When Best Buy wanted to build a new store in Des Plaines, Il. they bought the four houses that were on the corner and built the store. Some homeowners sold right away and some others held out for a higher price - but none had their home condemned and taken from them for a fraction of what they were worth. My Aunt sold her home for much more than she would have to a person who wanted it only for a home. Now it is a parking lot next to a Best Buy. Best buy is apparently very profitable right there and it seems to be very practical.
In a second case the gov wants to extend route 53 a few miles further north than it presently runs ( it dead ends at Lake Cook Rd.) The gov wants to take all the homes that are in the intended path except it can't because that path runs through Long Grove which is home to many very rich people. The gov doesn't have the balls to oppose them and take their homes but if they were poor that highway would have been completed years ago.
yes, those are two slanted examples.
Would it be practical for a private company to buy the property to build a road? Sometimes it might not be - in that case the obviously the road was not very important. Sometimes it would be practical for a private company to buy the land to build a road - then obviously the need for the road was great enough that it justified the cost. The private market always results in a perfect balance between cost and need. If the private market were evolution then the fittest species always survives.
A bureaucrat, very often, does not even have the ability to know if the need is great enough to justify the expense. When they fail it is a huge waste of money that was removed from the economy by force from people who knew exactly what they wanted to do with it. When they succeed and it is a case in which a private company could have done the task the gov has competed for work with the people it is supposed to be policing.
P.s. I live in a neighborhood that has all private roads built by the developer and then transferred to the Homeowners Association later. We pay for the plowing and maintenance ourselves through our dues.
