eli5: Would making house’s cheaper fix the housing issue?
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depends on how you do it. If you just have government set prices lower than they were, then you will have shortage of houses (because nobody will want to sell or build new houses), and excess demand because everybody will want to buy at newly reduced price.
building more houses could reduce the cost, but you need to build them where people want to live, and that is usually in established cities, which runs into zoning issues as u/JerseyWiseguy said.
you would also need to normalize buying condos and townhouses, which are perfectly sufficient for childless families or single people.
finally, since none of that will work, and we will likely continue suburbanization, then build public transport. Chicago has Metra, a suburban rail system that is different from urban subway. It gets you from suburbs to downtown in half the time of a car, it is clean and popular with professionals.
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