SF is over 5x denser than Dallas, which is the densest major city in Texas. The problem with homelessness is people can't afford to live in homes. It is a lot easier to avoid homelessness when you have essentially endless space to build housing.
Should NYC provide me housing if I start living in a tent on Madison Ave?
https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/todays-read-behind-n...
San Francisco is also 3x less dense than Paris (Paris, France).
SF could add homes for 1.5 million people and still be as livable as Paris, if it wanted to.
For example, Tokyo and Seattle. San Francisco even has the advantage of being merely fault adjacent. In cases like Seattle, a major thrust fault runs through the city. It doesn't prevent dense construction.
This is hyperbole and dramatically wrong. It's one of those statistics that's repeated in Bay Area circles but has no bearing on reality.
Houston metro is almost the same size as the entire 9-county Bay Area metro: 7M population, 10K sq mi.
Bay Area 9 county: 7.4M population, 7K sq mi.
Houston metro pop density = 0.7K people / sq mi. Bay Area 9 county = 1.05K people / sq mi.
So, the Bay Area 9 county is only 1.5 times as dense as Houston, largely because Houston allows many more high rises.
Applying statistics from SF, which is effectively the "downtown" of the Bay Area is not a valid comparison. The population density of San Francisco is not impressive, period. Downtown Houston is much more developed than San Francisco, and that would be a more valid comparison for density.
But this also doesn't get to the main point which was cost and housing density. Cost per sq/ft in Houston (excluding the lots, which are enormous compared to the Bay Area) is $107. Median house price in downtown Houston is $310K.
Costs per sq/ft in the Bay Area are anywhere between $280 and $800. It's not a close comparison in price at all, despite being a comparable density.
It is ridiculous to compare downtown Houston, which is surrounded on all sides by a zillion square miles of suburbs (under city control!), to SF, which is surrounded by a limited number of more expensive and more restrictive enclaves that SF has no power over, and most of those places are a bridge or tunnel away. Obviously there is going to be less demand, and less premium for land if there are 10,000 other plots within 30 minutes. That just isn't the case in SF.
If the bay area as a whole had better housing policy than it would help SF a lot. But they don't, so it makes it worse for SF. And SF has no control over the housing laws passed in other counties. SF is of course partially at fault, as they should have better housing policy themselves, but they are not entirely responsible for the problem.
You don't have the same choices in and around SF, therefore there is a lot of demand on much smaller amounts of land, therefore it's a lot more expensive!
It's the same reason rent is really expensive in NYC, even though they are way more dense than SF. Lots of demand, not many alternatives.