Housing Shortage is Regional
The YIMBY movement is one of the most important policy developments of the last decade. Nationwide – and especially here in the Bay Area – we have failed for decades to build enough housing, which has unnecessarily created scarcity and driven up the cost of living. It is imperative that we build more housing, and that we make it cheaper and easier to develop generally.
I was an early member SF YIMBY since way back in 2016, and I continue to support political leaders who prioritize YIMBY goals. However, I believe there is a deep-seated misconception within the San Francisco YIMBY agenda that needs to be named and addressed. Ironically, by focusing too single-mindedly on building as much housing as possible here in San Francisco where the YIMBY movement was born, we are failing to see the bigger picture, and we risk creating unnecessary political friction by unintentionally gaslighting San Francisco residents.
This recent exchange on a TV interview of Mayor Breed by Kristen Sze exemplifies the issue:
Sze: If you could wave a magic wand, and there’s one thing you could fix about San Francisco, what would that be?
Breed: I have consistently said, it’s about housing. It all starts with people having a safe, affordable place to call home. I would wave the magic wand and there would be a hundred, two hundred thousand units all over San Francisco. Because when you try to attract and retain talent, you need good housing. When you’re trying to get people off the streets, you need good housing. When you want families to stay in San Francisco, you need housing. The buck stops with having as much housing as we possibly can, which is why I will continue to be relentless in my pursuit to get housing built all over San Francisco.
London Breed is saying the root of San Francisco’s housing affordability crisis is that San Francisco has a housing shortage, and therefore the solution – indeed, the single most important thing San Francisco can do – is to build as much housing as possible.
But this is not an accurate diagnosis. The root of San Francisco’s housing affordability crisis is a regional housing shortage. And while San Francisco absolutely needs to evolve and grow more effectively, there is simply no way that San Francisco can build enough housing to meaningfully reduce the imbalance between demand and supply.
San Francisco has 0.68% of the land mass, but 10.8% of the population of the nine counties of the Bay Area.
| County | 2023 Population | Land Area (square miles) | Population Density |
| Santa Clara | 1,877,592 | 1,291.1 | 1,454 |
| Alameda | 1,622,188 | 737.5 | 2,200 |
| Contra Costa | 1,155,025 | 716.9 | 1,611 |
| San Francisco | 809,988 | 46.9 | 17,271 |
| San Mateo | 726,353 | 448.6 | 1,619 |
| Sonoma | 481,812 | 1,575.3 | 306 |
| Solano | 449,218 | 821.7 | 547 |
| Marin | 254,407 | 520.1 | 489 |
| Napa | 133,216 | 752 | 177 |
Much of the economic activity that drives the demand for housing comes from outside San Francisco, i.e. Silicon Valley and the East Bay. Common sense suggests the only way to generate enough housing to truly reduce the regional scarcity would be for other cities and counties in the Bay Area to grow so much that they become denser relative to San Francisco. Bizarrely, however, the Final Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) Plan for 2023-2031 has San Francisco building 19% of the new housing units for the Bay Area, which implies San Francisco would be increasing its relative density within the Bay Area.
However, I must also say that I believe the RHNA targets are too low. The RHNA targets imply the Bay Area housing stock would grow approximately 15% in ten years, while I have previously argued the Bay Area housing stock should grow 50% in 20 years to address affordability effectively. So even if San Francisco cannot plausibly build enough housing to make a dent in our housing affordability, perhaps we would still need to “wave the magic wand” and build 100,000 – 200,000 new housing units just to play our part. So let’s ask how plausible those targets are.
Below is a table of the ten most dense large (> 400,000 residents) cities in the United States.
| City | 2023 Population | Land Area (square miles) | Population Density |
| New York City | 8,258,035 | 302.6 | 27,290 |
| San Francisco | 809,988 | 46.9 | 17,271 |
| Boston | 653,833 | 48.4 | 13,509 |
| Miami | 455,924 | 35.7 | 12,771 |
| Chicago | 2,664,452 | 227.7 | 11,702 |
| Philadelphia | 1,550,542 | 134.2 | 11,554 |
| Washington DC | 678,972 | 61.1 | 11,112 |
| Seattle | 755,078 | 83.9 | 9,000 |
| Long Beach | 449,468 | 50.7 | 8,865 |
| Los Angeles | 3,820,914 | 469.5 | 8,135 |
San Francisco is the second most dense large city in the United States, >25% denser than the #3 city, Boston. And San Francisco cannot plausibly expand its small land footprint: not only are we geographically constrained, but also our unique status as both a city and a county creates unique impediments to expanding south.
Moreover, San Francisco has very few developable census tracts that are sparsely populated. The interactive map on this page illustrates this nicely (and is also fun to play with). Comparing San Francisco to the other five large West Coast cities also vividly shows how dense we are. San Jose, with 2023 population of 969,655, only has a population density of about 5,440 – less than one third of San Francisco!
What does this analysis mean for San Francisco and Bay Area housing policy? I see three implications.
First, if we are serious about making up the housing shortfall in the Bay Area – as we must be – then we should focus on policies that could plausibly create a huge housing construction boom and get the other Bay Area counties to increase their density relative to San Francisco. When I studied this issue some years ago, I concluded the economic incentives for municipalities may be an underappreciated key driver.
Broadly speaking, nighttime residents lose money for municipalities (i.e. the cost of services is higher than taxes that can be collected), while daytime residents make money for municipalities. Reforming tax policy (and Prop 13) would obviously be hard. But given how deep-rooted the housing problem is, why should the solution be easy? At any rate, it isn’t helping anything to underestimate the magnitude of the housing shortfall and the actions needed to make up the gap.
Second, San Francisco should stop talking about the pure production of housing as the main goal, and instead focus on getting much better at growth and development holistically. If you gave me that magic wand, I would not wave it to create 200,000 more housing units irrespective of their impact on their communities.
Instead, I would streamline permitting and approvals (it takes way too long to build anything here!), improve transportation, reform San Francisco’s public schools, and make streets cleaner and more friendly. Yes, I would upzone for reasonable multifamily units (apartment buildings can coexist just fine with single family houses!), but not ignore the impact on existing neighborhoods, most of which are already very dense. I would also make sure any project adequately surfaces and addresses real environmental problems, while bypassing frivolous environmental complaints.
Finally, we need to change the tone around housing and development in San Francisco. When the sole imperative is building housing above all else, residents become afraid their quality of life will be sacrificed on the altar of maximum housing production. This can give space for unreasonable backlash and fearmongering with respect to any new development.
A healthy community evolves and grows. For growth and evolution to be sustainable, it must improve the quality of life for both new and existing residents. Our politics should respect that reality. Of course, it’s a fantasy to think changing the tone will lead to harmony. This is San Francisco, after all! But at least when we do argue, we will be having the right conversations.
