The dictatorship of the articulate

Ok, so how do technologically-minded folks learn to talk better than anyone else, to hack that system and make it work again? Is there a system for it?

Sure we do: they're called planning, zoning, or environmental review boards. And process by which they operate has been engineered to make it increasingly easier to stop projects. In some states like California, any random person (they don't even need to live in the community!) has the power to stop projects for months, if not years, all but guaranteeing either failure or massive budget expenditures.

Your argument is basically a Slippery Slope argument. The flaws in Slippery Slope are well known, but the mentality is so very attractive to the way humans think. See, e.g., Prospect Theory. As a community becomes wealthier, more people have more to lose, and they will predictably become ever more cautious about change--any kind of change, even change that on its face is positive and enriching. In the back of their minds they're thinking, "But what if this, or what if that, later on down the road, causes the loss of what I already have." Everything begins to look like a zero-sum game.

Perhaps the only thing worse than this state of affairs is the complete opposite state of affairs, where most people are desperately poor. They have nothing to lose so they're happy to leap from radical project to radical project chasing a parade of cheap promises made by snake oil men. See, e.g., most any poor country.