Indeed. A lot of problems are solved by having less people on the planet, and ultimately that will happen whether planned or not.

That's true.

It's also true that, if I wanted to build a nice subdivision under El Capitan in Yosemite, I would find that I'm quite unable. The collective hivemind that makes up the body politic prefers a national park over houses.

So now that we've acknowledged that Mammon isn't the only god in our pantheon, perhaps we can make better decisions on that basis, going forward.

Yes, thats sucks.

For that specific problem, you could imagine policies allowing you some kind of 'zoning swap' - where you get a bit of land in one physical location and swap all laws, covenants, and restrictions for land in another region. Obviously you might not have a 1:1 exchange rate...

Youcould set up a collective farm, where a neighborhood essentially owns a farm.

Or you could just grow trees on top of your houses!