I think the point is local government is more accountable to its citizens than state or national governments and therefore removing something inherently local from its purview, like land planning, would be stupid.

Typical issue of why you vote at all. Your influence to the result drop significantly from your town meeting, to local to state to federal. Obviously you cannot just have local gov otherwise it is impossible to coordinate some project. But some issues are better local.

The problem is which is which and if conflict how to resolve them. Not sure there is an answer.

If a city votes on what to do with the homeless, they might get a solution.

If the entire nation votes on it, the solution will be “send them all to California”.

Things should ideally be done by the lowest level of government that can do the job:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity