Right wing activists and government have pushed the idea that government is hopeless, can't do anything and shouldn't try, and aggressively tried to make government as limited and as small as possible. This is often labelled "starve the beast" strategy.

They may well have a point, that government should only do things that only government can do, and that by declining to be involved they're leaving space for private businesses to operate.

But yea that's how we got here.

At this point any attempt for a government to be more intentional and interventionist would result in severe push back from the right.

Some governments are trying. In British Columbia, the government has changed laws to allow the arms length public transit agency to be able to buy and develop land around its transit stations.