I don’t know generally that zoning laws are the problem in Berlin but famously voters fought against adding housing units at the old airport vs the communal parks that were there:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/cities/2015...

It certainly seems like voters are prioritizing things besides affordable housing and getting what they want (expensive rent and nice parks).

I can't speak for Berlin, but it's basically illegal to build new housing in sufficient quantities in virtually every major American city. Due to this fact, prices have shot up everywhere.

The entire state of California now has a housing crisis with > 30% of residents spending more than a third of their income on housing.

Some estimates indicate that the US as a whole has underbuilt by around 5M units of housing. There are quite a few causes to this, but exclusionary zoning is definitely one of them.