Successful economic centers grow; failed ones shrink. Yes, there is cheap housing around economically crumbling places, but bricks and dirt don’t sustain life. Economies do.
You could try to counteract economic centralization by restricting commercial development as aggressively as residential in growing places, but (as with housing) you’ll see all but the highest value businesses displaced. I don’t see how you could pull off decentralization without full-on central planning. Capitalism wants megacities, badly. To decentralize the economy, you need extreme policy interventions for every aspect of life and commerce. It might work, but what’s certainly not working is making the intervention only for housing.
It’s all well & good to say a solution but when that solution is a complete fantasy it’s hsrdky helping
There is plenty of available space in the USA. It doesn’t have to be some crazy dog pile into desirable areas. Spread jobs and amenities out and we all don’t have to jam into a few cities or fight people off our lawns.