My main takeaway from this is that the free market may have already lowered housing costs if bureaucracy would just get out of the way.

I mean it seems like there is something to the bit of regulation that forces them to keep rent low, but broadly this suggests to me that the bulk of spend should be on somehow making the bureaucratic part of the system run more smoothly or be easier to navigate so more projects get approved and built.

The last bit about learning from Houston especially made me chuckle. Houston is cheap and big at the same time and likely because there are so little bureaucraticisms for zoning/roofdeck requirements. The cost is that the city is ugly and not "tier 1" but seems like a fine tradeoff.