Housing minister Grant Shapps has warned that he hopes to replace centralised planning for housing with an incentive-based system to encourage local people and councils to release land for house building.
Addressing the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Mr Shapps said he supported peoples' aspirations for more home ownernship.
But planning had delivered the lowest building levels since 1924 and he intended to remedy that by releasing the aspirations of communities and individuals for home ownership.
He said rather than being told where to build, residents would be able to develop their own vision and local housing trusts would enable communities to develop new housing.
But he admitted the process was not entirely anxiety-free.
"We know that there is no future in this centrally planned system which has so dramatically failed, delivering fewer homes now than during any peacetime year since 1924," he said.
"By unleashing the aspirations of communities as well as individuals to build homes where and when they are needed, we will bring about greater certainty. Certainty that will replace the conflict caused by imposing housing numbers from right here in Whitehall."
He said in place of meaningless targets and expensive quangos, power would be devolved.
"The more power we give away - the more people will act to generate real change," he said.
But DCLG is plainly in no mood to stop trying to convince people to accept sprawl.
It published a report by the National Housing and Planning Advisory Unit, set up in the wake of the Barker reviews to promote the case for greenfield development, that claimed people are "far more supportive of new housing developments in their area than commonly thought".
It said more than three-quarters of people would support more homes being built in their area.
