Why should the SF Bay Area be one of the first to recover? In most parts of the country, housing prices are roughly comparable to what it costs to build a hous

Why should the SF Bay Area be one of the first to recover? In most parts of the country, housing prices are roughly comparable to what it costs to build a house, so I imagine they should be at least reasonably stable. But here, prices are way out of proportion, and this seems to depend on draconian laws preventing almost any sort of development. If people could actually build condo buildings in, say, Palo Alto, prices would be going down in a hurry.