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Take the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, which will link three major Chinese cities in the country's quest to bring 42 million people together. Or there's Google's plan to make Internet available in every facet of city life as part of its highly secretive urban planning arm, Sidewalk Labs.
Those efforts and many others illustrate how investing billions of dollars in simple things like roads and Wifi access can make everyone's lives better.
Here are some of the biggest projects the world has seen so far.