>>1243432dude, you know nothing.
the primary role of ministries on the state level (in most german states, that is) is legal supervision of the lower level authorities where the actual planning and negotiating happens. we don't do this willy-nilly, my office shelves are lined with meters of legal literature. rule of law motherfucker.
formal mistakes can invalidate the entire process, which both costs (the taxpayer) a metric fuckton and takes forever to fix. civic participation has been growing in importance in the last two-ish decades, and not hearing those affected and concerned by public measures and properly assessing their concerns is just about the gravest fuck up you can produce. those poor sods in the municipal building authorities don't exactly love seeing our numbers on their phone displays.
at the same time, the actual decisions are not made by public servants but by local councils and/or elected members of parliaments. they are free to decide how to weigh which interests, as long as it's within the parameters set by the law and controlled by legal supervision, i.e. us.
more often than not, people with very pronounced self-interests develop the crazy tard strength equivalent of passionate activism and legal competency to force the councils' hands by strangling their room for discretion. you don't have to worry about government abuse; the NIMBYs usually win. we do encourage councils to not shy away from conflict, but most don't bother, especially in smaller municipalities.
hey, got a question for you. do you have similarly strong opinions on more topics you have no real grasp of? (rhetorical question, i know the answer.)
