5 ms·

Paris is slightly smaller in area than San Francisco, yet has three times the population. As you said, Paris is a very livable city. Yet, a lot of people would

by erispoe 11y ago

Paris is slightly smaller in area than San Francisco, yet has three times the population. As you said, Paris is a very livable city. Yet, a lot of people would describe San Francisco as "full". It is nowhere near "full" if the city updates its infrastructure to accomodate the incoming population, and it puts the housing crisis into perspective: there is room for a lot of housing in San Francisco.

tptacek 11y ago
I don't live in SF and haven't for a long time, but this seems essentially correct to me. My experience of SF is of a lot of small, low-slung buildings; the Mission seems like it consists almost entirely of wood-frame 2-flats.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> Paris is slightly smaller in area than San Francisco Its either much smaller (if you count the city proper: less than 1/4 the size of the City and County of San Francisco; given your 3:1 population ratio, this seems most likely to be the comparison you were making) or much bigger (if you count the continuous stretch of urbanized land area within any given radius of the city center) or slightly bigger (if you count by a larger region -- the Ile-de-France is slightly larger than the 9-county Bay Area and has similar population density.) I can't find any kind of like-for-like comparison by which Paris is "slightly smaller" than SF. > It is nowhere near "full" if the city updates its infrastructure to accomodate the incoming population Which isn't an argument that SF isn't "full" (at its current limit of support), but that it wouldn't be full in a hypothetical situation which doesn't exist and which doesn't show any prospects of existing, since the money to change would have to come from somewhere, and even those proposing more aggressive development don't usually propose concrete major infrastructure improvements to support the increased population (and even when they wave their hands in the direction of the idea of such improvements, don't propose a concrete funding mechanisms.)

by erispoe 11y ago

tptacek 11y ago

I don't live in SF and haven't for a long time, but this seems essentially correct to me. My experience of SF is of a lot of small, low-slung buildings; the Mission seems like it consists almost entirely of wood-frame 2-flats.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> Paris is slightly smaller in area than San Francisco Its either much smaller (if you count the city proper: less than 1/4 the size of the City and County of San Francisco; given your 3:1 population ratio, this seems most likely to be the comparison you were making) or much bigger (if you count the continuous stretch of urbanized land area within any given radius of the city center) or slightly bigger (if you count by a larger region -- the Ile-de-France is slightly larger than the 9-county Bay Area and has similar population density.) I can't find any kind of like-for-like comparison by which Paris is "slightly smaller" than SF. > It is nowhere near "full" if the city updates its infrastructure to accomodate the incoming population Which isn't an argument that SF isn't "full" (at its current limit of support), but that it wouldn't be full in a hypothetical situation which doesn't exist and which doesn't show any prospects of existing, since the money to change would have to come from somewhere, and even those proposing more aggressive development don't usually propose concrete major infrastructure improvements to support the increased population (and even when they wave their hands in the direction of the idea of such improvements, don't propose a concrete funding mechanisms.)