Increasingly restrictive land-use regulations are driving up housing prices in many of America’s biggest, most productive cities. In Manhattan, San Francisco, and San Jose, for example, this “regulatory tax” accounts for an estimated 50 percent of housing prices. In addition to exacerbating problems of housing affordability at the local level, these regulations are undermining economic growth at the national level via a growing misallocation of the work force. Specifically, U.S. GDP is lower than it could be because people are being priced out of moving to those metro areas that disproportionately produce GDP. In addition, income inequality across metro areas and regions of the country is higher than it would be if people were free to move to where jobs and opportunities are most plentiful.