Comment by wahern | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wahern | Hacker News Reader

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Do you live in San Francisco? For the past 5 years there have been housing projects _everywhere_ across the city. Last year there were 62,000 units in the pipeline (anywhere from approved to under construction). (http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2016/02/a-record-62000-un...) I can't find a link, but I think the goal several years ago was to have built 30,000 units between 2015 and 2020, and progress has been okay.

In 2016 San Francisco built twice as much housing per capita (EDIT: per new resident) as the state average. (https://sf.curbed.com/2017/5/4/15543668/san-francisco-new-ho...)

The city could do much, much better. The issue here isn't approvals, per se; it's the high cost of construction, and a big part of that is the concessions that the city (and NIMBYs) squeeze out of developers. But in any event at least the city is _approving_ projects. Compared to every other city in the Bay Area San Francisco is leading. Unfortunately that says more about the Bay Area than it does SF, but in any event SF isn't being hypocritical when it criticizes Brisbane, Palo Alto, etc.

I do live here, but I've also lived in the far east. There is no comparison. We see cranes in a few places, mainly SoMa, that is not sufficient. We should see building along geary, van ness, sunset Blvd, third, Octavia, California, etc.,etc.

Agreed, the Sunset and Richmond is too low density if SF really wants to address its housing shortage.

Give homeowners/developers incentives to turn low density blocks into mid to high density housing. And build Geary Street light rail (and put most of it underground so it doesn't take as long as the N-Judah does to get downtown)

Grow The Richmond (https://growtherichmond.com/) will have a table set up tomorrow at Balbooa Fright Fest. Come say hi!

There is a growing group of people on the west side of the city who do want density.

SF definitely needs more underground transit. I recently found out that it takes on average 5 minutes less to take a bus from the inner sunset to forest hill to catch a K/L/M inbound than taking the N-Judah.

I absolutely agree! Except for the part where SF is being myopic by criticizing Brisbane.

Imagine Tokyo was located near SF. Would you criticize Tokyo for complaining about the pace of development in SF, simply because Tokyo could be doing a better job?

By defending Brisbane, you defend every other city in the Bay Area that has been dragging its feet, especially those on the peninsula. Don't forget that both Santa Clara County and San Mateo County have substantially greater median incomes than SF, yet most of the cities in those counties--especially the richest ones--have literally flat-out opposed growth in residential units.

Compared to San Mateo (city), Palo Alto, Brisbane is a speck of land. South City, Daly City have lots of underused land. I would be in favor of having all of them increase housing, as they have land and transit infra.

I call out SF for its/our blatant hypocrisy. It's a bona fide city but they/we act as if we're still in the late 1800s Victorian times. Oh, historic, oh, views, oh, character, oh residential displacement. Always some provincial excuse.

There has been many apartment buildings built around Van ness (south and/or east of Whole Foods on California)... it's not just SoMa but you are right it's not enough.

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