Yeah, and also you have the problem of job location. The regional government says they want to make the Paris area more "polycentric", but there’s a limit to that if jobs are heavily concentrated in one area. We are racing to open more subway lines, and that will surely help, but at some point, raw distance will remain a bottleneck.
This reminds of the project that aimed at creating a new business/commercial complex south-east of Paris in Noisy-Le-Grand. A real estate promoter had a big project, and a metro line was designed, then built, but the real estate project went into bankruptcy and never got out of the ground.[0]
The metro line was completed, inaugurated, but never opened to the public, and eventually mothballed. For quite a while, it was rumored that they operated trains once a month to keep the system working and maintained, not sure up until when.
The Tim Traveller channel on YouTube did a couple videos about this [1] and [2]. The station was open for a brief time for some public tours before being redeveloped. He also links to some archival footage from 1997 showing it in motion [3].
Seems like governments could lead the charge by building new government facilities in an alternate location, which is created with a solid plan for incorporating public transport, housing, event spaces, and retail.
Its entirely possible to build a new city from the ground up. And starting with a clean slate allows planners to design with the next 10,20,30,50 years of growth in mind. It's very difficult to scale a city effectively without a long-term city plan.
It's not a problem in the sense that nowadays we know how to make it. It's a question of money and political build. More housing, more offices, make it pleasent, connect it, etc.
