> If San Franciscans don't want their city to be 'verticalized' that's perfectly fine.

No it's not. It's ridiculous. Cities are meant to change, to grow, to adapt to conditions over time.

By refusing to build enough housing to match its booming economy, the cities in the bay area are seriously hurting people. They're seriously hurting economic opportunity. That is not okay.

No, the notion that every city should become 'Dubai' is ridiculous.

NYC has already 'verticalized' ... and they are one of the example 'problem cities' - and they still have extreme inequality and 'housing problems'.

So when SF crams in 5 million more folks, will they have 'solved the problem'? Or will they be just like NYC?

Why haven't Chicago, NY or Hong Kong, with all their 'amazing density' solved this ostensible problem?

By this 'build out' logic Stockholm, most of London, Zurich should be bulldozed and turned into NY or Hong Kong as well?

So first, is the notion, hinted above, that 'more density' in no way implies a solution to the problem - because there's nary any limit to how many people might want to come into the city.

Second, which underlies the above, is an issue called 'Supply and Demand'. People moving to the Bay have to make that rational decision as to housing costs vs. pay. Moving to the Bay is usually a choice, not some kind of coercion, so people are for whatever reasons, making that choice.

If the Bay wants to expand smartly they should consider wicked fast transportation to places around the bay, and those places could be built with a little more density than now as well.

There's quite a lot of space, there's no reason that even working class folk can't live a decent standard of living.

> No, the notion that every city should become 'Dubai' is ridiculous.

They don't have to become Dubai. Vienna would probably suffice.

> NYC has already 'verticalized' ... and they are one of the example 'problem cities' - and they still have extreme inequality and 'housing problems'.

Much of NYC's housing would be illegal to build today because of zoning regulations. It's absolutely a part of the problem.

> So when SF crams in 5 million more folks, will they have 'solved the problem'?

SF proper doesn't really need to get 5 million more people, probably. The bay area as a whole does. SF could stand to receive some of that, sure.

> Or will they be just like NYC?

NYC is substantially cheaper as a metro than the bay area despite having a much larger population. Going from bay area affordability to NYC affordability would be a huge win, believe it or not.

> Why haven't Chicago, NY or Hong Kong, with all their 'amazing density' solved this ostensible problem?

Don't know much about Chicago or HK, but NYC still has zoning problems, absolutely. They've gotten more conservative over time.

Now look at Tokyo, which is much more free form with zoning, and -- surprise surprise -- WAY cheaper than SF or NYC, despite being an even larger metro area than either.

> So first, is the notion, hinted above, that 'more density' in no way implies a solution to the problem - because there's nary any limit to how many people might want to come into the city.

And yet, even with 40 million people, Tokyo has done an alright job. I mean, it's still fairly expensive, but nowhere near as bad as the most comparable US cities.

> There's quite a lot of space, there's no reason that even working class folk can't live a decent standard of living.

Who says you can't have density and standard of living? Vienna is one of the most livable cities in the world, and it's far denser than almost all of the bay area. It's probably denser than SF too, despite the stats saying otherwise (Vienna city limits include a lot of green space around the edge that's basically just forest/farms).

Vienna illustrates that there can be a decent standard of living or at least cost of housing, at medium density.

Nobody is arguing that.

The argument put forth is that SF needs to increase density as a matter of pragmatism, economics, even humanity - which is rubbish.

Your Vienna example provides no evidence that that level of density is in and of itself somehow going to provide better housing costs, or anything else frankly.

There is zero evidence that building higher in SF will ease housing costs, especially in an aspiration city a zillion people would like to live in.

Moreover, people have every right to chose the conditions in which they live.

The residents of SF can chose whatever density they want, it's their city.