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I think the point is that this possibly doesn't really matter and there is no level of building that will keep up. It's cheaper to move to SF than it is to buil

I think the point is that this possibly doesn't really matter and there is no level of building that will keep up. It's cheaper to move to SF than it is to build a house in SF and always will be. Allowing more housing won't help until you get to an very massive number of units as you'll simply have even more people moving in which will fuel the crisis even more until construction cannot keep up. Worse construction prices will skyrocket which will impact anyone wanting to do any renovation or maintenance (including existing landlords) which will drive rents up even more.

jt2190 4y ago
> It's cheaper to move to [city] than it is to build a house in SF and always will be. This is exactly it. Further, attempts to preserve the current population size of a city and keep things the same as they are can only try to deprive newcomers of the infrastructure needed to support themselves (housing, transit, etc.), but not actually make it illegal for people to move in. And quite clearly, they will move in anyway. Even cities that try to adapt can only grow so quickly, as it takes time to build new infrastructure, but new arrivals can come at any time. In some ways I expect this problem will get worse, as the population of people who are decoupled from a particular location increases. “Work from home” is nearly the same thing as “work from anywhere”, and I expect that a lot of people will want their “anywhere” to be the currently trendy locale, and will throng from place to place.