Tokyo is also never mentioned in the article: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3c..., but it should be.

The example of Tokyo undermines GP but actually confirms TFA. Lots of medium-rise buildings, extending to the horizon in all directions. The excellent transit makes the situation (only) somewhat bearable. Commute times are inversely proportional to income, up to a point.

There are eight megacities of 10MM or more people in the first world. Some of them sprawl, others allow reasonable densities in newly built neighborhoods. Reasonable density, in this case, means 100 or more, about what you get from building 2-3 stories, allowing buildings with very small setbacks, not requiring excessive parking, and allowing retail and commercial uses to mix in neighborhoods. Most highly desirable San Francisco neighborhoods are built at such density but such building is illegal in America.

Here they are, in order of inaccessibility and unaffordability to the middle class.

1. New York (Sprawls)

2. London (Doesn't)

3. Los Angeles (Sprawls)

4. Paris (Doesn't)

5. Tokyo (Doesn't)

6. Mexico City (Doesn't)

7. Seoul (Doesn't)

8. Osaka (Doesn't)

San Francisco sprawls and matches the high end of the list. Not much evidence for the op's thesis.

Excessive parking: Two areas of San Diego have lots of restaurants, bars and clubs. There is also lots of "free" parking attached to some of the businesses in these areas. This parking is not available to the visitors to the restaurants, bars or clubs, which surprisingly have less parking. One bar I frequent has four parking spaces and way more than 16 chairs to sit on inside. The free parking is restricted to patrons of the business the spaces are attached to. If all the parking was paid parking, it would tend to be in reach of multiple businesses so one could pick up some Tums after a meal at a restaurant without first moving the car. I have daydreamed about reforming parking and adding in short hop buses like the jitneys that Atlantic City had for a few years, so you go to the dense business district, visit many businesses from one parking spot.

And the illegality comes from NIMBYs, who want all the benefits of the city with none of the downsides, but only for themselves of course.

Downtown high-rise condos are always way more costly than the equivalent size condo 20 miles out.

Build a bunch of three story condos out on some cheap land and you don't even need an elevator or parking garages because there's room for covered outdoor parking.

Build a high rise and you have all sorts of cost with putting something 20 stories high. Just the materials cost more. It also takes longer to break ground and build.

If the condo twenty miles out is in the middle of nowhere, it may not be any cheaper, once you factor in the cost of building out infrastructure there and providing public services further out. Often times these things are subsidized though, so Americans don't realize how expensive things actually are.

A good example is when someone in a rural area is outraged when the cable company says it'll cost a couple grand to wire up their house that's a ways off from any main road. Like, did you think that stuff was just free?

> If the condo twenty miles out is in the middle of nowhere, it may not be any cheaper, once you factor in the cost of building out infrastructure there and providing public services further out. Often times these things are subsidized though, so Americans don't realize how expensive things actually are.

That's the textbook case of privatizing the profits and socializing the losses. The infrastructure you're talking about will be built by the city/state and the costs borne by everyone who lives up to the point of that condo 20 miles out.

When things are not subsidized, the developers only end up building luxury condos in urban areas, which is the case for most large metro areas right now.

> That's the textbook case of privatizing the profits and socializing the losses.

Yes, agreed. And I'm not completely against socialization, but I see little reason to encourage it for this case. If infrastructure and services cost more further out, property taxes for those areas should reflect that.

> When things are not subsidized, the developers only end up building luxury condos in urban areas, which is the case for most large metro areas right now.

This tends to be true because SFH-zoned areas are held as sacred cows, and what increased density is allowed is constrained into small areas. This both keeps land prices high, so developers need to target the high end of the market, and it means that cheaper forms of increased density (say, building duplexes/triplexes/granny flats in existing low-density areas) are literally illegal.

I swear, people want developers to build huge towers and then offer up the units for cheap. Do you think it's cheap to build those towers? Hint: it is not. Brand new, inherently-expensive-to-build housing is always going to be expensive to rent. The solution is to a) permit cheaper forms of housing where possible, b) allowed increased density across a wide swathe of residential area (which can be done the same way as (a), really), and c) accept that new things always cost more than old things. The luxury units of today are the upper-middle class units of twenty years from now, the middle-class units of forty years from now, the working-units of sixty years from now, etc.

Not outraged at all. Plus I have my own septic, I pay for trash service, I pay for plowing, I pay for a propane tank and oil.

> Downtown high-rise condos are always way more costly than the equivalent size condo 20 miles out.

Because more people want to live there. The solution to high prices is to build more of the type of housing that people want to live in; not to build more of the type of housing that is already in low demand.

Three story condo? In a remote area? With surface parking?

I'll pass, thank you.

Three story condo closer into town? With no parking? Sure! I'll give up my car even.

If, that is, you can get permission to build such a thing somewhere. THAT is the problem.

True, but the difference in cost is magnified by greater legal restrictions on building that downtown high-rise condo.

Source?

I suspect that building say 200 apartment units requires similar red tape whether done vertically or horizontally.

Visit strongtowns.org and citylab.com among other sites.