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Comment by francisofascii | Hacker News Reader

NIMBYism, greed, and hypocrisy can be found everywhere, regardless of political party. It is consistent throughout human history. Combating injustice is an everlasting struggle.

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Regardless of if theres a equivalence there or not, he's right that Texas and Georgia are in the unusual position of both having a ton of jobs and very reasonable housing market.

Granted SF is space constrained, but there is no excuse for other parts of Cali to be so expensive.

SF is not currently space constrained, only area constrained. They could build upwards if they wanted, but most of the city doesn’t allow buildings over 4 stories. Building up and having a functioning public transportation system would at least allow more people to live in SF, if not solve the housing price problem.

There's enough exceptions to this broad constraint though that partisan lean may not be a terribly relevant factor. As an example, Kalamazoo, Michigan is one of the cheapest cities according to several surveys, and the city is a modest left lean in a modest left state. (I actually can't think of too many hugely expensive cities in the Midwest, to be honest...)

Basically, without data comparing several possible relevant variables along with the actual statistical correlation the factor represents, these types of discussions are IMHO useless.

> SF is space constrained

Paris has a population density 3 times that of SF. Manhattan has 4 times.

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