You think the government knows better how to identify land that is profitable than private builders? Why? Or is this one of those opinions based on "is OK for the state to pay for it because there's infinite money for my pet project"?
Government doesn't need to make a profit due to taxation.
UK public housing is widely known for being shit. Unsafe, puts all the poor people together in a block. There's bunch of crime, and your kids will be likely to stay stuck there or go to jail due to bad influences.
Social housing should be sprinkled around it has been found. So nice example of what I was saying.
And privately built appartment blocks are awful. One cracked in Sydney had to be evacuated. Concrete cancer and water ingress issues. It is concrete enshittification.
They're just gonna pay builders a sum anyway so it's not like they need to shoulder the full upfront cost anyway.
But surely soviet style huge blocks of tiny t0 apartments all stuck together is a dream...
Public transit. Capturing enough money from fares is difficult, maybe impossible, but it's quite profitable if you can capture the value generated by the enabled economic activity and raised property values.
The same really goes for most infrastructure. There's a reason the government operates nearly all the roads. Also the fire departments and police stations
In this case what people want is the reverse. They want the government to build in Austin.
The government should be involved when market forces won't solve an issue, ie no market will make it profitable to send an ambulance to a town 3h away in the mountains. You don't need affordable housing in the center of Austin just because it's trendy though.