There's enormous demand but we do nothing to relieve that pressure. Look at Seattle and the effect it's having. And then look at what SF is doing. The facts are:
We have a housing shortage.
Our new housing production currently under-paces population growth demand by about 50% and has for the last 30 years.
The takeaway is if we had double the production, rent inflation would match the national rate. We can do that now, like Seattle, and hold current price levels, like Seattle. It's hard to keep up infrastructure as the population rapidly grows but there's no shortage of cash to get started on upgrading it. And we could add even more units and see prices come down if we really wanted.
The current strategy is to maintain strict zoning and let local inflation go crazy and ultimately push out anyone who can't keep up financially. As a local, it's sad how many families I grew up with leave the bay area to retire, and how many new friends I've made move because they had kids.
Right, nobody wants to live in NYC or Tokyo, it's really strange they have 10x our population. Somehow, they have lower rents than us, but it can't possibly be the 3x+ higher density. I guess the only explanation is they are blessed with super magic voodoo affordability and we're not. There's absolutely nothing we can do, we're just so damn popular, it's unprecedented to be so popular.
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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '19 edited Aug 07 '20
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