California's coastal metro areas are expensive due to high demand caused by its job market combined with artificial restrictions on supply. There is plenty of

California's coastal metro areas are expensive due to high demand caused by its job market combined with artificial restrictions on supply. There is plenty of room for the Bay Area (and Los Angeles for that matter) to densify. The reason why these areas aren't densifying are largely political. It is politically easier to offload housing construction to Central Valley and thus promote urban sprawl than it is to densify the Bay Area. Tokyo and its suburbs are a great example of how densification could work. Roughly a quarter of Japan's residents live in the Kanto region of Japan where Tokyo and its suburbs are located. While the inner core of Tokyo is quite expensive, there are many affordably-priced neighborhoods just 30 minutes away from Tokyo via normal commuter trains. Even with Japan's falling population, Tokyo's population has been growing before the pandemic due to population drain from Japan's rural areas. It seems that Tokyo is better able to accommodate its demand than the Bay Area; there are very few people commuting 60 miles into Tokyo.