Comment by cucumber3732842

The "new" part was who it was happening to. Instead of just stealing some poor hicks town for a dam and reservoir (after circling the plan for years to depress land values of course) they were interfering with substantially more established communities in far more volume than the railroads ever had. And it was more than just the highways, zoning codes and all manner of municipal regulation proliferated hugely over this time bringing government into people's lives (remember, the economy was way different too, people didn't all work in cube farms with a compliance department between them and the rules).

All those centrally planned things you mentioned were green(ish) field developments