It would of course be a functioning state's responsibility to plan urban/city development and economic incentives to move there. Regarding the ownership vs renter housing debate: I think Singapore may be an excellent example of a state doing it's duty: affordable state-owned housing and people are distributed per housing per the national demographics so you also build social coherence vs ghetto-fication.
The housing doesn't need to be state owned to get the same effect though. A functional government can create the system
Singapore is a special case, since it doesn't really have any rural areas.