See this amazing twitter thread with images of historical news paper clippings.
https://twitter.com/enf/status/753435745272995840
Later on, in 1978, most of the city was down-zoned, and in the EIR (Environmental Impact Report) written at the time, it was clearly predicted that this would result in a supply shortage and increased prices. Unless the city made a point to increase density and development in the industrial parts of the city. That didn't really happy to the scale the EIR said was needed.
See: https://twitter.com/enf/status/775185946941591553?s=20
So here we are.
I didn't talk about any "laissez faire" policy, and as far as I know no city in the US is pursuing a laissez faire policy. I also don't know why you think it is bad to have housing stock that lasts; having lived in a number of those turn of the century homes, they were better and cheaper than the "affordable" new apartment options. They were well-built luxury homes that are comfortable to live in, but didn't have the modern status symbols the new luxury apartments had. It isn't a universal thing, either; it was specifically because the luxury housing from the time was _nice_. I looked at cheap apartments in 1970s cement bunkers and always went back to living in a beautiful Victorian with vaulted ceilings, even if they were dustier & colder.
Affordable housing will always compromise on something, and personally I preferred finding roommates & buying space heaters to living in a shoebox.
As someone below noted, these dynamics vary dramatically by local. California, much less San Francisco, is a whole different kettle of fish. But because we stopped building housing for a while, we are at best going to face a period of catch-up, no matter what we do.
Well of course. The people who want laissez faire anything don't wind up living in the cities that have these problems. they self select to live in rural areas and the occasional rust belt dump where there is either no regulation or no enforcement.
The people who don't recoil at the thought of their property rights being violated wind up living in Boston, SF and their surrounding suburbs and vote for more of the same.
Not to mention your example of housing in Boston built at the turn of the 20th century. A laissez faire policy that makes the poor wait 120 years for housing is hardly any policy at all.