This is nonsense. American cities (especially west coast) make it extremely difficult to build anything anywhere, even on parking lots and crumbling warehouses.

This is nonsense. American cities (especially west coast) make it extremely difficult to build anything anywhere, even on parking lots and crumbling warehouses. There are vacant lots all over SF, in some of the most expensive neighborhoods on earth. Nobody has "raze homes". The hard part is getting permission from 20 retirees who show up at planning meetings and oppose everything on the grounds of fear of change and who think that seeing the sight of a 5 story building is an environmental catastrophe.