Minor personal pet peeve: I really hate the term affordable housing. Yes, housing can and should be less expensive. But there's a lot of stuff surrounding housing that needs to be addressed beyond just the actual cost.

To me, the way homes are designed is often backwards. For instance, they're often designed from the outside-in rather than from the inside-out. Instead of starting with a room you want to build and making it the best possible layout for a specific function (say watching movies, or hanging out with friends and talking) houses are often built from the outside-in: they'll usually start with the shell first and then roughly pencil in an area that can be called a "living room" but there's no real care in designing spaces for optimum functionality.

And the way that homes can be laid out relative to other homes can be improved. What about concepts like pocket neighborhoods? Would they work everywhere? I don't know, but they seem like they would be transformative to a lot of peoples' lives.

Isn't this one of the more funded "moonshots" that exists today? Or is this mostly commentary? (Or are there specific untested kinds of affordable housing you'd want to see developed?)

There's plenty of affordable housing. It just might not be in the perferred location or with preferred attributes.

A system addressing population distribution to adequately balance areas with an excess and deficit of housing would be good. As would something to influence housing preferences, like size and amenities.