Why should development be a matter of formal voting and government mandates? Why should it be any more complex than private entities buying land and then constructing what they want on that land? (Within reason - zoning is still important to keep housing away from industrial waste or garbage dumps. But the externalities of disallowing dense and mixed-use development are profoundly negative.)
That's likely to be involved in at least part of the solution, but you could still have the situation where everyone refuses to sell to developers (or enacts HOA-like contracts that forbid it).
> you could still have the situation where everyone refuses to sell to developers
There's nothing wrong with this - no one is obligated to sell their land to developers. But considering that NIMBYs have to fight hard and continuously to block new development that would have otherwise proceeded, clearly that's not the case.
