When Google proposed a new vision for retrofitting its Mountain View campus as a dense and walkable urban place, the city embraced the plan — but balked at Google’s request to include housing. Increasingly, we are seeing expressions of the urban future of work through specific proposals by companies interested in retrofitting the suburban corporate campus rather than moving into cities.

After years of underbuilding, new housing and commercial construction is booming in San Francisco. Years of work on neighborhood plans and rezoning are paying off as new construction targets transit-served areas and neighborhoods that support greater residential density.

From carsharing to clothes-swapping to couchsurfing, collaborative consumption is not only reinventing what we consume but how we consume it.But as it moves out of infancy and toward greater adoption and acceptance, it’s time to look at the ways policy might help facilitate its growth — and how government might help, or hinder, its progress.