The possibility of a small studio apartment for $50k in San Francisco (2016)

> I'd pay $100,000 for such a studio

Illustrating why they aren't available for $50,000.

$300k for 66sqm would still be pretty good.

Not in California. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13

> the property tax obtained per acre would need to increase.

And it would, because property tax is assessed not just on the land but also on the structures. For condominiums each unit is assessed separately.

In addition, the greater the density the lower the cost of infrastructure. I don't think people, especially suburbanites, appreciate how ridiculously expensive roads and sewers are to build and maintain. Mostly because suburbanites tend to move on long before needing to rebuild, leaving behind broken, decaying landscapes. But that game can only last so many decades before society will be forced to deal with the consequences. The consequences are slowly coming into focus across the U.S. but are often couched in terms of affordability in more urban areas (because fewer places to move on to) and the broken finances of municipalities in more rural areas (because they're stuck with what turned out to be inherently unsustainable infrastructure costs).

But it’s only 50k!! If your goal is to come here short term and extract wealth, it’s perfect.

If he can do 120 sq.ft for $50k. Can he do, 500sq ft for $210K? That sounds reasonable.

I reckon the problem here, isn't the problem of packing in homes, its land-use approvals.

These sorts of units exist in Hong Kong and Tokyo. In the case of Hong Kong, even highly paid junior banker / consultant types will live here because they're spending almost all their time at the office or various eating/entertainment establishments anyways.

I'll take two, thanks!

So, it's not for you. But not everyone need or want rooms bigger than that.

120 foot (11m2) apartments exist all over Paris. They're not great, but fine for young single people without children who don't spend all day at home.

I built a 150sqft home. It’s not a prison cell.

Maybe if somebody forced you to live in a situation you don’t want to be in, you’d find it oppressive. But when you build your own home, you get to learn what you really need in a home. (And tons of square footage probably isn’t one of those things)

If a place can be zoned for 120 square feet, it can also have affordable eating establishments and all sorts of fun things to do, which you will be doing because you will mostly get out of your place.

The picture looks more like a larger version of a beach hut they have on the UK's south coast.

I’ve a van where I spent months living in it, it felt like heaven! Living room, shower, kitchen, bed and even tiny gym, everything in 6sqm (about 60sqft). I’ve spent quite a lot of time engineering it though.

It’s fairly small, but a 110 sqft units is basically the default size for a single person living in Japan (Tokyo).

I'll take my own 120sq.ft. home over someone else's 360sq.ft. space any day, thanks. Especially at 1/3 the price.

consider the alternative around here; a shared room. I think a 12x12 retreat where I could lock the door and not be bothered would be dramatically better for introvert time than a shared room or even a private room in a shared house (thought a private room in a shared house is going to cost 2-4x as much)

I mean, consider that there's a lot of single introverts around here. If there are smaller places they can move to, there will be less competition for the giant places that introverts with children need.

Or a dorm room. I could live in a dorm as long I had my own bathroom and didn't have a roommate.

It might cause me to be more minimalist and to spend more of my time outside, but I consider that a good thing.

The very first plan, and the one clearly worst-suited for a city with pricy land, needs a $420k/acre.

The next proposal, "low rise" apartment block:

> Let's assume a 6000sf building footprint. This would contain twenty 250sf units per floor, with some shared space. Four stories means eighty units. With 80 units, we have 80 x $10,000=$800,000 budget for land. Our 6000sf building footprint sits on a quarter-acre (10,500sf) of land, so the land costs could be as much as $800,000 X 4=$3.2 million per acre.

And next, the "medium-rise" plan:

> Next, we have a six-story structure, which is about the upper end of the Traditional City or "low-rise" format. We will step up here to a better standard of construction, such as brick or steel-frame, with a cost of $200/sf. This reduces our unit size to a fairly tiny 120 square feet, plus some common areas. Our footprint is still 6000sf, but since the unit size is smaller, we can get 40 units per floor, or 240 units for a six-story building. At $10,000/unit for land, that gives us a budget of $2.4 million for land. We will use more of an "attached" format here, with a little space in the back, or a 7000sf (sixth of an acre) plot. This translates into $2.4m x 6=$14.4 million per acre land and other costs.

The author is saying something about the density required to support affordable housing in San Francisco.

That's the per-unit budget. These ideas all involve many units per lot.

Okay, but other people clearly do and this article is strictly about solving the housing issues in SF creatively. Also, you're presenting a false dichotomy - many people don't have kids, or don't yet have kids(Not to mention don't want them). Many people live somewhere for a short amount of time, or a few years, and then leave. I really honestly don't even see the point of your comment other than to cast shade against someone's lifestyle choice that you disagree with, or maybe to comment on the absurdity of the housing market in SF, with regards to the former I choose to mind my own business.

And to your main question - if you are somehow blessed with the opportunity to make a buttload of money and live on the (relative)cheap for a little while in SF, then your future is probably looking pretty good. We are fortunate to live in a country where you can go wherever the heck you want at any point that you want, especially if you're financially able to do so.

SF is a city for the rich. I used to think such an idea was ridiculous - a city that only accommodated a single class of people. But having a single city without affordable housing doesn’t sound so crazy to me anymore. Whether or not a city wants affordable housing is a choice.

Honestly I’m not sure what changed in my opinion. I’m generally very pro-building, but I realize different people want different things.

I respect and support your decision to have a child. Someone needs to do it, and I'm glad that some people want to. (and I'm certainly willing to contribute to things like education to make that easier.)

But you need to understand that many of us (myself included) really don't want to have children ourselves.

We are people, too... and saying that all housing needs to be built large enough to accommodate a family with children is unfair and a waste.

I mean, sure, I pay more taxes than someone of my own income with children... and I think that's fine. If the additional taxes were spent on things like education, I'd even be okay increasing that difference and paying even more, but it does nobody any good to say I can't buy a smaller place because you want to have a kid.

When my father moved to his current apartment he noticed a peculiar thing: His neighbors, who worked at a nearby 24/7 take away bar would move in threes in and out of the apartment at certain hours.

This meant that there were at least six of them in a 25m^2 (277-ish sq ft) studio. While it was physically possible to fit three bunk beds there - albeit barely, they would have no space left for a wardrobe.

They spent two years like that and I imagine it was hell.