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> San Francisco has seen huge growth but constructed basically no new units San Francisco publishes its Housing Development Pipeline here https://sfplanning.or

> San Francisco has seen huge growth but constructed basically no new units San Francisco publishes its Housing Development Pipeline here https://sfplanning.org/project/pipeline-report#current-dashboard https://sfplanning.org/project/pipeline-report#current-dashb... They may not be adding capacity at a sufficient rate, but they have tens of thousands of units in the pipeline in every quarter.

arcticbull 6y ago
There's a huge spread between the number of new jobs and new houses. If you zoom out to the last 50 years it's pretty staggering. [1, 2] [1] https://economics21.org/bay-area-the-land-of-many-jobs-and-too-few-homes https://economics21.org/bay-area-the-land-of-many-jobs-and-t... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_housing_shortage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_housing_shortage
nickff 6y ago
The fact that there are units in pipeline doesn't tell you anything about how many are being completed. As an extreme example, they could actually improve the pipeline numbers by refusing to grant occupancy on any buildings (which would be very bad for prospective residents).
- shuckles 6y ago
  Most of San Francisco’s housing pipeline is homes on former superfund sites and a landfill island in the middle of the bay.
ic0n0cl4st 6y ago
San Francisco is a small city, only 49 square miles, 1/2 of which is parkland and a significant portion is landfill which liquifies in a serious earthquake. It’s also surrounded by water on 3 sides I don’t understand why so many HN commenters seem to think it could magically become a dense metropolis like Manhattan or Chicago. Even in the Gold Rush in the 1800s SF was unscalable the rent was unaffordable. It was always a high crime city. Just read about the history of the barbary coast. Everybody who comes here purely for money wants this city to be something it just isn’t.
- shuckles 6y ago
  It could be three times as populous by developing its existing residential land to Paris or Barcelona proportions, neither of which have Manhattan’s physical form. The vast majority of residential land (nearly 80%) is unremarkable single family housing.
  - ic0n0cl4st 6y ago
    Sure, but we don’t want that. There is an incredible amount of space in the bay area which could be turned into droid housing and office buildings. ALL of those places have cheaper real estate, fewer homeless people (the #2 complaint of everybody here) and warmer weather. It’s 2021 and Covid-19 has shown that remote work is viable. Back in the day large tech companies like Sun, Peoplesoft and Cisco built offices all over the bay so that people had the option to work at facilities close to their home. SF wasn’t even a significant tech destination before 2007. My wife and I are actually moving to Barcelona when Covid is over, under the Non-Lucrative residency permit. If you think San Franciscans have a Nimby attitude and hate outsiders then you should go visit Barcelona. “Unremarkabe single family housing”. So what, you want to take peoples’ housing via eminent domain and build more of the hideously dugly condo boxes they’ve stuffed all over SOMA and the Missiom? I happen to love my unremarkable home in the Sunset in which my family has lived for 55 years.
    - shuckles 6y ago
      Great that you love your home. That doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t be able to redevelop their own homes, but that’s currently illegal. It also doesn’t make your house or its architecture remarkable or worth preserving if you wanted to do something else with the land. It’s quite rude to refer to housing for people as “droid housing.” What makes you any better than them?
      - ic0n0cl4st 6y ago
        It’s quite rude for you to say my home is not remarkable or worth preserving. You’ve never even seen it. You know nothing of my tightknit, diverse community which cares about things of more importance than ipos and user engagement. “Droid housing” is san francisco slang for the soulless eyesore boxes containing cramped, slapshodnfaux “lofts”, usually painted a bluish slate grey or salmon pink on the outside, entirely devoid of character or quality. Thankfully San Francisco’s direct democracy works well to keep this city small. There are many soulless sprawling cities which are seismically stable, devoid of character, flat and inhabited by people who don’t care enough to resist.
tick_tock_tick 6y ago
I think this pipeline easily qualifies as "basically no new units".
shuckles 6y ago
San Francisco is producing a fraction of the housing it used to in the mid 20th century. Job growth is far greater than housing growth. (If the city can make space for office square footage, then why not for residential?)

arcticbull 6y ago

There's a huge spread between the number of new jobs and new houses. If you zoom out to the last 50 years it's pretty staggering. [1, 2] [1] https://economics21.org/bay-area-the-land-of-many-jobs-and-too-few-homes https://economics21.org/bay-area-the-land-of-many-jobs-and-t... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_housing_shortage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_housing_shortage

nickff 6y ago

The fact that there are units in pipeline doesn't tell you anything about how many are being completed. As an extreme example, they could actually improve the pipeline numbers by refusing to grant occupancy on any buildings (which would be very bad for prospective residents).

shuckles 6y ago
Most of San Francisco’s housing pipeline is homes on former superfund sites and a landfill island in the middle of the bay.

ic0n0cl4st 6y ago

San Francisco is a small city, only 49 square miles, 1/2 of which is parkland and a significant portion is landfill which liquifies in a serious earthquake. It’s also surrounded by water on 3 sides I don’t understand why so many HN commenters seem to think it could magically become a dense metropolis like Manhattan or Chicago. Even in the Gold Rush in the 1800s SF was unscalable the rent was unaffordable. It was always a high crime city. Just read about the history of the barbary coast. Everybody who comes here purely for money wants this city to be something it just isn’t.

shuckles 6y ago
It could be three times as populous by developing its existing residential land to Paris or Barcelona proportions, neither of which have Manhattan’s physical form. The vast majority of residential land (nearly 80%) is unremarkable single family housing.
- ic0n0cl4st 6y ago
  Sure, but we don’t want that. There is an incredible amount of space in the bay area which could be turned into droid housing and office buildings. ALL of those places have cheaper real estate, fewer homeless people (the #2 complaint of everybody here) and warmer weather. It’s 2021 and Covid-19 has shown that remote work is viable. Back in the day large tech companies like Sun, Peoplesoft and Cisco built offices all over the bay so that people had the option to work at facilities close to their home. SF wasn’t even a significant tech destination before 2007. My wife and I are actually moving to Barcelona when Covid is over, under the Non-Lucrative residency permit. If you think San Franciscans have a Nimby attitude and hate outsiders then you should go visit Barcelona. “Unremarkabe single family housing”. So what, you want to take peoples’ housing via eminent domain and build more of the hideously dugly condo boxes they’ve stuffed all over SOMA and the Missiom? I happen to love my unremarkable home in the Sunset in which my family has lived for 55 years.
  - shuckles 6y ago
    Great that you love your home. That doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t be able to redevelop their own homes, but that’s currently illegal. It also doesn’t make your house or its architecture remarkable or worth preserving if you wanted to do something else with the land. It’s quite rude to refer to housing for people as “droid housing.” What makes you any better than them?
    - ic0n0cl4st 6y ago
      It’s quite rude for you to say my home is not remarkable or worth preserving. You’ve never even seen it. You know nothing of my tightknit, diverse community which cares about things of more importance than ipos and user engagement. “Droid housing” is san francisco slang for the soulless eyesore boxes containing cramped, slapshodnfaux “lofts”, usually painted a bluish slate grey or salmon pink on the outside, entirely devoid of character or quality. Thankfully San Francisco’s direct democracy works well to keep this city small. There are many soulless sprawling cities which are seismically stable, devoid of character, flat and inhabited by people who don’t care enough to resist.

tick_tock_tick 6y ago

I think this pipeline easily qualifies as "basically no new units".

shuckles 6y ago

San Francisco is producing a fraction of the housing it used to in the mid 20th century. Job growth is far greater than housing growth. (If the city can make space for office square footage, then why not for residential?)