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Comment by zt | Hacker News Reader

(I'm the author).

You make excellent points, and I don't mean to minimize the regional issues.

Sure, if I had a magic wand then I'd increase housing being built across the Bay Area. In fact, I'd like consolidate the jurisdictions in the Bay Area, but that's a whole other argument.

I don't quite know how to play out the claim that demand is infinite. One, I don't believe that. And, two, it seems like an argument that has us throw up our hands and do nothing. It's large problem that needs a large solution -- I've heard estimates in the 100-200 thousand unit range -- but I'd rather shoot for that goal than do nothing at all.

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Kinda off topic in context of this thread, but if you’re organizing panel discussions about this, you should try to get someone from http://www.spur.org in your panel. See http://www.spur.org/policy-area/housing and http://www.spur.org/policy-area/regional-planning

Thanks! I know SPUR well, I'm actually on their housing policy board.

I'm not saying this is your motivation, but when it's a proposal to the housing problem is framed as "Let's Fix San Francisco" it feels like the proposer believes they must live in San Francisco, especially when the proposer isn't a native San Franciscan. It feels tribal, and this issue is extremely tribal, and anyone who appears to belong to a specific tribe chimes in with a "We need to fix San Francisco" undoubtedly people from other tribes chime in and complain about how that tribe is the problem and the conversation usually devolves into name calling at some point.

When the proposal is a bit broader, i.e. "Let's fix the Bay Area", then, at the very least, it doesn't feel like a claim is being made on San Francisco by a specific tribe.

More than anything, it's the tribal nature of this issue that really sucks and it really stalls the things for everyone.

Completely ignoring the transit issue is remarkable. New York City serves an example of a vibrant and expensive city, but one that has a multitude of options depending on how much you're prepared to commute.

People truck in on a daily basis from New Jersey and Connecticut because there's highways and reliable (enough) rail options.

BART, from all accounts, is a total disaster and is about to completely implode. The rail project through the valley is anemic, completely inadequate for any serious commuter use.

If you can provide more options, stronger links with better commute times, you can live in places farther away without as huge a penalty on your time. It should be practical to live in Oakland and work in San Francisco, the two are so damned close, but it's a nightmare in practice.

Fix that and you're half way to solving this problem.

If the Japanese could have high speed trains in 1964, why can't an area with such density have a stellar transport service in 2016? If you increase the speed by an X factor, you get an increase of surface by X^2, moving the problem away in a place where there is low density.

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