I'm still not sure I agree about Austin. Going from low to medium density by Austin outskirts standard may just be too different from going from 15,000 residen

I'm still not sure I agree about Austin. Going from low to medium density by Austin outskirts standard may just be too different from going from 15,000 residents mi to 30,000+ to say it poses the same problem within the context of understanding political opposition. If we're going to say that SF residents are uniquely politically opposed to growth, we'd need something at least reasonably comparable. Pointing out that people haven't objected on the outskirts of Austin suggests to me that people have different political reactions to different things. Your DC example is fairly compelling, though. DC (according to wikipedia) has density of about 11,000 on a land area of 68 sq mi. That's close enough for useful analogies. We're looking at 17% growth in the last 15 years within that region (any links for that?) I'll try to find some data for SF, but do you have a comparable link for increase in residential units in SF in that time? Keep in mind also that SF experienced a massive slowdown in construction after the housing bust, that may now be ramping up. So you do need to make sure you aren't measuring and projecting velocity without considering acceleration.