[UtopiaPunk]

There are some silly culture-war politics which makes reasonable discussions difficult. But also some of the politics problem is that a lot of these decisions are being made at the local town/city level. Small rural towns may try to dig in their heels and and resist urbanization (and the specific tactics involved are usually kind of bad, imo). Meanwhile, big cities often don't have strong incentives to not sprawl, at least in the US. Sprawl moves the costs of housing and transporation onto someone else (either the surrounding towns or the individuals), while the city maintains some portion of a tax base (sales tax and local businesses). Some cities have some political will to fight for these anyway, but even at the best of times, these policies have to make some harmful compromises.

I think the most promising solutions to this problem are policies from state-level governments.