A lot of quality of life problems will crop up as density rises. With that realization, calls for a "grand unified growth plan" and the corresponding environmental impact studies will surface. And that will take ... t .. i .. m ... e ...
The whole movement hits a wall.
Here's a radical idea: build tall buildings. Tokyo sits on a fault. They manage to build tall buildings.
/s
I live in the 2nd hottest neighborhood in the city. You can rent an apartment within 4 blocks of me, tomorrow, for $800 a month, and you'd have many choices. If you were willing to live further out or in a less prestigious neighborhood you could trade up on size, too.
[+] Tokyo is very much not monolithically tall buildings. I live in a 45 story highrise; less than 25 meters away there exists single-family housing and 3 story apartments. The average density is pretty high, though -- here in Meguro it is about 2.5x SF's citywide (50k people per square mile vs 20k).
SF would need to invest tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in transit in order to make Tokyo style densities work. Just digging out the sides of Embarcadero station to allow two-sided boarding for BART is projected to cost a billion dollars.
corollary of your position - don't approve density increase where you live if you don't like density :)
Under the current political system, it takes just a handful of the "comfortably settled" to lever potential quality of life problems and create a giant obstruction to pro-growth policies.
This is how it goes in other parts of California too.
The nature of cities is that they are constantly changing, and the sooner we can teach people this, the better.
If employers stop coming to SF because of the lack of affordable housing, then maybe the community will change their minds. Or maybe that's exactly what they wanted.
"No, how it's supposed to work is that every region must remain open to growth at all costs and from all sources, especially outside sources. And if there's a policy such as a zoning policy or a density goal that stands in the way of outsiders entering a region to settle there and grow the economy, then that policy is discriminatory and ought to be removed. This applies just as much to San Francisco as it does to Arizona. Blah blah blah."
But seriously now, where do we draw this line? I have no idea anymore. The debate has gone in every direction and twisted itself into so many knots I have no idea when a local government should have control over this and when it shouldn't.
The argument that many residents have against urbanization of SF by removing building height limits is that an urbanized SF is no longer "SF". Skyscrapers built on pilings down to bedrock are almost certainly more safer in an earthquake than most of the old low rise housing in SF, so earthquake safety is not the reason SF isn't full of high rises.
I would point out that article showing that the poor live longer in places like SF and NY. For others, access to a more productive, dynamic place to work carries a lot of benefits, and excluding them definitely hurts.
Do you mean this one:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/11/where...
Where the map shows that areas up and down the California Coast (not just SF) show longer life for the poor?
However, I'm not sure that longer life correlates strongly with "quality of life" (as someone who watched a loved one undergo long slow decline and live about a year longer than he wanted to).
A homeless person that barely manages to eke out a living on the streets of SF may not be happier than a homeless person in Detroit that largely lives in shelters in Detroit, even if the SF homeless person lives longer.
If you don't like expensive housing or problems that arise due to expensive housing, don't living in expensive places. There are plenty of less expensive places.
Note: I agree with density == good(in general) but you're using the same argument that the nimbys are using in SF.
San Francisco density: 7,100/km^2
Per wikipedia.
Actually, as long as you allow mixed-use areas, density works out pretty well. What doesn't work is one huge skyscraper all by itself. Vastly preferable is larger areas of lower buildings, which can be anywhere from 2-3 stories, to 5-6, or higher as needs be.
Source: I spent most of the past 15 year in Europe and greatly enjoyed it.
Also: San Francisco is already kind of dense - it's not exactly rural suburbia.
http://www.7x7.com/arts-culture/dark-history-san-franciscos-...
But from the commentariat of HN, you'd think that SF had the density of Dallas or something. Just pointing out that it's already pretty dense.
Density and better public transportation kind of go hand in hand. One before the other probably doesn't work very well.