Yeah, I think that's an interesting point - if the goal is just to have a roof over your head close to where you work, institutional involvement may be able to help there (large apartment complexes and high rises are the old school methods of creating housing units that are mostly the same as each other).

I think the issue is that housing is intrinsically tied to real estate, and real estate (at large) likely won't become much more fungible. Land is just really complicated, and the uses for it aren't all that exchangeable.