You sound extremely uninformed.
Rent and cost of living are directly impacted by policies. Increase land tax = higher cost to use land. Increase regulations on any supply chain and you'll increase cost of production. Millions of examples.
Land supply and demand can be choked by policies and directly inpact cost. Choke supply to benefit the rich and you'll increase the cost of rent. How bout promoting policy to increase supply? Oh that's a Texas style policy.
Are you seriously saying that taxing gas to reduce use of cars is an effective method? People use cars because they have to. In Japan they don't have to. Want to improve climate? How bout building up like Japan.
Irresponsible to have cheap gas? Cheap gas = faster to getting off gas through booming economy vs Expensive gas = stagnant economy leading to 0 progress.
What did I just read?