San Francisco must exist in some sort of twilight zone where there are 1 infinity people that want to live there and if they build 1 infinity houses, all of the houses will cost 1 infinity dollars.
Edit to add: I have no interest in living in San Francisco, so we've fixed the problem. Only 1 infinity minus 1 people want to live there so if you build 1 infinity houses, everybody's house will be worth zero.
> San Francisco must exist in some sort of twilight zone where there are 1 infinity people that want to live there and if they build 1 infinity houses, all of the houses will cost 1 infinity dollars
This is something only you are saying, and it makes little sense.
What is true is that San Francisco has limited space, and so even if density can be increased, a new limit will be reached.
Have you noticed that Manhattan and Tokyo are not meaningfully cheaper than San Francisco, despite being much higher density?
The reason is that building more residences doesn’t make it any less desirable to live there, and even supply is still limited.
I think you're making the mistake of considering only Manhattan?
Brooklyn[0] has a little over twice the density of SF[1], while the median home price in Brooklyn[2] is 40% less than in SF[3].
(Also consider your density numbers are a bit off. NYC[4] overall has only 1.5x the density of SF, and Manhattan[5] has around 4x SF's density. Not sure where you've gotten your housing cost numbers.)
The thing is, I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting we turn SF into Manhattan. You're presenting that as if it's what people want, or if it's the only option.
Even a modest increase in density, nowhere near Manhattan levels, would help SF enormously.
Nowhere have I suggested that anyone wants SF to turn into Manhattan. That seems to be something you are reading into it.
The point is that when you compare the two, it be some clear that that even if you did turn SF info Manhattan, you might get a 10% reduction in prices.
A modest increase in density would have no appreciable impact.
Depending on which estimates you look at, Tokyo is somewhere between 30 to 50% cheaper than San Francisco. It's also a vastly superior city in just about every possible way
Iirc, most cities have not been building enough housing to keep up with demand for a lot of time. Is it really the case that we can’t build to keep up with demand, therefore stopping prices from rising as quickly?
