Framing this as an "anti-growth backlash" is lazy and suspect. In fact, this is how "NIMBYism" can be a good thing (to the extent that it even is this; the more we allow the scale of this term to expand the more it becomes a serious misnomer). Looking more long-term at this region, continuing the sprawl of cheap multifamily is counterproductive and it makes sense to keep suburban communities more SFH-dominant.
Due to decades of what we'd now call inefficient land use, a lot of major sun belt metros have opportunities to densify their CBD and inner-ring neighborhoods. Maybe not Atlanta as much anymore, certainly the likes of Nashville at least. But walkability is all the rage these days and Revitalizing Downtown prevails as a trend across the board in planning/development depts, best way to start that is to get more housing there.
The quoted proposal to increase minimum lot sizes in suburban counties seems like quite an intriguing constraint that could hopefully be a way to influence future developer investment patterns. And it's about time, there are too many living too far out and suburban apartment living really sucks from a QoL point of view.
If you want to limit sprawl, wouldn't make sense to *decrease* minimum lot sizes in suburbs?
The most accurate answer would probably be that it depends on the particular city. But generally speaking I don't think so at this point, the remaining un(der)developed territory available within major sun belt metros is increasingly way out in the hinterlands, with a long commute required to go anywhere and on street networks that are not adequately designed to handle large volumes of traffic. Decreasing lot sizes in these areas would be exacerbating the problem, whereas increasing it sets a new (higher) cost floor which hopefully begins to reorient the market more centripetally for future affordable housing construction.
