May the painted ladies be demolished and replaced with supertall skyscrapers jam-packed with cheap apartments, maker spaces, and startup incubators!
(I say this with no sarcasm. SF should look like Manhattan; allow a few historic houses but most gotta go.)
Without value judgement: Manhattan doesn't look like this. The parts you're thinking of (midtown and downtown) are full of luxury skyscrapers; the majority of the "cheap" (by relative standards) housing is in the north of the borough in 6-10 story apartment buildings.
This guy clearly doesn't know Manhattan real estate. A skyscraper full of cheap apartments in Manhattan? Only in the fever dreams of the relative peasants with 6 figure salaries.
Besides, geotechnical engineering is your friend. A landscape of supertalls may not be the best way to go for San Fran's geography.
Paris has a height limit of 12 stories for most parts of the city https://www.archdaily.com/1002165/paris-reimposes-the-ban-on...
Hopefully the San Francisco BoS does their part and approves reasonable housing so it's not purely up to developers with SB 35/423.
Sure, we should have higher density apartments in more areas, but they'll probably still all cost the same, the demand is pretty unlikely to be met and landlords will continue to charge insane rents no matter what. They'll probably all be luxury apartments as everyone is looking to maximize their profits.
It's weird to me that the concept of induced demand is pretty common knowledge when it comes to road traffic, but mostly ignored in housing discussions.
Well yes, because we have decades of undersupply to correct! Of course a small step in the right direction doesn't magically fix everything. We need to build WAAAAYYY more, like to a vast overabundance, which capitalism unaided can never do because a builder will never start building a hundred rooms if that makes the market go down because that would ruin their profits elsewhere.
I would be surprised if, after there is enough supply, there is an "induced demand" effect for housing. Humans take like 20 years to go from born to needing a house, and most people don't choose to have children when they otherwise wouldn't because of cheap housing.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-allowing-hundreds-of-...
As a thought experiment, what if we treated immigrants to the country in the same manner... "What if existing US residents don't want to turn it into Mexico by allowing Mexicans into the country. Why can't the Mexicans go to Canada or Guatemala".
Allowing more housing to be built is key to allowing more opportunity in a vibrant and active community. Allowing more housing to be built reduces housing costs which lets people flourish. Dense urban areas obviate the need for a car, reducing greenhouse gasses and isolation. All of these are good things.
Instead of punishing residents by doubling their population density (more traffic, more crowded schools, etc), the mega-companies (the "great opportunity") should start hiring elsewhere. And of course we're already seeing that happening post-pandemic.
These companies need an endless supply of engineers, sales, and support staff to build out their ad-revenue engines, so that the execs can continue receiving their multi-million RSUs every year... and somehow the residents are cruel for not wanting their city and neighborhoods to change to accommodate them?
> Taipei 101 is designed to withstand typhoon winds and earthquake tremors that are common in the area in the east of Taiwan. Evergreen Consulting Engineering, the structural engineer, designed Taipei 101 to withstand gale winds of 60 meters per second (197 ft/s), (216 km/h or 134 mph), as well as the strongest earthquakes in a 2,500-year cycle.
> During construction, on 31 March 2002, a 6.8-magnitude earthquake rocked Taipei; two construction cranes from the 56th floor, the highest floor at the time, toppled. Five people died in the accident, but an inspection showed no structural damage to the building, and construction soon resumed