Caltrain was actually intended to be upgraded as part of a high-speed rail project, but people in peninsular suburbs opposed the upgrade because they feared it

Caltrain was actually intended to be upgraded as part of a high-speed rail project, but people in peninsular suburbs opposed the upgrade because they feared it would devalue their homes which double in value every decade or something like that. Further, it has been massively defunded because the largest peninsula employers send their employees on the dirtiest, most disruptive, private means of transit rather than participating in and funding regional transit expansion. A couple years ago something like 1/3 of the caltrain stops were shuttered, and today I hear from friends who ride it that it is bursting at the seams and people are often turned away from boarding trains that are too full. The peninsula needs to urbanize if peninsula businesses want to attract young talent who want to live in urban areas, but the suburban residents are happy to approve office developments while opposing further housing development. When people talk about building being restricted in SF, what they don't know is that they're talking about building being restricted on the peninsula. Also, while there are some areas of SF which have larger homes (hey, some people have kids and do not want to raise them in a studio) and room for cars, even if you presented a very strong argument and accompanying civil planning to further urbanize these areas, in a city where everyone is basically hanging onto their housing by a thread, is your proposal to evict the entire Excelsior and Outer Sunset in order to undertake this change? Yes, it would be easier to design SF from scratch with no regard for its' current or past residents, but even if you could do this, do you think you could retain demand for housing in san francisco long enough to complete any of this construction?