape, maybe the entrepreneurial or organising or effective talent moved into other industries?

It sounds a little self-congratulatory, so I don't like the idea, but it's hard (for me) to see something like SpaceX as something other than a competent "can do" entrant into a stale old industry.

I don't know what lessons we might learn from that, though. Room for small upstart players in industries (especially around government spending) might be one.