This past January, the Commonwealth featured a panel on Bay Area housing crisis, featuring Pastor Paul Bains, Fred Blackwell, Priscilla Chan, Janet Liang, Jennifer Martinez, and Erika Aguilar -- an impressive, intelligent, and motivated group of experts.
https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2019-01-24/bays-futu...
What floored me, and several friends I shared this with, though, was the collective response that there was no single silver bullet, no way to throw money at the problem to solve it. Which betrays an immense ignorance or denail of San Francisco history.
Henry George's Land Value Tax is not only a concept that was developed in (and concerning) San Francisco, but literally raises money from the crux of the problem at the same time it solves it, by creating an effective incentive to increase density. Very simply put, San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area must grow their way out of this mess, and if they don't, other areas will, and are.
And it's not just about outsiders -- it's SF and Bay Area natives who are and have been priced out and forced out of the area, and present residents who will find themselves and their families -- elderly parents, young children -- facing similar fates.
And yes, I'm aware that Proposition 13 is political kryptonite, but it's also increasingly economic kryptonite, killing off what once made California an attractive and viable place to be. Though I've known of the initiative for decades, it's only in recent years I've realised just how toxic it truly is.
I've also become increasingly aware of the economic toxicity of the tendency toward and incentives for asset inflation, most especially of real productive and essential assets -- land, housing, education, healthcare, essential utilities. Some of the most interesting research on this was conducted in the 1930s and 40s by Bernhard J. Stern, for example "Resistances to the adoption of Technological Innovations" (1937). He traces the practice across numerous innovations, from printing and transport to energy and, yes, housing, naming some very familiar names and tactics. (The post-WWII suburban boom broke the logjam for a time. Oh, and you may have heard of his research assistant, a student named Isaac Asimov.)
https://archive.org/details/technologicaltre1937unitrich/pag...
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You're absolutely correct that this isn't a technological problem. It is an organisational one, and a political one, and pits families and the working class against homeowners, banks, investors, and landlords. And it will destroy California, if it hasn't already.