SF is already the second-most dense city in America. It’s dramatically more akin to NYC than Austin, LA, and so on. It’s just a lot smaller geographically.
The problem is that all of that density is delimited within a perfect 7x7 mile square. Outside of which is the worst of the worst when it comes to urban sprawl anywhere in the US. What really kills SF is just the complete inability to reasonably commute. Any form of housing anywhere within a 2 hour drive of the city is the most expensive in the country.
That's actually a fairly important detail. I live in the NYC metro (lived in the city itself for many years) and have visited SF several times. The "city" part of SF is just much, much smaller, and the suburban parts are much less dense.
NYC and its metro are still quite expensive and we have our own problems with NIMBYism driving housing costs up, but I'm always rather shocked at how much more expensive the SF metro is and how under-developed it is.
ramesh31|10 months ago
anyonecancode|10 months ago
That's actually a fairly important detail. I live in the NYC metro (lived in the city itself for many years) and have visited SF several times. The "city" part of SF is just much, much smaller, and the suburban parts are much less dense.
NYC and its metro are still quite expensive and we have our own problems with NIMBYism driving housing costs up, but I'm always rather shocked at how much more expensive the SF metro is and how under-developed it is.
api|10 months ago
It could also be a lot denser. It should look like Hong Kong or the Tokyo core.