function endPoorPeoplesHousingProblems(planningPolicy, taxPolicy, currentPolitics) { return failedStrategy; } Still, we ought to be aiming a lot higher in

function endPoorPeoplesHousingProblems(planningPolicy, taxPolicy, currentPolitics) { return failedStrategy; } Still, we ought to be aiming a lot higher in real estate development and planning. In planning: General Planning and the zoning code should be open-sourced. If you think watching a stardard's body change a programming language takes too long, a city can go a half century or more before making trivial improvements to zoning code. Look at the zoning maps for even the most tech-centric cities (Oakland, for example) and they could have been written in 1945 or earlier because they probably were. In development: One word - Finance. Even before you address tax policy, planning policy, incentives, or even change the way we construct buildings,... the way real estate projects are financed through banks with heavy fees and large equity requirements means nothing is built unless the motivation is sufficiently high and, therefore, we experience constant boom and bust. To meet the housing needs of the future we need to build units everyday -- all the time -- in places of high demand like the Bay Area cities. And we need to do so in a way that we treat them are geographically special, because they are. For there to be new home construction in places like Dublin while lots sit empty in a city as naturally beautiful as Oakland's means we are doing it wrong. And, clearly, we are doing it wrong if an apartment in a CRUD low-rise complex in Dublin (granite or not) is $2/SF. If you are wondering, $2/SF could land you in some of the best neighborhoods in Atlanta -- the most affordable, large city in the country.