Remove minimum parking restrictions, mandatory setbacks, and mandatory single-family zoning (at least in a few neighborhoods). This will allow neighborhoods to naturally densify and become more walkable, which has the dual benefit of being more desirable for a lot of people and also costing less (as long as supply isn’t artificially constrained), both for homeowners to buy and for the city to serve with services.

Two of my biggest disappointments with Springfield are the endless strip malls ugly/suburban sprawl that are completely devoid of character (with a very few small-scale exceptions like C-Street and Cherry/Pickwick) and the fact that there’s virtually no housing options for purchase (not rent) that are not single-family homes. I don’t WANT a 1/3-acre lot that I have to landscape and mow every week. I’m jealous of my aunt and uncle who live in the beautiful small town of Stillwater, MN in a gorgeous 3-story condo building right on Main Street that is dripping with historical character and walkable to two dozen restaurants, bars, coffee shops (plus a beautiful riverfront) and they don’t have to worry about maintaining a yard or even the exterior of their house, which means their time is much freer and they can travel for extended times without worrying about their yard. The same thing COULD be possible here but it’s actually illegal to build a neighborhood like that here thanks to parking/setback/zoning laws.

Flowing out of that kind of a neighborhood (one not so dependent on a car) would effectively automatically come with a greater demand for cool neighborhoods with character and beautiful trails and public spaces like so many other comments here mention.