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Boris Johnson has said now is the time to be "ambitious" about the UK's future, as he set out a post-coronavirus recovery plan.
The PM vowed to "use this moment" to fix longstanding economic problems and promised a £5bn "new deal" to build homes and infrastructure.
Plans set out in the Tory election manifesto would be speeded up and "intensified," he added.
Labour and the CBI said he was not focusing enough on saving jobs.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said there was "not much of a deal and not much that's new".
It came as new figures showed the UK economy shrank faster than at any time since 1979 between January and March.
In a wide-ranging speech, in Dudley, in the West Midlands, Mr Johnson vowed to "build build build" to soften the economic impact of coronavirus.
'Brutally illuminated'
He acknowledged that jobs that existed at the start of the pandemic may be lost, but said a new "opportunity guarantee" would ensure that every young person had the chance of an apprenticeship or placement.
He said the UK "cannot continue to be prisoners of this crisis" and the government is "preparing now, slowly, cautiously to come out of hibernation".
"This country needs to be ready for what may be coming," he said, saying there will be an "economic aftershock".
"We must use this moment now… to plan our response and to fix the problems that were most brutally illuminated in that covid lightning flash."
He said the government wanted to continue with its plans to "level up" as "too many parts" of the country had been "left behind, neglected, unloved".
'Not a communist'
Infrastructure projects in England will be "accelerated" and there would be investment in new academy schools, green buses and new broadband, said the PM.
He said his response would not be a return to the austerity that followed the financial crisis.
He attempted to calm Tory fears that he had shifted to the left, saying: "I am not a communist".
Instead, he claimed he had been inspired by US president Franklin D Roosevelt, who led America out of the Great Depression with his New Deal in the 1930s.
In the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, President Roosevelt launched one of the largest, most expensive US government programmes which included building schools, hospitals and dams.
The prime minister loves a big, historical comparison.
He is a keen student of Winston Churchill - and has even written a book about him.
Over the last few days, the comparisons the government has sought to draw have been with former American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his "New Deal."
As my colleagues at Reality Check point out, the plan set out today is a tiddler compared to what FDR did, and a fair chunk of it is re-announcing what we already knew the government was planning.
But Boris Johnson is attempting to set out in a broader context the government's vision - and his pride in saying he wants to spend a lot to revitalise the economy and haul it out of the doldrums.
Under what he dubbed "project speed," planning laws would be streamlined to encourage building.
Changes, planned for September, include:
A wider range of commercial buildings will be allowed to change to residential use without the need for a planning application Builders will not need a normal planning application to demolish and rebuild vacant and redundant residential and commercial buildings, if they are rebuilt as homes Homeowners will be able to build additional space above their properties "via a fast track approval process" and subject to neighbour consultationPubs, libraries, village shops will be protected from the changes as they were are "essential to the lifeblood of communities," the government has said.
Mr Johnson acknowledged that the planning changes might meet resistance in traditional Tory-voting areas, but said: "Sometimes you have got to get on with things."
'Not enough'
Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer said: "We're facing an economic crisis, the biggest we've seen in a generation and the recovery needs to match that. What's been announced amounts to less than £100 per person.
Image copyright PA Media"And it's the re-announcement of many manifesto pledges and commitments, so it's not enough."
He added: "We're not going to argue against a recovery plan, but the focus has to be on jobs."
The CBI said the prime minister had set out the "first steps on the path to recovery".
But Director General Carolyn Fairbairn said: "The focus on rescuing viable firms cannot slip while the UK looks to recovery, or earlier efforts could be wasted."
Housing charity Shelter accused the government of having cut the house-building budget by a third each year and dismissed the PM's plan as a "bad deal".
Chief executive Polly Neate said "We've already seen what happens when you take the blockers off bad housing - families end up in dangerous, overcrowded, rabbit-hutch homes. Far from bouncing forward, this is stumbling backwards."
