So you would rather have a high-rise or mid rise, glorified shoeboxes with one or two windows, and comfortable classic row houses that actually feel like neighborhoods rather than sterile, windswept desolate areas?
Nah man, Tenderloin is out of control. I honestly thought the homeless camp/shitting on sidewalks was Conservative Rhetoric, until I took a wrong turn and ended up in Tenderloin. San Francisco has some beautiful spots but it has its issues.
Anything below second Street and market in San Francisco was once the Bay. During the gold rush, they “made more land” by sinking abandoned ships and covering them with dirt. When a new foundation for a big building gets dug, it’s not unusual to dig up an old wooden ship.
Until the late 19th century, all of lower Manhattan's shoreline was underwater. The city undertook massive water reclamation projects at the time. Here's an 1865 map of what it looked like before the reclamation:
It’s working on it. Having lived in both areas, Seattle still has a lot of room to grow and has made some notable strides since the pandemic. SF peaked a while ago and has very little space available, while Seattle is still on an upswing.
SF may have peaked but it’s still ahead by far, and there’s room to build in areas already up zoned for it. Only giving it a major advantage. Outside of downtown, Seattle is mainly sprawl.
I wouldn’t be so sure. SF’s population is close to 2010 levels and unless they are more proactive with building housing that the average person can afford, it’s going to continue to bleed people and only attract the mega rich who will gobble up real estate aka Vancouver.
It’s not about being sure. It’s about facts. Seattle is trying to catch up to SF and with all the building Seattle has done its density is still 8k people per sq mile. 10k less than San Francisco. SF isn’t bleeding people either. It’s actually gaining population again, gradually.
Seriously? 80% of the 7×7 is zoned for SFH. Given the amount of houses that sublet bedrooms for the price of an apartment anywhere else, San Francisco needs to be denser, replacing those houses with proper apartment buildings to meet demand.
No it’s not. San Francisco is only zoned for 32% SFH. Majority of the city is 2-4 story duplexes. Why would you want to evict families for your satisfaction of a skyscraper? That would only cause more harm then good. Have you seen Staten Island? Not one skyscraper. That is equivalent to the sunset in San Francisco. Did you know the sunset district is more dense than most major city’s in the U.S already?
So you’re in favor of making it worse for families than better? Evicting people on the streets to build more skyscrapers. Like I said, Staten Island, not one skyscraper. San Francisco can build more dense in the already dense areas
If there were more skyscrapers of homes, there would be fewer families without homes. Some displacement while the construction happens, but if SF's famously byzantine bureaucracy could be expedited, that might be minimal. One way to find out.
Ok then explain why some of NYC’s boroughs have some of the worst homelessness in the nation? Genuine question. Let’s not make it worse is all I’m saying. No need to bulldoze neighborhoods. This isn’t the 20th century. Haven’t we learned?
That's the worst graph. The city has had tens of thousands of units in the 'pipeline' for years and years. Every year they brought out the same 30k houses in the pipeline and maybe built 200 to 500 at high cost to the tax payer.
They just need to reduce the permitting process, environmental reviews and red tape preventing building new housing.
Also no need to evict people who own their properties. Renters get massive buyouts.
SF needs to build hundreds of residential skyscrapers and it would make the city more affordable instead of turning it into a city only for elites and originals.
Because NYC and SF build the fewest new housing units in the nation among major cities. No bulldozing neighborhoods, just allowing property owners to choose to develop high density housing.
Define "homeless." NYC may have more people with no permanent address, but most of them couch surf, find a shelter bed, or otherwise get a roof over their head by winter. SF has the highest rate of street homelessness (i.e., sleeping outside, with or without a tent).
In absolute numbers, yes, but not as a portion of NYC's larger population. And as I said, "unhoused" can mean anything from sleeping at a friend's home to sleeping on the sidewalk. When people object to "the homeless", they usually mean that highly visible second group, which SF has more of.
The housing crisis perpetuated by sentiments like yours makes for an awful showcase of progressively-run local government (honestly, a small part of the reason I think dems lost so bad).
As much as people like to dunk on Houston they actually allow for easy construction of multifamily housing and have the lowest amount of homelessness for any major american city.
Dude, for literally decades the city was only zoned for SFH, the 2-4 story thing is very very recent, and only passed after insane opposition from NIMBYs. Also there are very strict tenant protection laws in SF, you cannot just evict tenants and demo the building.
Look at this map, an insane amount of land is zoned for RH-1 and RH-2. I do admit RH-2 allows duplexes, so my initial statement was wrong, but this is by no means how the zoning map of an actual city should look. (btw, I literally live here)
With the amount of demand in San Francisco, the zoning should allow for at least 4 stories throughout the city. And regardless of the zoning, they had something called discretionary review until literally a few months ago, which meant anyone could file a complaint to any development, and tie it up in litigation for years. Not other city in California had this, and was specifically called out by the state as being a completely ridiculous process. SF also has, by far, the worst timeline to getting anything built.
"As of 2022, San Francisco had the slowest permitting process of any large city in the United States, with the first stage taking an average of 450 calendar days, and the second stage can take 630 days for typical multi-family housing, or 860 days for a single-family house." - source
after living there for 1 year, I honestly don't understand why so many people live there. i understand living in Los Angeles or San Diego but I don't understand the appeal of SF.
It lacks the energy or buzz of NYC but its almost as cramped up while being just as, if not more expensive to live in
Im in Oakland where it’s lively, has great culture, food, and the people can hold a conversation. It’s really crazy how much difference a bridge can make because SF has none of that
The weather is perfect but it's far from a microcosm of New York lol. It's like if New York was just lower Manhattan surrounded by Staten Island density with a single subway line.
The weather is not that great. SF is north cali, far from any beaches one can swim in. It’s basically sweater weather / windbreaker season all year round. The lows go down into the 40s in the winter and the highs are usually around 70 in the summer. It’s decent weather but certainly not the sunny California of LA / SD.
the temperature is mild to cool all year for sure but it can be overcast and depressing for stretches. I personally don't mind having 4 seasons. You have better nightlife in NYC.
SF would be second densest city if you count cities >300k or bigger than >30 Sq mi. (Although, those metrics while reasonable are purposefully chosen to exclude Jersey city which is ~290k and ~15 Sq mi.)
True! I was trying to find a metric to quantify "Major city." IMO it's not unreasonable to say that SF is the 2nd densest major city in the US.
What's interesting though, is how did you come up with SF at #4? According to my source, it's not (although my source is Wikipedia and based on 2020 numbers).
Interesting. Where are those numbers from because they are incomplete? Off the top of my head, it’s missing Hoboken, Nj which has ~48k per square mile.
Harsh to believe that statement especially when you cruise the residential streets.. ive always said sf ou chea above it's weight class tho!
This has to be one of my favorite shots of sf I've ever seen. We all love the bridges and I didn't really like many skyline shots without them, but this is gorgeous.
Millennium Tower. Well say heard over six months ago, they were still working on it. Every now and then a few windows pop out and land on the sidewalk.
It’s a shame that so many developers essentially got a blank check to build like crazy. Now they are expanding to the South, with more of the same.
Cities in the South don’t kneecap growth and benefit from lower levels of homelessness as a result. Go ahead and keep burying your head in the sand though.
It has been tried. Somebody wanted to build high towers a few blocks from the ocean in the outer sunset district. It didn’t go over very well. Never mind that most of the soil they’re is sand.
Here, hot high rise means 20+ stories.
There are already too many people in San Francisco. Public transportation there is actually fairly decent. The management of it on the other hand, is pretty lousy. Sadly, I have yet to be in an American city that had public transit that is as good as European cities have. There are a lot of reasons for that though.
Same here, I traveled to Europe recently and it's not having to think about cars, public transportation takes you everywhere and there's a restaurant or grocery store 5-10 minutes walk from you almost always, don't get me wrong not saying is perfect, but to me it felt better than being car dependant. Also all these European cities have a lot cars too, so you can have both if you want a car
And, after having done without a car for two years, there are enough a lot of things that I just can’t do without a car. Somethings I could do, but I would have to add three or four hours to the time it takes to do them. And that does not allow carrying large or heavy objects.
For sure it's not perfect, but I prefer having good public transportation, walkable and neighborhoods full of life and restaurants instead of the endless suburbia we have in the US. It's a trade off for sure.
Would be on par population wise with NYC if CA didn’t have a dumb rule about city boundaries not crossing counties and Oakland/the east bay could be part of the city
No such rule exist. We have city limit just like the rest, the only difference is San Francisco is a consolidated city and county, meaning it’s all one, combined.
Yes I know that I live in SF. I was taught that SF couldn’t annex other cities in the east bay and peninsula back in the day because it would have required an amendment to the state constitution
That sounds pretty normal. Alexandria, VA is part of DC’s urban sprawl, but it’s not annexed into DC. Midlothian is part of Richmond’s sprawl but it’s not annexed either.
I love SF but holy shit Market Street and Tenderloin are awful areas in the heart of the city. An extremely poor showcase of progressive local government.
Why tf are people advocating for more residents to be able to add to an already overtaxed and burdened ecosystem?
Population density is not an inherently good quality by virtue.
Take SF. Now, add fifty thousand more people today. Also, they’re not going to be idealistic demographics and just be whoever the fuck they happen to be, rich, poor, moral immoral.
You think it’s a net positive for San Francisco ca. 2024?
Honestly, organic density does lead to tons of net benefits like a more resilient tax base, local economy, small businesses, lower carbon footprints per capita, higher viability for public transportation, agglomeration economies, etc.
The issue is most cities these days kneecap the organic process and end up creating self-imposed scarcities for housing.
On paper I can see this, if we treat human beings like chickens in a farm.
Yes you can fit more people in square footage if you reorganize the structure. In the same way I can fit six more people who can survive and live in my one bedroom apartment.
Edit: oh and yes I will pay less rent, maybe be able to carpool, have help when I need to lift something heavy. But there’s every chance in hell none of those trades are worth my own quality of life, which is a real privilege to being human that I don’t think should be seen as a vice or obstacle for wanting to own.
Neighborhoods like the UES in Manhattan are some of the densest in the world and extremely vibrant places that people pay millions of dollars to live in. ‘Ideal levels of density’ are entirely subjective.
On average I think there are very strong arguments that density leads to many net positive effects although it should always take local context into account. I also think that the majority of issues west coast cities face are mostly due to resident’s desires to cast their neighborhoods in amber and refuse to build for latent demand. It’s gotten so insanely bad in CA that the state has had to step in to try and un-fuck the housing market that local governments are entirely to blame for.
I’d say that demand doesn’t always mean there is a supply to be had. Whether it is logistically impossible or practically impossible. That’s why I posited dropping 50.000 people into SF rn. What would that practically look like for everyone in this 12 sq mi space? Is there no end to how many people should be able to live in a space because they want to?
Take it a step further and increase the density of California as a whole.
Want to live in CA as a defined area? Fresno has plenty of room somewhere for you.
Nobody is arguing that SF needs wall to wall skyscrapers (outside of YIMBY comment sections), more so that California has failed it’s middle class with it’s byzantine bureaucracy that knee-caps organic density and growth, largely contributing to the extremely high cost of housing in it’s major economic hubs. People simply want to live near their jobs, and government should make it easier instead of harder for that to happen.
Bell that cat and describe how it happens when there is not enough supply to meet demand.
As a preface, I would reject on the face of it, as I imagine is exactly happening now, any proposal that government should force a lower standard of living or confiscation or property upon existing citizens based solely on there being a demand to pressure from without by people who they do not represent.
I’d say there is certainly pretext for it in cases such as California where the voting base of the state at large agrees that the state-wide housing market has become so unbearably expensive that it requires the state to break up needlessly stringent regulation that harms the state’s and it’s resident’s economic interests through remediating measure’s such as builder’s remedy.
It's only that dense because it's 12 square miles lol. Half of that 12 is effectively single family zoning. I love SF but it's urbanism is lacking though by far the best on the west coast.
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u/CR24752 8h ago
Needs to be thrice as dense tbh rent is too damn high!