> Rather, the demand already exists, and that's precisely why costs keep skyrocketing despite very low supply growth.
If the costs are skyrocketing doesn't that mean demand has been going up, not that it already existed at these levels?
How many more tech offices are in SF now than fifteen years ago? Has the city's commercial growth policies been considering in sync with their residential growth policies? Or have they let the one fan the flames of the other? They should've preemptively bombed the tech headquarters, to tweak your suggestion. ;)
But my money says that even if they had unleashed a bunch more residential construction fifteen years ago, it would've only been accompanied by even more business and commercial growth. Coastal hub cities have a fundamental demand aspect with how cheap cross-country (or even global) travel is these days - there is a lot of built-in appeal that's going to attract people there, even if only for second homes or investment housing, etc, and keep a lot of pressure on the price floor.
I'm sure demand has also been going up, though I don't know how to disentangle that from inflationary effects--same number of people wanting to live here, but w/ access to more wealth.
In any event, it only drives home the point that the relationship between demand, supply, and price isn't something you can just will away, like an alternate universe Jane Jacobs applying Marxist economics.
AFAIU, San Francisco has built more market and non-market housing than any other city in the Bay Area, despite being geographically quite small. Unfortunately, that's a relatively low bar in the context of the Bay Area considering so many cities just refuse to up-zone anything, or approve projects in up-zoned areas.
If the costs are skyrocketing doesn't that mean demand has been going up, not that it already existed at these levels?
How many more tech offices are in SF now than fifteen years ago? Has the city's commercial growth policies been considering in sync with their residential growth policies? Or have they let the one fan the flames of the other? They should've preemptively bombed the tech headquarters, to tweak your suggestion. ;)
But my money says that even if they had unleashed a bunch more residential construction fifteen years ago, it would've only been accompanied by even more business and commercial growth. Coastal hub cities have a fundamental demand aspect with how cheap cross-country (or even global) travel is these days - there is a lot of built-in appeal that's going to attract people there, even if only for second homes or investment housing, etc, and keep a lot of pressure on the price floor.