Umm, how would one go about selling that policy? Do enough (any?) people want that?
FWIW, my wife and I have spoken at length over the last year about what it would take for us to move, leaving our house and garden and safe streets and clean parks, our open countryside being only a short walk in pretty much every direction, and that our 7 year-old is able to walk the half mile to her primary school on her own every morning...
...and as it stands, there is no job offer _at all_ that would persuade us to move to the city.
Especially after what we saw during the pandemic.
The thing preventing it right now is that it's illegal. Most areas zoned for higher density housing already have it, so to make more it would have to go somewhere currently zoned for lower density, which the existing zoning prohibits.
As for whether people want it, why does the existing higher density housing tend to cost more rather than less per square foot? Because it's nearer to jobs and shops and mass transit, and many people like that.
Nobody is forcing you to live there. In fact, if the place you currently live was one of the ares rezoned, it would net you a tidy sum -- the value of the land goes up because now someone can build a condo tower on it, meanwhile you can go use a fraction of the money to buy another single family home for even less than the one you have now is worth because the new construction reduces housing scarcity.
Just like towers (condos or any other kind) are round here.
Your local politicans are elected? So are ours.
The current problem is that the people who want to live in them are priced out of the areas where they would have to go by the zoning rules they would want to change. Having a 20% lower cost per square foot doesn't make it more affordable to move there when the smallest available unit is required to have three times as many square feet. But since they can't afford to move there they can't vote to change the law there.
It's effectively a local law against poor people living there, which the poor people can't vote against because they don't live there. That seems bad.