Brick by brick, regulation by regulation, America built its own housing crisis .

Experts say the problem is cemented into the foundation of the US housing system, a design flaw decades in the making.

They point to three major forces doing the most damage: restrictive zoning, land-use barriers, and financial policies that have choked supply and pushed prices out of reach.

“There are just many, many ways to halt and stop development,” said Joseph Gyourko, professor of real estate and finance at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania .

“And we’ve gotten very, very good at it in the United States.”

That resistance to new construction, experts say, is why restrictive zoning and regulatory barriers top the list of forces driving America’s housing crisis.

Jim Tobin, pr

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