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Houston is usually the one they point to, but is the equivalent of zoning in other ways such as covenants, etc.

Houston is booming I hear.

Right, cities in Texas aren't cheaper because they don't have zoning (they either explicitly do, as well as HOAs in new developments and all sorts of other NIMBYism, or they do in indirect ways like you mention).

They're cheaper because they can still expand outward more than SF, LA, NY, etc before hitting inconvenient geography. Lots of other places that benefit from this too, of course, not just Texas.

The housing crisis 15 years ago shrank the building industry and it hasn't recovered, yet. Further, construction has historically used a significant amount of immigrant labor, and immigration has shrank recently, increasing costs.

I have coworkers in Dallas, and they bought for relatively cheap (about 1/3 of what is being mentioned for other places in the USA in this thread).

So I guess it works.

You're probably thinking of Houston and Austin.

In any case, all three have rampant HOAs which serve the same purpose as zoning.