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Comment by gnicholas | Hacker News Reader

Chicago does have a large supply of housing and land that can be converted into housing. This helps keep the cost of housing closer to the cost required to construct units.

In CA, the cost of a home has almost nothing to do with the input costs other than land. There are areas that could be built up (tons of land just west of 280), but which is protected by environmental laws or restrictions. Full development of this land would lead to traffic nightmares, for sure, but one could imagine that some of it could be developed as we move toward more efficient modes of transport.

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San Francisco also has 26 skyscrapers to Chicago's 130. 80% of the Bay Area is zoned exclusive for single family, to Chicago's 41.1%.

It's not landscape and it's not rocket science: it's zoning. San Francisco could build up, letting people live closer to their work & be much better for the environment than encouraging sprawl, but chooses not to. Y'all decided to make housing expensive, so it is.

Zoning is absolutely a big part of this. Though I would expect SF to have fewer skyscrapers than Chicago even if it weren't for zoning differences, given the earthquake risk.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/03/us/earthquake...

There's no reason why the bay area couldn't look like Tokyo today. Earthquake risks in both places.

That's why there are so few skyscrapers in Tokyo, Taipei, etc

doesn't it largely stem from Prop 13 which incentivizes all current land-owners to block any possibility of increasing density, at the expense of the rest of society?

It's interesting to me that such a universally easy sell as, "no new taxes" can result in such a distorted and, IMO, grotesque unintended consequence.

>block any possibility

It's even simpler than that. Had a conversation with a man who owns some tiny 60's vintage apartments on an ocean-view lot. He turns down market-rate offers from developers looking to put in family-size units because with his Prop. 13 tax tailwind, he makes out well enough despite the lower rents.

It doesn’t sound like Prop 13 is that influential for him. He’s turning down like millions for some reoccurring cash flow?

California Proposition 13 is about how limited the state government can charge on property tax (one percent)?and how much the appraisal can go up year after year.

Nothing to do with density, although there are numerous county and local laws on density zoning (which is not Prop 13)

Of course, it has been 1973 when this happened and I think only twice has the state government tried to changed it by “stealthily titled” proposition and failed.

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