Many people here in SF have been saying this is the direction we've been heading for quite a bit(if it hasn't happened already): SF becomes Manhattan, the surround Bay Area become the boroughs.
And there's also the lack of new housing development in San Francisco that is a function of public policy. There is tons of new housing going up in the affluent parts of Brooklyn and the prices are rising in spite of that.
In short the bay area structurally is not fit to be as unified as New York is for citizens & commuters and San Francisco has policy changes it could make to accomodate the rising population that it has not taken.
Ditto on office space. If SOMA built up like Midtown - or screw Midtown, just SoHo - we wouldn't be looking at these insane office rents.
But of course, Manhattanization is a dirty word in SF, largely because rent control lets you pass the buck on macro problems in the housing market. You got yours, sucks to be the guys who need an apartment now.
New York has a legitimate demand problem, seeing as it's the capital of the world.
California has an artificial demand problem due to NIMBYs who corrupt zoning boards, oppose reasonable development at every turn, and live in the past while paying lip service to "building the future".
(It also has a problem with corrupt/dirty foreign money swelling into the housing market, but that's an issue in New York as well.)
New York has solid public transportation. You don't need a car if you live there. People bitch about the MTA, but it's remarkably cheap compared to having a car anywhere in the US, and remarkably convenient considering how much access it provides.
San Francisco is a city where you need a car, but can't afford it. Parking costs are so bad that many garages post their 15 minute rates (often around $3.00).
New York is hard-core urban and owns the positives and negatives that comes from it, and New York runs itself. San Francisco companies are run from the suburbs-- specifically, from an office park called "Sand Hill Road" in a stretch of land that really ought to be reclaimed by the cows and orange trees, because the people living there are contributing nothing but additional work for the sewer system.
Manhattan is what it is, take it or leave it. (And there's nothing wrong with leaving it.) California is fundamentally dishonest and hypocritical, because it's full of people who pretend to be liberal but are, in many ways, worse than the Manhattan old board when it comes to elitism.
New York isn't perfect. There's a lot that's badly designed or unpleasant about it, but if you compare it to the cataclysmic mismanagement of California at all levels, it's a breath of fresh air.
I have always loathed California. It all seems so fake and far reaching, while NYC, as you say, is brutally honest in what it presents: lead, follow, or get out of the way.
In the suburbs (and the mentality that is now dominant in San Francisco is suburban, because the locals have been priced out by fratty douchebags and basic bitches) people have enough distance from what's going on that they don't have to acknowledge the facts of social injustice. They can persist in the delusional belief that "the rich" are more successful versions of themselves, and not preselected winners who've had social connections and resources delivered to them since before birth.
I don't loathe "California", insofar as many people I like live there and it's a big state with some beautiful national parks. I'm just disgusted by what it has become, and especially by the utter defeat of the technology/engineer culture in Silicon Valley at the hands of MBA C-students and people flushed out of McKinsey.
I like the raw energy of NYC, something no place in CA has, not even LA, and I lived out there for almost 4 years. NYC trumps any large US city for pure energy and things to do. I can be in Europe in a few hours, Canada in no time, the food is second to none, the weather is decent, as you tend to get four seasons instead of warm and cooler.
I've lived in Europe, Asia, and 7 US states. NYC is by far my favourite place in the US to visit, and perhaps one day, live. NYC is walkable, something few US cities can boast. Not even Chicago comes close to NYC in amenities -- and Chicago cannot seem to get a grip on their gun violence problem, something NYC has all but stamped out.
Let's not even mention the plethora of museums, restaurants, theatre choices, educational institutions, and more that NYC has going for it. No other US city can compare.
(NYC is overrated, but so is SV)
Maybe for some people, or for some definition of "need." I've been in SF over three years with no car, although I rent a car for a day maybe once every couple of months.
Who exactly is the arbiter of this right? San Francisco (and for that matter Paris, Tokyo, Beijing, London, hell even Turlock) are free to compare themselves to whatever other city they like.
Also, you don't need a car in SF if you're not lazy or just coming back from buying a couch, I prefer the weather in SF, and different cities have different good and bad things about them.
As far as capital of the world? Eh... I guess, but London seems the more natural choice for that in many regards.
Come on, now. Paris? Milan?
Exactly. That's the whole problem with the sweeping statements here. It's good we have different cities with different styles and sensibilities. And it's usually silly to say one is "best."
This is a demand problem in the same way that a bakery might make some really popular cookies, and the customers would buy all those cookies. Then more customers would come in and be told, "sorry, we're out". This is not a "demand problem", this is a stupidity problem. "Demand problem" in a free-market capitalist economy? Please.
Bake some more cookies, look how popular they are.
A traffic system that programmatically prioritizes for public transportation, along with traffic citations issued by camera and automation (sorry) is what we need.
The seismic activity of California certainly exposes more challenges, but there's no good reason why underground transport is impossible in SF.
Bus Rapid Transit is a cheap way to look like you're doing something about transit in a growing city when in reality you're just kicking the problem down the line.
Which is the same as NYC - subways in the central bits, elevated/at-grade rail as you get further out and land less scarce.
The problem with buses is bus routes are too easy to change or eliminate.
To get me to give up my car, a public transportation system needs to have good coverage of where I need to go, when I need to go, and there has to be good reason for me to believe that it will stay this way.
Buses can provide the good coverage, but it is almost impossible to provide the assurance that this will continue. If some route I depended on when I picked where to live has a ridership decline, some bean counter can cut that route, or move it a few blocks over to try to get more riders. I can't easily move my house a few blocks over to match the new route.
For buses to really work, there has to a strong commitment to stability of routes and schedules, so that people can base long term plans on them. I don't think most US cities have the political and financial stability to make that commitment.
That's extremely far off the mark. Rent is so high in SF precisely because it's not like Manhattan.
Even Brooklyn is denser than SF. That's ludicrous, when you consider the supply & demand of housing.
In New York, housing almost follows the free market. Yes, rent is expensive, but that's too be expected considering the consistently high demand and that apartments can't be instantaneously constructed.
SF is just as expensive, despite have an order of magnitude less demand. It's a completely supply-driven problem, and until that supply problem is fixed you're going to see rents well in excess of Manhattan (for a far shittier city, with way fewer amenities).
People who would rather live in Manhattan know where to go -- but, you know, there are people who consider higher density a negative feature that weighs against other amenities, rather than a positive or neutral feature. Not everyone has the same preferences matrix, and plenty of people see San Francisco as preferable to New York.
> In New York, housing almost follows the free market.
That New York is free or rent control, zoning laws, etc., etc., etc. is, well, news. The regulation in New York may be driven by different preferences -- and perhaps by preferences more in line with yours -- but it is no less present.
The density of the Tenderloin is 71k/sq mi.