People to need to understand that human nature and incentives are easy to talk about changing, and nearly impossible to change. It's why we're slow-walking towards catastrophic climate change.
> We could have easily built the housing we need...
If mom, dad, and 4 kids were content to share a 1k square foot "starter" house in 1970, but now all 6 of 'em (parents are divorced) want their own 2.5k square foot McMansion - that's a 15X increase in housing stock requirements. Admitting that the overall demand-side numbers aren't that bad..."no zoning" would still not be anything like a cure for the problem.