This is a great edition of the BBC radio programme In Our Time, about how the engineer Joseph Bazalgette was given the task of building proper sewerage for London after the "Great Stink" of 1858. It's remarkable how much more positive people were about large-scale engineering projects like this, and the participants in the show remark on that (although I do wonder if there were many working class people who hated the idea because it meant e.g. their house was demolished to make way for the works but they had no power to stop it).
Edit: And this is a great article on the reasons why large infrastructure projects in the UK are far too expensive: https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/britains-infrastructure-is-too... I bet if we could bring them in on budget people would get behind them much more.
Would have liked to see more detail on why projects are so expensive in the UK - there was some detail in the road section (changes from objections leading to more expensive features to placate these complaints), but can't see that for underground projects, for instance...
I know when the Olympics was in Weymouth and Portland, someone knew a contractor who was doing it, and they were able to charge 3x their normal rate as long as it was guaranteed to be on time. They made a fortune. In addition, a local road building project near me (which is on the road between London and Weymouth) was pushed through to provide a better route - despite it being massively expensive and making a terrible long-term mess of what was a bad junction that needed a flyover, not the awful hamburger junction solution that the local area is now saddled with that is always on the traffic reports.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001gjcm
Edit: And this is a great article on the reasons why large infrastructure projects in the UK are far too expensive: https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/britains-infrastructure-is-too... I bet if we could bring them in on budget people would get behind them much more.