If you can upzone housing, you can downzone offices.

Why isn't anyone building brand new cities shaped the way they want, instead of trying to force people out of where they live? I'd much rather live in a blank slate city designed the way I'd like, than constantly fight people who don't want me around.

Sure, but nobody at the local level wants to downzone offices. Those are their jobs. And they bring in tax revenue without requiring much expenditure by the local municipality. And their proximity skyrockets the price of all of the nearby real estate. There are perverse financial incentives that cause every city to want to be the city that people from the surrounding area commute to work in, but don’t actually live in. So downzoning offices isn’t going to happen at the local level. And it’s not going to happen at the state level either, because frankly it’s a silly idea to cripple your own economy.

That's a great question, have you got any thoughts on why?

The topic has come up once or twice on HN before, so maybe try searching for "new cities" or something like that.

- All existing land is already claimed by someone, or by the government. There are insanely large parcels owned by individuals or small groups.

- Most existing water is claimed by someone hundreds of miles downstream.

- The overall US mindset (there are definitely exceptions!) has changed over the 20th and early 21st century from one of maximizing tangible accomplishment, to maximizing financial gain and minimizing loss. We're playing musical chairs instead of making more chairs.

- Mass media (Disney -- kid shows, superhero movies) creates the impression that the current geographic and cultural structure of society is the only possible structure of society, by making a few views seem ubiquitous, and everything else the domain of pure fantasy.

- Prior attempts eventually got ridiculed, like EPCOT (ironically enough also Disney). People won't leave you alone -- they'll insist that any hope of new ideas is unforgivable hubris, and do whatever they can to make their ridicule a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The word "draconian" is entirely subjective, and has no value in your argument.

Your comment that I should think about my suggestion "for a second" is dismissive and assumes I haven't put any thought into it. Again, this has no value in furthering your argument.

The Bay Area is a desirable place. Even if you limit tech workers wealthy people will buy property here.

Desirability isn't a fundamental property of nature. It's the aggregated choices of individuals. And individuals, and aggregations, can make different choices if given reason and opportunity.

Geography usually dictates desirability the most throughout human history. So yes, in a way it is a fundamental property of the natural environment. The only thing the Bay Area could lack in the future is fresh water.

Iconic landscapes, nature, and almost perfect weather make it expensive.

I’m dismissive because I find your nativist “sorry, we’re full” (or more appropriately, “fuck you, I got mine”) attitude to be contemptible.

Since you are the one in favor of curtailing the freedoms of businesses and people, the burden of proof should be on you to demonstrate why we cannot simply build our way out of this problem.

Again with the insults and dismissals. "Nativist"? "Fuck you, I got mine"?

I have no burden. I already stated: it would be far easier to restrict hiring for the very large, high-salary companies, than scaling out housing to accommodate for the yearly influx of tech works with explosive earnings.

How quickly do you think big companies could start hiring contract workers from smaller tech companies that are also in the bay area? Because they already hire a lot of employees as contractors. Limiting only large companies would simply cause that behavior to increase.

You seem to be underestimating the difficulty here by quite a bit. Cities can’t achieve a policy proposal like this, especially the large number of small legal jurisdictions that make up the Bay Area, and it would obviously have zero traction at the state level. The premise is ridiculous.

I think it’s frankly as ridiculous as anything believing we can build enough duplexes to bring down the $1.8MM median house price (SF).

Price curves are very nonlinear, especially surrounding the point where supply = demand. Housing prices in the Bay Area have about doubled over the last 10 years, while the population has increased by about 10%.

Anyhow, the point of all of this legislation isn’t that duplexes alone will necessarily provide enough housing. It just gives cities a fair chance to meet their housing targets via duplex building and preserve some local zoning preferences. If they fail, the state will step in to void local zoning laws and approve dense apartment buildings.

You made an assertion with zero proof. Do you think that dictating what businesses can do in terms of hiring has zero costs? That it won’t have a chilling effect on people establishing businesses in the area?