"That frustration with “community efforts” in the face of the power of money is very real in many places."

I get it. People post up announcements here of meetings taking place and I tell them they might as well as forget about it. That's how deep power, money and influence outweighs people's inputs. The decisions has already long been laid. The last one they replied I really should come, despite knowing better I went. I sat there for two hours, it was a hot topic, no one on my side of town wanted a soccer stadium waged into a small space with no parking, being built on the concept of the fifteen minute walk to several different parking lots. When it came time to go up and do my three minutes, I told them I already knew that several decisions being paid were already done deals, I knew that because you already are in the process of making changes to off and on ramps, and the changes to the parking ordinance, you already told the guy who built a restaurant around the corner from me that he could sell his parking lot that he secured for approval of his restaurant. The mayor sat there shaking her head yes. In essence, everyone in that room that showed up, which was a neighbors night out not at the city commission, was one of the biggest crowds I had seen in years, were all there wasting their time.
Several days later, in a news article, it was also announced that due to the concerns of the neighbors of where they'd park off street because of the stadium, they were going to go to a parking permit system where homeowners could, for thirty dollars a year, buy a permit to park in front of their house, and if friends and relatives were going to visit, they could get two dollar passes for them to park in front of the house. The entire neighborhood went up in flames, neighbors, business owners, everybody was hot on that one, it got cancelled. I guess it's okay to piss off a room full of people but not an entire neighborhood. lol.

Taz, if I recall correctly, settled in Finland when they were offering a stipend to entice people to come there, completely different than millions of people flooding over a border. A highly productive intelligent individual such that he is, is going to be totally different than people flooding into a country offering corporations the benefit of cheaper labor keeping wages lower for the rest of the Fins.