[NeonVice]

It depends. Do you believe that it is the role of government to build new housing or is it their role to create an environment that encourages new building supply? Is new housing not being built because of government regulation that deters new building or certain types of buildings?

[r_singh]

Even though Microsoft is funding this project, the government is definitely still involved. The credit will (& should) obviously go to Microsoft since they're shelling out $500M, but there's definitely a lot of hard working honest peeps from the Govt. that will be helping as well.

[remarkEon]

Both?

I think in places like SF or Seattle it’s a combination of government regulation and zoning rules, and idle capital. But at the same time I don’t see why government itself can’t invest in building things like transportation infrastructure to support the increased density (assuming density is something we want - I’m not entirely convinced it is).

Over the last few decades the default state appears to have been “build up” rather than “build up where needed, and out where you can”. Cities from previous iterations of civilization appear to have done the latter, while we mostly just do the former here in the states (over recent decades). LA could maybe be considered an exception, however it’s zoning rules are draconian and density seems to be the way forward less some major overhaul.

[icebraining]

While the rate has decreased, "sprawl continues to be pervasive and continues to increase" in the majority of US metropolitan areas, and "2010 represents the first time that more people lived in lower density than higher density tracts in metropolitan America": http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11...

[bobthepanda]

Seattle is in the midst of one of America’s largest transit expansions, to spend $50B+ in 40 years. Pretty much all cities are aggressively zoning around their light rail stations; for example. The suburb of Lynwood has zoning allowing up to 350 feet in height around their stop.

The problem is that these things take time, mostly because this isn’t China and Seattle doesn’t have hundreds of billions in Treasuries to do what it wants, nor is it willing to conspire using shady financial vehicles like Chinese local governments.