The reason why we get too many high-rises and too few low-rises is because of regulatory burden. In particular, the long, drawn-out, and capricious manner in which the laws are administered and challenged. In that kind of environment high-rises become more common simply because of the economy of scale--a high-rise developer has resources and the wherewithal to see the project through where developers of smaller developments do not.

The most important thing for commerce and especially real estate development is consistency and predictability. Proposition 13 and the cost of labor can be dealt because they're known quantities. Zoning boards and CEQA[1] are the real killers as the unpredictability compounds, many fold, the nominal regulatory burden.

[1] Compare NEQA to CEQA. The Federal NEQA law isn't much of an impediment to development anymore because an efficient ecosystem has developed--specialized assessment agencies that do the work quickly and cheaply, and relatively efficient administration of the regulatory regime. The cost of a NEQA impact statement is a known quantity and is easily budgeted. By contrast, under CEQA it's much easier for NIMBYs to challenge impact statements, which means the time and budget required for getting over the CEQA hurdle can be indefinite.

And also tends to be drastically worse build quality and sound isolation. Given a mid-rise or a high-rise built in the same year, you definitely want to live in the high-rise, all else being equal.

Higher quality multi-family buildings that middle-class people could see themselves living in would go a long way towards changing public opinion. Unfortunately, our multifamily housing stock is bifurcated between shoddily built crap for the poor, and ultra-luxury high-rises for oligarchical investors. If people don't want to live in a building themselves, it's harder to accept its externalities for the benefit of others. Most people do live in apartments as students and young adults, and they'd never go back.

>I'm sorry to say it, its time to bail out. We need to start lobbying software companies to get the heck out of the bay area

Agreed. SF is just a bad location to build a large city.

http://images.slideplayer.com/22/6340453/slides/slide_27.jpg

If being surrounded by water is an insurmountable problem, how do you explain the tall buildings and subways in Manhattan?

I'm not saying the water inhibits construction. It just limits the area where you can expand. Look at New York on Google maps and zoom out a bit. The metropolitan area expands in all directions except the very south. Now look at Tokyo. It also expands in all directions except the south-east. Now look at San Fransisco. The north, west, and east are blocked by the Pacific Ocean. There are single long bridges to the north and Oakland, but they serve as choke points limiting movement. Much of the area to the north is also a national park.

Strong statement, if slightly ungrammatical. I think this is a challenge to visionary thinkers and leaders to change the game. Engineering is one part, as is regulatory capture and regressive real estate laws and norms, weak state government in the state, and highly atrophied political participation. What could change that? I can think of one thing, and one thing only, that would "shake up" the status quo.

On the one hand, lots of people lose their investments and are forced to sell their land or take out loans to rebuild. You might be able to buy land or a damaged property for a good deal. Contractors would all be completely overbooked and the price to rebuild would likely be quite high for some time. Some who have never experienced earthquakes might get scared out of the region altogether.

On the other hand the houses that survive are now part of a much smaller pool of available, livable houses and there's still a lot of money in the region so I could see prices for these houses shoot through the roof.