San Francisco actually has the same problem as the valley. Housing prices are going through the roof because the city REFUSES to re-zone for higher density. The last time there was significant re-zoning, there was a great deal of whining about "Manhattanization."
Manhattan has incredible population density, and residents have some of the lowest environmental impacts in america. What's bad about that?
SF's population density isn't Manhattan's, but it's quite high overall, one of the highest in the US. The city in total has a bit over 17,000 people per square mile; that's 3x the density of Seattle and 6x that of Austin, for example. The parts where demand is highest (the eastern half) are even higher, e.g. about 25,000/sq. mi in the Mission.
Compare that to, say, Palo Alto, where housing is in strong demand (due to Stanford and startups) and yet they've only allowed density to reach a paltry 2,500/sq.mi. If they allowed high-density housing near downtown Palo Alto and Stanford, it'd not only improve things on the peninsula, but also reduce some of the pressure on SF housing from people who currently reverse-commute.
It's difficult to compare population densities between cities because city boundaries don't mean the same thing. E.g. Brooklyn is part of New York, while Oakland isn't part of San Francisco, but Brooklyn and Oakland have similar geographic functions.
As of 2000, about 871,000 people (one San Francisco) lived in Chicago neighborhoods cumulatively as dense as the Mission (~25k/square mile). About 2.4 million people (three San Franciscos) lived in neighborhoods cumulatively as dense as San Francisco (~17K/square mile). Put another way, if San Francisco (~47 square miles) was as dense as the densest 47 square miles of Chicago, it would have 23,500 people per square mile and 1.1 million people.
Chicago is officially much less dense than San Francisco because the way the boundaries are defined, the city proper stretches 20 miles along the lake shore, two-thirds of the way to Gary, Indiana. San Francisco, meanwhile, ends quite abruptly part-way down the Peninsula. But if you look at the population density weighted by the populations of neighborhoods, Chicago is more dense.
Interestingly, Chicago has no reason to be so dense. Aside from the lake, it's flat, easily-built land as far as the eye can see. It's just that historically Chicago has had lax zoning regulation and that has resulted in more density.
You could certainly do that. By that measure San Francisco is actually denser than New York at 6,266 per square mile versus 5,319 per square mile (and 3,524 for Chicago). L.A. wins it all at 6,999 per square mile. Which really puts a hole in the arguments that the Bay Area and L.A. are not dense enough for commuter rail.
It depends on what you're trying to measure, really. If you're talking about space constraints driving up housing prices in the core city, I think it's useful to look at density in the core city and whether it could be higher to create more supply.
Surely these utterly fall apart (perhaps that is what you meant to begin with) when considering actual usage rather than arbitrary geographical boundaries.
Oakland is very much not the geographical equivalent of Brooklyn (you might be able to make some sort of argument for the Bronx or Staten Island). San Francisco is not more densely populated than Manhattan, neither is, by a long stretch LA.
> SF's population density isn't Manhattan's, but it's quite high overall
San Francisco has half the population density of Brooklyn and less than Queens or the Bronx. It's also less than Somerville, Massachuetts or West Hollywood in LA county.
People talk about having more people in San Francisco and they think of Manhattan, but there's actually a lot of room for increased density without looking like Manhattan.
That's true, Manhattan-style skycrapers aren't the only option. The transit-reachable parts of SF are already denser than some of what you mention as comparable, though: the Mission has 50% higher population density than West Hollywood.
One problem is that density is much lower in places like the Outer Sunset, in part because there's no cross-town subway. Total SF population could be increased significantly if the western half's population density could be brought up to what's already the case in the eastern half.
It's an easy problem to solve: allow more housing in the Outer Sunset. The demand for housing in SF is fierce, and throwing up some towers (or hell, just a-few-stories-tall buildings) will create a huge population boom.
Which will beget the subway.
As it is there is neither the political will, nor the practical population, to support such a thing.
Call me crazy, but that's what I love about SF. It feels so much more (friendly? approachable?) than other cities because of the architecture and height of buildings. It's quite unique and I'd hate to see it go.
It's an understandable stance, but IMO a disastrous one.
I lived in SF for a year, and to be honest I found it to be somewhere between "cool" and "intolerable". The city is filled with transplants who, the moment they set foot in the fair city, turn around and try to slam the door shut behind themselves as hard as possible, and this has so many negative effects.
San Francisco is a city devoid of pragmatism - it is a fairy tale theme park run amok. Instead of getting more people to and from work faster, it is hostile to most forms of mass transit. It is hostile to the population growth necessary to un-fuck the city's transportation disaster (aka MUNI and BART).
A city is a naturally-arising conglomeration of people that will happen anywhere you combine places people want to live, with places where they can work. The key word here is people. The city has entirely forgotten that - zoning for new office spaces is onerous and slow. Zoning for housing developments nearly non-existent outside of Mission Bay. It has gone out of its way to act directly against the very basic interests of its constituency in favor of maintaining this picturesque, fairy tale backdrop of the 1930s frozen in time.
After experiencing the SF housing market first-hand I honestly have a changed view of the city. When you're just visiting, the old houses, the low density, the unique architectural style, it all feels so picturesque and lovely. Nowadays to me the city feels like a an embalmed corpse - superficially resembling some idealistic long-ago era while lacking any real semblance of function. It is utterly broken, mismanaged to absurdity, all so a small number of people can live in a slowly-crumbling fairy tale.
Nowadays I live in NYC, and frankly have no desire to go back to SF. It's cheaper (!!!), the city has done a remarkable job of preserving old architecture, mixing old with new (see: Hearst Building), and new development. There is a constant stream of development that keep both commercial and residential prices in relative check. And despite the loud cries of San Franciscans, the density and Manhanttanization has created no shortage of culture, interest, and unique neighborhoods.
Hardly surprising. After all, a city is primarily defined by its people, not colorful paints and period-architecture. Keeping people around, at the end of the day, is your best shot at preserving the spirit and character of a place than any sort of architecture.
You're not crazy, lots of people agree with you. Just please don't be like so many SF residents and complain that all the people "who made SF what it is" are being replaced by tech hipsters making 6 figs, while simultaneously complaining about any new construction in their neighborhoods. It's a hypocritical position. There either needs to be more tall buildings or people with sub 90'th percentile incomes are going to have to GTFO from SF until Silicon Valley collapses.
Transportation. The bulk of the economy is still on the west side of the Bay, and crossing the Bay can be a huge pain in the ass. BART is frequently unreliable, expensive, infrequent, and stops early.
On top of that the transportation on the Oakland side is also highly lacking, further increasing the friction for people working in SF but living in the East Bay.
On top of that the transportation on the SF side is also highly lacking. If you work within walking distance of a BART stop, power to you. For everyone else it means catching a transfer to the worst transit agency I've ever seen: MUNI.
In other words, the only commute that really competes with living in the city proper is one where you're living walking distance to a BART stop, and you work within walking distance to a BART stop at the other end. Any other use case becomes an irredeemable mess, substantially limiting the attractiveness for residents.
Transportation has, and is, and will continue to be, the Achille's Heel of San Francisco and its surroundings. The continuing utter failure to invest in transit infrastructure will be the city's undoing.
Says someone not looking at $2,800 for an apartment right now.
And the peninsula isn't really much better. They tend to be bigger, but nothing is within a half mile, nobody walks on the street, it's a miserable place to be. All that, for an apartment that's $300 cheaper? It makes no sense.
What exactly are the density restrictions on residential buildings in San Francisco? I'm slightly familiar with DC and Philadelphia and in neither case is building height or zoning the key issue. Unions and crime figure in.
I'm rather against high-rise residential construction. Big buildings are fine for hotels, but for homes it leads to really shitty residential neighborhoods where people can't recognize their neighbors. I'm all in favor of three story limits. Just make thin row homes. God forbid people actually have to deal with neighbors and maintain sidewalks and so-forth. Maybe some people actually do like checking in and out of their concrete cell block on floor 50.
Manhattan has incredible population density, and residents have some of the lowest environmental impacts in america. What's bad about that?
The same slate columnist wrote about SFO real estate earlier: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/04/11/san_francisco...