[anon84873628]

Because the nation-state is constantly using the democratic process to decide which powers should be delegated to which part of the hierarchy.

This thread is about that abstract process, and indeed whether "housing crisis" is enough justification to start overriding local autonomy.

For example, in California the state government recently restricted the power of local governments to regulate ADU construction. This was a case of state democracy overriding local decisions because of their negative externalities when taken in aggregate.

Basically the whole point of a government hierarchy is to resolve the multi-agent coordination problems that routinely occur. The government is the equivalent of the mob boss in the prisoner's dilemma, and without it we will devolve into a tragedy of the commons.