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Comment by malvosenior | Hacker News Reader

> In addition, large-scale residential and commercial development could be prohibited or limited in mountain lion habitats within a region covering roughly a third of the state.

It seems like something has to give. In particular, we can't have reasonable housing prices, a healthy mountain lion habitat and increased immigration and population (especially in California). Those three things are directly at odds with each other.

I don't know what the answer is, but it seems likely that mountain lions will end up as the lowest priority.

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I've heard from other californians elsewhere in HN that issues with housing is from lack of density, not lack of housing space.

We could try stacking living spaces on top of each other in the places most people want to live.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology

> Arcology, a portmanteau of "architecture" and "ecology", is a field of creating architectural design principles for very densely populated, ecologically low-impact human habitats.

> The term was coined in 1969 by architect Paolo Soleri, who believed that a completed arcology would provide space for a variety of residential, commercial, and agricultural facilities while minimizing individual human environmental impact. These structures have been largely hypothetical, as no arcology, even one envisioned by Soleri himself, has yet been built.

Emphasis added. We know what to do, the question is how do we motivate enough people to do it.

I doubt reasonable housing prices will come with more development, especially in California. That's just the tag-line to get approved so you can start bilking renters/home owners. In this case, I'm for preserving the non-human entities.

Actually, housing seems to be the lowest priority. No one is building west of 280 (for a number of reasons, including environmental ones). Attempts to build up instead of expand are thwarted by NIMBYs. They’ll complain about the streets being filled with parked cars (because 10 people live in a house) while railing against building large residential apartments in downtown areas because of “lack of infrastructure.” Infrastructure which they also oppose.

We can “easily” have all three things you’ve suggested there, but a huge swathe of the public seems to want their personal neck of the Bay Area to be as it was in 1973.

Nit pik: there's a ton of development west of I-280. Just look at Google Maps. You may have in mind the Rancho Corral de Tierra nature preserve (https://www.nps.gov/goga/rcdt-factsheet.htm), which abuts I-280 for a long section at the north of the peninsula. But on the other side of that, especially along the coast, is significant development. Rancho Corral seems only loosely connected to other preserves, and in general the entire peninsula has significant development, just not very dense or obvious from the highway--on Google Maps be sure to zoom in so you can see the little communities and houses scattered around the lower-half of the peninsula, which is presumably why all those nature preserves cannot be merged. So the movement of animals from further south along the Santa Cruz Mountains is probably relatively restricted. That doesn't prevent mountain lions from making their way near and even into San Francisco, but in no way should the situation diminish concern for habit loss.

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