Imagine if you lived in Hawaii, and the island was just starting to become popular because it is so nice. Everyone was moving there, and rents were going through the roof because there is nowhere to expand. What you want isn't Manhattan sky-rises on your little island; you want cheap, pre-discovery Hawaii with its thatch huts and casual atmosphere back.
In other words, they don't want pre-discovery Hawaii back - they want post-discovery Hawaii back and for all these latecomers with more money than them to fuck off.
The difference between skyrocketing prices and stable ones is on the order of 3,000 new units per year, not 30,000. This is a goal we can hit with skyrises restricted to one part of town, or with three family homes in place of a lot of single family homes, or in a number of other tasteful ways.
It's not as if 500,000 techies are moving to Oakland at once. It's a slow trickle, but, with a fixed supply, prices spike.
I was told by an SF native that the problem was also one of wanting to keep older housing rather—some historic styling reasons.
Does anyone know more about that aspect? I mean every city / town has historically designated homes, is there a more aggressive form of general legislation like that preventing new housing?
The last time I looked, it was only slightly pricier where I live in SF, compared to even 10 years ago, when I moved here.
Not sure what the legislation is regarding maintaining existing buildings. Twitter has hung an awful sign outside their historic building. Butt ugly.
Basically, a few people owned a majority of the homes on Hawaii, and there was a supreme court case about the right of the state to seize and redistribute them.