Construction is a solution that takes long amounts of time to find a lower equilibrium, because nobody knowingly finances real estate projects into a falling market. In contrast, companies can build branch offices quickly. Spread the love.
The value of new multi-story units along good commute in the most expensive housing market in the world would be so high that some taxation of that profit would be more than enough to fund building the required commuter rail or subway lines and also new schools. At least in an ideal world.
This is how Tokyo has funded new commuter rail lines. The increase of the land value in the new to-be-build neighborhood covers the cost of serving the neighborhood with a rail line:
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/10/why-tokyos-pr...
But I am not sure whether California has the will and skill to tax those profits, and to direct that money for those purposes.
Japan also runs a massive defecit relative to GDP (~250% vs our ~100% value). They spend like drunken sailors on public infrastructure.
"Tokyo Metro is operated by Tokyo Metro Co., Ltd. (東京地下鉄株式会社 Tōkyō Chikatetsu Kabushiki-gaisha), a private company jointly owned by the Japanese government and the Tokyo metropolitan government.
The company replaced the Teito Rapid Transit Authority (帝都高速度交通営団 Teito Kōsokudo Kōtsū Eidan), commonly known as Eidan or TRTA, on April 1, 2004. TRTA was administered by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and jointly funded by the national and metropolitan governments. It was formed in 1941, although its oldest lines date back to 1927 with the opening of the Tokyo Underground Railway the same year."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Metro
Most Japanese cities' subway systems are not private, and even many of the "private" train lines were built using extensive public subsidy.
Citation needed. You might also want to tell the construction finance industry of your discovery.
But if the gatekeepers aren't willing to grant permission, then that cost is ∞
Of course ideally the local situation would be everybody works within a couple blocks and so the elevators and sidewalks can handle it. Most zoning boards hate this idea though.
I do agree with you though that if new housing is only built in a small number of areas, those areas could very well see more traffic. A goal of SB-827 was to increase housing across the entire state, particularly near areas well served by mass transit, in the hope it would result in less people commuting by car.
Long term we will (as always) re-create the entire city. Long term we will notice that the street is too busy and do something about it. Long term we might even be do something about it people not working close to their home. Long term will will figure out what the true consequences of our decisions are and make further decisions to mitigate them which in turn will result in a new set of unintended decisions.
Companies only build new offices quickly because they are willing to locate to any new suburb that currently has land. Downtown areas that are already well developed might be more desirable but it takes time to get the land rights. (note they are always re-building something downtown in nearly any city, but it wasn't an overnight thing to decide to do that)
Well, yes. That's my point: construction takes a long time to change housing prices. It's not a universal, drop-the-mic response to every debate.
Or, alternatively, when enough people start voting in politicians who would allow building lots of new homes in central locations.
Manhattan has 3.9× the density of San Francisco. At Manhattan density, the City of San Francisco could house 2.5 million more people.