The Economist, as a London-based magazine, has front-row seats to a great example of an affordability crisis in a city with good infrastructure and little car dependency. (In the UK they generally call it the "cost-of-living crisis", if you're looking for more information.)

> The majority of the affordability crisis stems from car dependency and excessive need for infrastructure due to bad zoning policy.

New York City is one of the most expensive places in the world. Housing is more expensive than SF.

No cars needed in NYC, yet expensive as hell.

Just got me thinking about how much an area would attract residents if it could advertise the savings they'd make from living there as compared to anywhere 'normal'.

No car = no on-going petrol / diesel costs.

Fewer cars = cleaner / healthier air. Quieter, more serene ... everything.

Cleaner / Healthier air = Fewer health issues.

Fewer cars = more bikes

More bikes = physically healthier people.

Good planning is worth its weight in gold. I fear I'm stumbling into utopia theory, which is fraught with forgetting a whole lot of other realities.

oatmeal1 is right. The largest components of most people's budgets are housing and transportation. Restricting new construction constricts new supply which results in rent/mortgage payments being higher than they need to be. Zoning which makes driving easy and anything else very hard makes buying and maintaining an automobile a de facto necessity. It also exposes you to oil shocks.