> less sprawl > no private company will do this. Many cities are blocking developers from buying up homes in old neighborhoods to build apartments and condos

> less sprawl > no private company will do this. Many cities are blocking developers from buying up homes in old neighborhoods to build apartments and condos which could house far more people closer to their jobs. Often this boils down to NIMBYs lobbying city councils while those who would buy said apartments aren't exactly in a place to do that. There's a lot of low hanging fruit like this where trivial policy fixes could go a long way without the political challenges of massive public spending, but we can't even get these set up properly. A simple shift from allowing developers to build more suburbs to more apartments and condos would do a lot of good in many cities.