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Comment by jacques_chester | Hacker News Reader

San Francisco's density is 6,800 people per square kilometre.

New York City's density is 22,200 people per square kilometre. In fact every borough, including Staten Island, is denser.

Tokyo's density is 35,600 people per square kilometre.

Manila is the world's densest at 42,900 per square kilometre.

San Francisco is the 20th most-densely populated area in the United States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_popula...

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That's a pretty ridiculous list of US places to try to argue against SF being dense for the US. Not all of them are as absurd as the 362 people near Louisville, KY, bit, but basically that list says "NYC is denser than SF, as are a few relatively small parts of LA, but SF is easily the second densest large city in the US."

I agree, the US list is skewed by the effects of county size. However, the 5 boroughs of NYC are geographically large in a human scale. All of them are more densely populated than San Francisco, including the ostensibly suburban Staten Island.

Meanwhile, Tokyo is vast and, until recently, could not have Manhattan-esque skyscrapers. It is substantially more densely populated.

San Francisco is more densely populated than a suburb. But the idea that it's amongst the most densely populated places is just not true, either in the world at large or the USA in particular.

OK. And?

And you are wrong about it being one of the most densely populated areas in the US? 20th isn't that high.

Real estate is expensive here in large part because it's very densely populated. Whether or not it's #1 or #1,000 on that wikipedia list is almost completely irrelevant to the point I was making.

OK, ceteris paribus, how does higher density drive up prices?

It would seem to me that the arrow of causality points the other way. Higher prices --> higher buildings --> higher density.

"It would seem to me that the arrow of causality points the other way. Higher prices --> higher buildings --> higher density."

Right. Land was just expensive here before all those people moved in and started competing for it.

Right. So what happens when the arrow is broken at the "higher buildings" point?

So the fact that construction cost per square foot is ridiculously high in SF (as are planning expenses as a percentage of overall construction cost) has nothing to do it ?

Exactly. That's why I said "in large part". Because I meant "entirely explained by".

In my experience, when people say "x is caused in large part by y", they then provide some form of evidence to back this statement up.

Instead, you haven't. In fact, when presented with contrary data as has happened in other parts of this thread, you have told people:

1. They are interpreting it wrong

2. Despite the fact that it contradicts your point, it in fact supports your point.

Given that, i'd suggest either

1. You become an economist

2. You realize you need to explain yourself better if you want to actually convince people your opinion is right.

So far, you have convinced no one that I can see, nor actually responded substantively to any point raised against your argument.

Many of those listed above SF on that list are tiny areas within a large continuous dense urban area. They don't really have much independent significance from the surrounding area economically. They are basically historical artifacts, from a time before they all grew and merged together in all but city government.

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