I'm not sure if you meant to, since you seemed to be talking framing it around individual choice, but you've just made the case that something is fundamentally damning the economy in cities like Seattle. That's exactly why issues like housing affordability need to be identified and treated at the systemic level.
If people can't satisfyingly live near their work, then they can't work there, and then the work can't be done. If workers has to move to another state to practice their craft, a city needs to proactively recognize and address the problem if they want to avoid a coming blight.
Well because individual choice and governance choices both exist simultaneously and dynamically.
In this particular case, though, I think the thing that is daming Seattle (and similar locations: Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Denver, Aspen, anywhere remotely desirable) is geography and climate and there isn't much you can do to fix that because you can't create new geography out of thin air. "Ohio is so boring", "I need to be near mountains and fresh air", "I like to surf", "I love to hike" are all things that can't be effectively replicated and so wherever those things exist prices will skyrocket relative to other locations.
Can Seattle literally build more? Yes. Will that solve Seattle's housing affordability problems? No it won't. In the short term interest rates and cost to build mean that most units will be higher end. Certainly won't mean a 2-3br house anyway. In the long-term unless something drastically changes Seattle is just desirable and there will be many more people who want to live there than there will be homes unless we could just snap our fingers and create new housing, nevermind governance issues, it just isn't happening folks.
I do empathize though. Please don't mistake my comments for callousness. But sometimes the truth (as I see it) just needs to be state. If you want to work as a chef and afford a 2br house it just is not happening in Seattle and you should make peace with that.
If people can't satisfyingly live near their work, then they can't work there, and then the work can't be done. If workers has to move to another state to practice their craft, a city needs to proactively recognize and address the problem if they want to avoid a coming blight.