"They paved paradise to put up a parking lot"

Local Hero - too new to be a classic? A gem never-the-less.

Aussie beat me to Local Hero so how about

Chinatown (1974) a simple tale largely concerned with water rights.

Not sure if this fits :
The Fountainhead (1947)

So long since I have seen The Fountainhead  I think it is more focused on modern design, cannot remember if that involved ripping down and developing over historically significant architecture?

manfromplanetx

2 imdb summaries
Individualistic and idealistic architect Howard Roark is expelled from college because his designs fail to fit with existing architectural thinking. He seems unemployable but finally lands a job with like-minded Henry Cameron, however within a few years Cameron drinks himself to death, warning Roark that the same fate awaits unless he compromises his ideals. Roark is determined to retain his artistic integrity at all costs.

An uncompromising, visionary architect struggles to maintain his integrity and individualism despite personal, professional and economic pressures to conform to popular standards.

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I was thinking more of the Grand Plans aspect. Probably not what you are looking for. I read the book and liked it much better than the film. Also a Long time ago.

The Pelican Brief (1993) Alan J Pakula.
Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington uncover a government conspiracy. If I remember correctly, the fact that the motivation was the illegal appropriation of protected land for industrial development does not come to light until near the end of the movie.

Powwow Highway (1986)

"Depicts the struggles of reservation-dwelling Native Americans in the North Central United States. The main character is an introspective and lovable person in a process of seeking pride and identity through traditional and mystical means of gathering power. His high school friend, who is a Vietnam War Veteran, is exerting power as a highly principled social activist, using a modern rational materialist adversarial model of progress battling a suspicious land-grab" .

The episode "Main Street U.S.A." (telecast: 23 January 1967) of "The Lucy Show" comes to mind. Developers wanting to tear down a beautiful main street to make way for "modern" soulless development. Probably the closest Lucille Ball ever got to dealing with a political issue....

I forget the name of the film, but there's a public domain 1940s film about a man trying to save a Confederate-era building (either town hall or courthouse, I forget which) from being torn down.

EDIT: the above film is Colonel Effingham's Raid (it took about 10 minutes of searching to find the name). Not sure how eligible it is for this thread, been years since I saw it....

As two of my most revered and revisited films, the inclusions of both Chinatown and Wild River, each of which I consider to be among the finest their respective decades offer, prompts comparisons of the two, and the ways in which common dramatic catalysts - water, its control and distribution through massive, publicly-funded projects and the displacement of those such efforts bring about - result in entirely different films despite numerous similarities.

While each takes what could be called a fatalistic viewpoint, examining themes of inevitability and futility, Chinatown does so as an exploration of corruption (personal as well as civic and fiscal) in which displacement occurs as a result of land swindles for financial gain, and wraps its tale in a mantle of human tragedy. Wild River makes its examination at an equally human and intimate level, but from a philosophical point of view: neutral in its portrayal of the necessity of acting in the interest of "the greater good," it acknowledges the personal costs to those who, sometimes unwillingly, make sacrifices for the sake of that interest.

It's no doubt coincidental that both take place in 1937, but they share stylistic similarities: elegant cinematography in color and 'scope, extensively employed on location with impeccable period duplication. Each follows its graphically simple title sequence (underscored by mournful trumpet solos) with grainy B&W imagery: Wild River with newsreel footage of flooding that devastated Depression-era communities and families; Chinatown with sordid photographs of marital infidelity captured by the camera of its protagonist.

The first pragmatically depicts the purpose behind TVA administrator Chuck Glover's task: convincing the lone holdout to vacate her land before the rising waters behind a newly-completed dam flood it, and we can sympathize with his predicament. "That's the American way of life. Rugged individualism is our heritage. We applaud that spirit, we admire it, we believe in it," he tells an assistant, before adding, "But we've got to get her the hell out of there." He becomes immediately sympathetic as well for appearing so out of his depth, yet so confident. "I thought they'd send an older man," the assistant says. "Getting the old lady off Garth island is difficult. You're the third one they've sent to try." Chuck sets out to resolve the impasse while best satisfying the interests of all parties.

The second establishes the seamy world through which private investigator Jake Gittes moves: one of duplicity, betrayal and clandestine dealings, from which he insulates himself with the trappings of success; high-style offices, staff of operatives and fashionable, well-tailored suits. He wins us over from the start with these and his snappy yet businesslike manner and repartee, and when he discovers he's been made a fall guy for purposes completely unclear to him, we're on his side as he employs the tools of his trade to find out why, not only as a matter of instinct but of professional pride. "Whoever set your husband up, set me up," he tells the wife of the man he was duped into tailing. "L.A. is a small town. People talk. I don't want to become a local joke." But it's Jake's own self-confidence that will be his undoing as he finds himself up against forces more powerful than he'd imagined, and by failing to heed the hard lessons of his own past: "I tried to keep someone from being hurt, and ended up making sure that she was."    

Each protagonist follows the dictates of what he interprets as duty, with his mission becoming complicated by romantic involvement with the beautiful, widowed offspring of the authoritative family figure at the center of their tasks. Both encounter physical brutality meant to intimidate them, in spite of which both persevere, but toward divergent outcomes.

Both are candid statements about the way things work in the real world and conclude on the aforementioned notes of inevitability and futility of the kind represented by the well-known phrase, "You can't fight city hall. Chinatown does so with a pervasive and cynical sense of the failure of good intentions and triumph of corruption. Wild River's gentler and more humanistic take is one of optimism, tinged with melancholy and regret over what's lost in the larger cause of progress. While both involve degrees of tragedy, one depicts it as an outgrowth of imperfect efforts to mitigate it in the face of unresolvable conflicts, and the other as a result of the very attempts made to prevent it.       

Not intending to subvert the thread topic, it always seems to me the solicitation of titles sharing a common theme provides opportunities to look at any of them in greater depth, and to explore the ways in which they employ that theme.           

       

Oh, I like that. Good outside-the-box thinking: it's not the sort of film that would automatically occur when considering the topic, but it applies.

Although not involving water, like Wild River, it concerns a lone holdout against development, up against an irrevocable deadline and regarded by authorities as an old lady who may fall anywhere on a scale between eccentric and crazy. And like Chinatown, the premise exposes greed, corruption and dark family secrets.

Great choice.