To find the answers to this you need to jump into the rabbit hole of corruption, low cost housing and zoning laws. Yes, people are greedy but then that is true

To find the answers to this you need to jump into the rabbit hole of corruption, low cost housing and zoning laws. Yes, people are greedy but then that is true for every single town in USA. It is only in SF bay area that housing is so expensive. It is possible to build a high rise building but such a project needs to be approved by local town which they won't. They will put unreasonable restrictions in terms of parking spaces, open spaces etc. These laws prevent building anything bigger. There is a deeper rot of corruption called "low cost housing". There are several organizations that will deliberately litigate any new project, run it into ground and once the developer has lost a lot of money they will buy it cheap for so called low cost housing. To give a real world example a laundramat owner in SF who made ton of profit had pity on the housing need of the city and out of his good heart decided to demolish the laundramat and build housing instead. He has been harassed, the corrupt city admin declared his building historic monument in order to prevent him from redoing it. All the while he lost money and paid property taxes. [1] As of today it takes around 2 years to get all the necessary permissions for any kind of construction project. Most developers have turned their back on the city. See this interview with one of the builders. [2] Third part is large empty patches of land that are for some reason not being brought under development. Look at google maps and you will notice there is plenty of land in Fremont, Santa Cruz mountains, Palo alto etc. where mountains can be demolished, new housing units created. But wont happen because of over zealus environmentalists. [1] https://reason.com/archives/2019/03/19/the-most-contested-apartment-b https://reason.com/archives/2019/03/19/the-most-contested-ap... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfIjDGF_YYQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfIjDGF_YYQ