If anything, large infrastructure projects take longer now with more stringent worker safety, environmental and engineering requirements. The replacement cost of 1960s/70s/80s hydro generating stations (particularly their dams) is much higher than what they cost initially. It's no longer acceptable, for example, to have 20 people die on your dam construction project. It's also a hell of a lot easier to forcibly relocate local people in an authoritarian country like GDR than in Australia.