The word missing in this essay is "zoning." California has severely restricted new housing development for decades: https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing

The word missing in this essay is "zoning." California has severely restricted new housing development for decades: https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/, and predictably, supply constraints have led to rising prices, and so we're seeing responses to high costs (https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-backed-housebuilding-startup-atmos-techies-leave-sf-2020-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-backed-housebuild...). The median cost of a single-family house in the bay area is now something like $1.5 million; the costs are so extreme that even tech companies and their workers are getting sick of paying them.