San Francisco would be a much better city with twice the population
slate.com
slate.com
If transit were better around the city (more subway lines, more frequent trains, more express buses), I think there are big areas of the city that could support substantially more people while remaining very pleasant. (But massive high-rises suck. We don’t need those. I’m thinking mixed-use, 3–6 stories here, to replace the current 1–2 story buildings.)
I also think the city could use a lot more 600–1500 sq. ft. apartments without dedicated parking spots, if transit were better and if the streets were a bit more bike friendly.
* * *
Better density in cities along the peninsula and in the east bay, plus improved transit infrastructure in those places, would also be a big help for the whole region. Replacing the Caltrain with something less shitty would be wonderful (though this is pretty unlikely).
Further, it has been massively defunded because the largest peninsula employers send their employees on the dirtiest, most disruptive, private means of transit rather than participating in and funding regional transit expansion. A couple years ago something like 1/3 of the caltrain stops were shuttered, and today I hear from friends who ride it that it is bursting at the seams and people are often turned away from boarding trains that are too full.
The peninsula needs to urbanize if peninsula businesses want to attract young talent who want to live in urban areas, but the suburban residents are happy to approve office developments while opposing further housing development.
When people talk about building being restricted in SF, what they don't know is that they're talking about building being restricted on the peninsula.
Also, while there are some areas of SF which have larger homes (hey, some people have kids and do not want to raise them in a studio) and room for cars, even if you presented a very strong argument and accompanying civil planning to further urbanize these areas, in a city where everyone is basically hanging onto their housing by a thread, is your proposal to evict the entire Excelsior and Outer Sunset in order to undertake this change?
Yes, it would be easier to design SF from scratch with no regard for its' current or past residents, but even if you could do this, do you think you could retain demand for housing in san francisco long enough to complete any of this construction?
"600–1500 sq. ft. apartments without dedicated parking
spots"
For the past 30 years, housing space per occupant in new constructions has grown 50%. That is an unsustainable growth in living space in places that don't have room to grow. Unfortunately because SF has gotten so out of control, the only types of units being built now are luxury apartments that house fewer people than could have been comfortably housed on the same parcel of land, even before you factor in absurdities like very low height restrictions and minimum parking mandates.
They have articles from both pro-growth and anti-growth people, including Rebecca Solnit, whose piece on Google buses in the February LRB really touched a nerve.
Increased population density for cities and less sprawl is something I generally agree with but not so much for SF. It's a very unique city with few issues and apparently the people who live there can afford the rents. I think creating high rise residential buildings and doubling the population would ruin that city.
Now, Buffalo (pop. little over 400,000) on the other hand, where I live could really benefit from increased population density. We have been destroyed by suburban sprawl over the years which has resulted in unnecessary higher taxes for everyone and other issues.
You're being sarcastic but it's actually true, per Triumph of the City (http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Health...)
SF has certainly encountered the diminishing returns of limiting the number of people. The city has adopted policies that prevent growth that make it impossible to invest in those features of cities that increase the returns. Transportation is far worse than it could be and its impossible to justify investments in upgrades and improvements, because the city won't experience the growth to justify making those investments in the first place, and the current tax base (and land tax policies) is inadequate to fund those investments.
I've lived in three cities that have gotten worse over the time I lived there as the population grew and all the problems were the result of policies, not more people. Those cities are São Paulo, Beijing and San Francisco. The main thing all three cities have in common is an existing populace of extremely selfish people not only unwilling to give up their cars, but demanding more car conveniences. It's a classic tragedy of the commons issue.
Heck, even my gf, who didn't have a car when we met, tries to justify her car ownership ("it's a smart car" or "I share it via getaround and city car share"). The attitude of entitlement and "but my car usage is an exception" is the reason SF is getting shittier, not better.
I myself have been hit by cars twice cycling in the bay area and I'm recognized as a much better cyclist than most of my peers. If that happens to me, it becomes easy to understand why many people I know find SF to be too dangerous to bike in, especially during the work week.
I'm slowing reaching the point where I greatly resent that the core of the tech industry I want to be part off has chosen such an ass backwards city full of people who try to be progressive with respect to the policies of the rest of world, but are too selfish to be progressive here at home.
+9000
THIS. It's everywhere, you know. You just have to look for it.
Isn't it possible, though, that if nice, enlightened liberals, in their characteristic broad-mindedness, are choosing to restrict population density when it's good for them, that restricting population density (at some threshold, at least, if not necessarily theirs) might have something to recommend it?
Or, maybe not. Maybe we can safely just call them hypocrites and be done with thinking about it. I dunno.
The site was always liberal, but it used to represent a sort of rational leftism. In recent years it's churned out increasingly deranged and self-parodying social justice warrior-esque articles, to the point where Marx himself would call them a bunch of dirty commies.