Conflating NIMBY'ism and homelessness is self defeating if you actually want people sleeping in rooms with beds and keys; in California.

Call the right Marc(Benioff). He can house the majority of the SF homeless population in the open space in his tower... "Salesforce Giving Up 350K SF In Downtown S.F. In Latest Blow To City's Office Market" https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/office/salesforce-west-...

Life long. Real estate values are in freefall. Many areas in the Bay Area are down 19% in 30 days. RTO is failing. Tech layoffs are ramping up.

A 19% decrease in housing prices, even assuming that that number were true (it's not even close to that for the SF property I own, for example), is not nearly enough to make SFBA affordable. Your argument was stronger when you were simply expressing your aesthetic preference for lower density instead of denying the existence of the housing crisis.

If it happens in again next month, maybe it will.

May arguments stem around letting communities make their own decisions and abiding by the laws, as silly and antiquated and biased as they maybe, make their own decisions. I am heavily pro-building, but I don't want a jail built next door. There are nuances.

But we don't have a housing shortage in California, any longer.

> But we don't have a housing shortage in California, any longer.

You keep saying this, and yet home prices are still unaffordable for a median earner. What magical economic factor aside from demand greater than supply do you think is driving these high costs?

> I am heavily pro-building, but I don't want a jail built next door.

And no one I am aware of is seriously promoting changing zoning to allow something like that.

How about we go one step further and allow individuals to make their own decisions about the land that they own? Perhaps individual freedom is an alien concept for many Americans?

19%, great. Only 81% too little to make things actually somewhat affordable. But even then only somewhat.

"Bay Area home prices see largest May-to-June drop on record" https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/07/26/bay-area-home-prices-...

That's nice. Go to Zillow right now and search for properties in Palo Alto. Set no minimum, and then set a $500k maximum (the lowest Zillow will let you set for Palo Alto). See what you get. Then try $600k. Still nothing! Keep dialing it up until you find something.

Why does every neighborhood and city have to have $500k houses? Is there some sort of right to live in Palo Alto that I’m not aware of?

Even well off people have neighborhoods they can’t afford to move in to - that’s the way it works.

We live in a democracy in which most people think that the government should step in to ensure commodities necessary for survival, like housing or food, remain affordable. Given that in California (and many other places) every community severely restricts multi-family housing, the state has to force some otherwise-unwilling municipalities to zone for denser residential. It would be unfair for the state to deliver mandates to some cities while letting the richest places, such as Palo Alto, off the hook.

In other words: it'd be one thing if it were just Palo Alto that were unaffordable, but because it's a statewide problem, fairness demands that every city should chip in to the solution.

" in which most people think that the government should step in " ! Really? Proof?

Housing is affordable; just not the housing you'd like. Food is inflating but starvation in the US is rare.

Considering California's housing costs are astronomical compared to the rest of the US, isn't its approach to restriction a sign of the model working? If not why is there so much market based demand driving up the prices?

And since many people can and do leave the state as a result of being priced out, where is the "statewide problem"?

This sounds more like an opinionated list of the way you wish things were. Also makes me curious how much you have vested in the state / community. As things are increasingly so, when in California, do as the ("Romans").

Horrible cherry picking. Take the average family income in the city and go from there. Also, there is an exceptional dirth of supply relative to the transactions as a result of rapid fed rate increases; with real estate always being a slow mover in reflecting market prices.

It's gone well beyond California at this point:

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/14/1109345201/theres-a-massive-h...

I'm looking at data projecting a very different reality for all, not partisan narratives looking into the past. Shoot the messenger.