Lame article and post. If you want to find cheap housing, you can. And it's unwise to overlook that Bay Area residents may actually prefer the current situation over unchecked sprawl.
The only place you could build up is San Francisco. San Jose is problematic due to the airport. Sprawl probably wasn't the right word, although the Lucas thing was sprawl. It's easy to say SF should build up but maybe the residents don't really want that?
Why should the residents of San Francisco be the only ones who have a say in how it is developed? San Francisco is not a sovereign entity. It is merely an administrative subdivision of the State of California. Do you think San Francisco would be more built up if all the other people in California who wanted to live there got a vote?
Do you think San Francisco would be more built up if all the other people in California who wanted to live there got a vote?
Nobody in California outside of San Francisco really thinks or cares much about The City, so nothing would be different. It's always been it's own weird microcosm of reality, and will likely stay that way forever.
Clearly people outside SF in California must care, since they're moving in...
Also, I've never come across this use of "The City" but there it is, according to Wikipedia. The term can refer to: New York, London, Rome, or San Francisco (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City). I don't think "The City" would ever evoke SF to anyone outside of SF...
It's just anecdotal, but I don't think many people in California care about San Francisco's housing problems. Southern Californians tend to think SF is "weird" and "too cold." If they pine for a dense urban experience, it's in Manhattan.
That's why we have a representative government, and not a direct democracy. People tend to make dumb choices, and sometimes the government needs to make the unpopular decision.
Relatively cheap housing can be found if you live in bad, uncool and/or inconvenient neighborhoods. I just looked at a number of < $1500 apartments in Oakland (1200+ sq feet). In-law apartments in the outer Sunset and outer Richmond can be found for less than $1500. If you are buying, it seems like Alameda is where all the non rich engineers I know end up moving.
I'm somewhat shocked at the crime stories on my facebook feed (armed robbery, car break-ins, etc.). I never experienced that when I lived in Atlanta or outside of DC. The difference is made because here my friends are forced to move into bad neighborhoods because the cost of living is too high. In Atlanta, you can afford something nice where your chance of having a weapon pointed at you is low. Here, startup employees are moving to places like Oakland, the Tenderloin, and East Palo Alto that aren't safe.
A very large component of this is a policy choice (http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/face...). I've posted the link before and will probably post it again.
Any time valley cities want to make cheaper housing, they can. The technology necessary to do so is a hundred years old and well understood.
Many people treat very high costs of living like a fact of life, but they're not.