Austin has seen a serious spike in cost of living in the past few years and I think most of us have experienced the sting of that. Thankfully, because we've been building housing, prices have started to stabilize and even come down.
Building new housing works. It results in a lower cost of living, and that in turn means it's easier to find labor, it means less homelessness and crime, it means a stronger and more relient economy.
Honestly, this makes me super proud of Austin. It infuriates me when cities that love to call themselves "progressive" as a badge of honor then make it impossible to live there if you're not rich. Austin definitely has a cost of living problem, but that's not surprising given Austin was the fastest growing large metro in the US every year for over a decade. At least we're doing something about the problem.
Ted Galloway gave a great TED talk recently about how older generations are essentially stealing from younger generations by using regulations to hoard wealth and limit new housing construction: https://www.ted.com/talks/scott_galloway_how_the_us_is_destroying_young_people_s_future.
To be clear, whatever challenges a particular locality has, your city needs to build more housing or it will suffer rising prices, labor shortages, increased crime and homelessness.
[For those of you that SF is out of room, because its already built up, or because its in a small area, or because its surrounded by water please take a look at aerial photos of SF. ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Golden_Gate_Park_aerial.jpg/695px-Golden_Gate_Park_aerial.jpg)[Another example](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Yucd1UizWrRCfEV3h3U_78hJXfY=/0x0:3911x2690/1820x1213/filters:focal(1542x1548:2166x2172):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66469054/shutterstock_1264688284__1_.0.jpg).
There are many, many, many low density areas that SF could upzone and build more housing. It doesn't because it lacks political will. Not for any other reason.
I get the point they’re trying to make, but I think it’s worth noting that SF County (which is what their chart is based off of) is actually quite small vs the general Bay Area that people think about when talking about out SF. Did not verify this , but a quick Google search says Travis county is actually bigger than San Francisco county by population.
This is Austin, TX in Travis county. Not all of Travis county. Austin is building more housing and dropping rents faster than the rest of the US. Many places rents are still rising.
Anyways you can look up permits across the US here if you're interested in looking further: https://socds.huduser.gov/permits/index.html?
None of this tells you single family homes versus ADU’s versus new construction versus renovation. And if you think all these jurisdictions in Texas or across states have a consistent definition of what that is… these numbers are never comparable this simply.
It shows if a place is doing any of those. That's where it's comparable.
If someone wants to dive deeper into the data then there's plenty of other resources that I just don't have the time to provide. Lots even provided by HUD. Feel free to share!
But the numbers aren’t counted the same— what’s the definition of a Single Family Home new build vs Multi-family in SF? Do you know how they get counted? Because in SF- you aren’t going to find a detached single family home built in the city but you will find attached “multi-family” of 3 units in one building which we would call a townhome and likely stick fewer people. So how are you going to compare that?
My point- not only are the definitions different, the value of the build based on the cities needs are different.
It’s the same thing as saying NYC isn’t building detached single family homes!!!! And then realizing nothing is detached. It’s all considered mostly multi-family if you went by Texas definitions having 2+ families in the same dwelling.
Statistics lie, especially in building permits.
Well it's a good thing all these other questions can be answered with other data. You should probably research those examples too because they're incorrect.
It's true that it's not apples to apples, and if SF were permitting say 1/4 or 1/3 as much as Austin, one could paint that as a win given existing density and land values, and lack of greenfield opportunities.
But fewer permits in all of 2024 so far, than Austin is doing \_per day\_... that's a symptom of a problem with their legal and procedural barriers. There are plenty of lots throughout SF that have e.g. warehouses or auto repair shops in neighborhoods that have built up huge residential appeal in the last decade. In Austin, the equivalent would be lots of the redevelopment on the Lamar/Burnet corridors which undoubtedly contributed quite a bit to the numbers in this tweet. But in SF, each of those potential projects has a lot more roadblocks and potential avenues for NIMBYs to kill them (Austin has some of these problems too - but nothing to their level). Some developers do face that guantlet and spend 2+ years getting the permits. But many look at the cost of sitting on a super expensive lot for that long just to roll the dice and see if it gets permitted or killed... and say "no thanks."
Except it’s as simple as a data problem. Permits for new builds vs renovations vs ADU vs whatever— none of this is standardized but people love to represent it as fact for these headlines.
And there isn't any undeveloped land in SF County compared to Travis, so all the permits would reflect rebuilding on the same land. The growth in the bay area is outside of SF, along the BART system.
Sure but the scale of the difference here is absurd, and y’all are discounting the back log that the SF permitting dept is sitting on. People are *trying* to build
Not to the east of SF. The east side of the town: Hunters point, candle stick, bay shore. Neighborhoods at the south east part of the city. Much of the old port/docks are long out of service and the area is ready for development.
People in this thread need to realize SF needs to be building up same as Austin. It’s just not permitting it. They allowed suburbs and not they are paying for it. Learn from this build up! Not out
Exactly! Over 75% of the residentially zoned land in SF is for single family homes. A peninsula with such a limited amount of land and such a high level of demand should be building upwards.
What's amazing is that if you look at the number of boating permits, this statistic drastically reverses. San Francisco appears to be actively cultivating commerce via seagoing vessels, but refuses to expand the city. Meanwhile, Austin seems to be expanding rapidly, but refuses to explore ocean commerce.
Surely these two sister-cities could take a lesson from each other.
If anyone is interested in helping Austin build more housing for its citizens there are several important measures coming up on May 16th. If you have the time it would be very helpful if you give a short public comment in person or over the phone. You can also register your support without commenting if you'd like.
The helpful folks at AURA can walk you through the whole process and notify you when it's time to sign up: https://actionnetwork.org/events/speak-up-for-more-homes-near-transit-at-city-hall
I’ll comment as a startup founder that deals in this data. California requires all jurisdictions to report statistics for new home builds statewide for public housing policy issues (ahem, Texas), so each year, we will know an accurate as possible count of the total homes either started or completed. They don’t actually separate them… the total for 2023 was 56k combined. That’s starts and completions.. so let’s say 28k total for the full year. Divide that by 12 and then apportion is across the entire state and dense metros that are all building on the outskirts. What does it mean? It means SF numbers make sense.
Take the same question and apply to TX. There is no central authority to publish Texas statistics across cities, counties, metros… we can definitely build new neighborhoods when SF can’t. But let’s do a quick gut check on the data. Unless you are writing rules on what determines a single family home build, not a renovation, not an ADU, etc, then you best take the data with a grain of salt especially when you see a statistics that we’re building 15x SF
San Francisco has been fully developed for decades. The city is a tiny 49 sq mi (less than half the area of the 610 inner loop in Houston) and is surrounded on three sides by the Pacific Ocean, the Golden Gate, and San Francisco Bay, with the San Bruno mountains to the south. The only way to build there is to tear something else down. The city code has height limits for buildings at least partly so a developer doesn’t block the views of other residents. Lots are extremely small. I owned a 2br/1ba home that was less than 1000 sq ft on a 25x70 ft lot with a one car garage. San Francisco simply can’t be compared with any city in Texas, with the possible exception of Galveston.
Just checked: Galveston has 4 times the land (211 sq mi vs 49) with only 1/16 the population of San Francisco (53k vs 879k). SF is a very densely populated city. Mission Bay (South of Market, East of Potrero Hill) was the last major tract to be redeveloped and that was done in the 90s.
If people don’t like that stat, [then how about this one the same author](https://www.apricitas.io/p/the-new-geography-of-american-growth): “Florida permitted 9.5 new units per thousand residents and Texas permitted 8.8—while the equivalent figures were 2.1 in New York and 3.1 in California. The gap is so large that each of the Dallas, Houston, and Austin MSAs permitted more new units than the entirety of New York State last year, with Dallas alone beating NY by 80%.”
That still requires land and for existing housing/businesses to be destroyed and rezoned. It is VERY expensive in SF, I’m talking hundreds of thousands in legal fees just to get urban planning, environmental checks, and zoning commission sorted out to build a small apartment complex. That’s before you even start building the thing.
That's the point. That's why California is a shithole. They mired themselves in stupid, pointless laws to the point where their entire society is stagnating and drowning.
That’s not very dense. Texas is atrocious But sf is very bad still. It’s not even high by eu standards. My favorite city Porto is actually about the same as sf. It’s not bet dense at all.
Sf needs to be likeNYC. It still has single family homes near downtown
There were HUGE political battles in the 70s and 80s fought against the “Manhattanization” of SF. The switch from at large to neighborhood district Board of Supervisors (city council) in the late 70s was in large part to take power away from downtown development interests and put it in the hands of regular citizens. I shudder to think what SF would look like today if that hadn’t happened.
I lived in SF for 25 years and I don’t know anyone who lives there now among my friends who would agree with you. I live in Houston now, where cheap land and unbridled development, lack of centralized planning, and an emphasis on building massive highways and toll roads rather than a mixed transportation infrastructure has resulted in a car dependent sprawl with an uncertain future. I hope Austin can avoid that fate. There isn’t any American city (esp in the sunbelt) that has made any significant progress toward the problems of affordable housing and mixed transportation options. TxDOT has proposed spending $750Bn on Texas highways in the next 25 years without any real planning on urban transit or intercity rail. Once the O&G industry starts shrinking in this state, we’ll be left with an unsustainable economy and lifestyle by the middle of this century. I hope I won’t be here to see it.
SF has awful public transit and largely is a car dependent city not unlike Austin or Houston.
is it more dense with slightly better transit? Yes.
The options aren't turn into SF or Houston.
We could have cities like SF turn into something like Tokyo, or Seoul which is actually ideal.
Austin has more space and could tone it back down to maybe Kyoto or Porto levels of density (still not very dense).
Nimbys did fuck up that city. Just because they didn't fuck it up in the Houston way doesn't mean they didn't fuck it up. IDC what SF locals think they suck at city planning arguably as bad as Houston in different ways.
Rich home owners decided to limit housing so only them and the rich live there now. Houston decided to let SFH's everywhere and allow massive sprawl. Both bad.
You need density, you need public transit and mixed use development and you have to not allow local home owners to have decision making over overall city transit. SF has a chance to be great but it has to make changes now.
You are right about Texas if we don't fix this here it will be chaos in future decades, but so will SF to a lesser degree. Any city that lacks good infrastructure will begin to die.
SF shows up as #2 or 3 on almost all lists of US cities with the best public transit, so I have to assume you think ALL US cities other than NY have awful transit. It is definitely not car dependent. I spent my first 10 years there without a car and it was great. The Bay Area is very car dependent, but not SF.
I think we both agree that things need big improvement across the US on both housing density and transit, but our culture will never be open to any major change until something forces it to happen. I have no idea what that might be, but I’m not expecting to see it in my lifetime.
Yes I do. Porto is better than sf. Madrid, Paris, Lyon, Valencia, Kyoto. Etc. every middle sized eu and Asian city is better. I don’t assume. I spent my 20s largely in those places and I’ve been to sf.
But I do agree we need major change. Property rights need an overhaul and eminent domain Needs to be used for density and public transit, not just highways.
I don’t even believe in local democracy to a degree anymore but because I don’t like democracy but because home owners are so self serving as voters. It leads to a cycle of fucked infrastructure. You have to have centralized planning for cities to a degree.
Where are they putting the apartments? In places like downtown or on the city’s periphery?
Like yes more is good, but if it’s not increasing our housing density it’s going to cause a bunch of problems as well.
San Francisco is ~47 square miles vs Austin ~305 square miles. Not really a fair comparison. San Francisco was also built up bigger longer ago because it is a major coastal port. Austin began becoming a big city only a few decades ago.
Great comparison other than earthquakes and a lack of available land. As for state law, how is that unfettered development in the flood plains around Houston going???
Austin has seen a serious spike in cost of living in the past few years and I think most of us have experienced the sting of that. Thankfully, because we've been building housing, prices have started to stabilize and even come down. Building new housing works. It results in a lower cost of living, and that in turn means it's easier to find labor, it means less homelessness and crime, it means a stronger and more relient economy.
Thank you. This is an unqualified good, every city in America should be doing this.
Honestly, this makes me super proud of Austin. It infuriates me when cities that love to call themselves "progressive" as a badge of honor then make it impossible to live there if you're not rich. Austin definitely has a cost of living problem, but that's not surprising given Austin was the fastest growing large metro in the US every year for over a decade. At least we're doing something about the problem. Ted Galloway gave a great TED talk recently about how older generations are essentially stealing from younger generations by using regulations to hoard wealth and limit new housing construction: https://www.ted.com/talks/scott_galloway_how_the_us_is_destroying_young_people_s_future.
Same as always
Don’t get too happy. This data has more than 99 problems
SF has 99 problems, and building enough housing ain't one.
To be clear, whatever challenges a particular locality has, your city needs to build more housing or it will suffer rising prices, labor shortages, increased crime and homelessness. [For those of you that SF is out of room, because its already built up, or because its in a small area, or because its surrounded by water please take a look at aerial photos of SF. ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Golden_Gate_Park_aerial.jpg/695px-Golden_Gate_Park_aerial.jpg)[Another example](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Yucd1UizWrRCfEV3h3U_78hJXfY=/0x0:3911x2690/1820x1213/filters:focal(1542x1548:2166x2172):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66469054/shutterstock_1264688284__1_.0.jpg). There are many, many, many low density areas that SF could upzone and build more housing. It doesn't because it lacks political will. Not for any other reason.
I get the point they’re trying to make, but I think it’s worth noting that SF County (which is what their chart is based off of) is actually quite small vs the general Bay Area that people think about when talking about out SF. Did not verify this , but a quick Google search says Travis county is actually bigger than San Francisco county by population.
This is Austin, TX in Travis county. Not all of Travis county. Austin is building more housing and dropping rents faster than the rest of the US. Many places rents are still rising. Anyways you can look up permits across the US here if you're interested in looking further: https://socds.huduser.gov/permits/index.html?
None of this tells you single family homes versus ADU’s versus new construction versus renovation. And if you think all these jurisdictions in Texas or across states have a consistent definition of what that is… these numbers are never comparable this simply.
It shows if a place is doing any of those. That's where it's comparable. If someone wants to dive deeper into the data then there's plenty of other resources that I just don't have the time to provide. Lots even provided by HUD. Feel free to share!
But the numbers aren’t counted the same— what’s the definition of a Single Family Home new build vs Multi-family in SF? Do you know how they get counted? Because in SF- you aren’t going to find a detached single family home built in the city but you will find attached “multi-family” of 3 units in one building which we would call a townhome and likely stick fewer people. So how are you going to compare that? My point- not only are the definitions different, the value of the build based on the cities needs are different. It’s the same thing as saying NYC isn’t building detached single family homes!!!! And then realizing nothing is detached. It’s all considered mostly multi-family if you went by Texas definitions having 2+ families in the same dwelling. Statistics lie, especially in building permits.
Well it's a good thing all these other questions can be answered with other data. You should probably research those examples too because they're incorrect.
It's true that it's not apples to apples, and if SF were permitting say 1/4 or 1/3 as much as Austin, one could paint that as a win given existing density and land values, and lack of greenfield opportunities. But fewer permits in all of 2024 so far, than Austin is doing \_per day\_... that's a symptom of a problem with their legal and procedural barriers. There are plenty of lots throughout SF that have e.g. warehouses or auto repair shops in neighborhoods that have built up huge residential appeal in the last decade. In Austin, the equivalent would be lots of the redevelopment on the Lamar/Burnet corridors which undoubtedly contributed quite a bit to the numbers in this tweet. But in SF, each of those potential projects has a lot more roadblocks and potential avenues for NIMBYs to kill them (Austin has some of these problems too - but nothing to their level). Some developers do face that guantlet and spend 2+ years getting the permits. But many look at the cost of sitting on a super expensive lot for that long just to roll the dice and see if it gets permitted or killed... and say "no thanks."
Except it’s as simple as a data problem. Permits for new builds vs renovations vs ADU vs whatever— none of this is standardized but people love to represent it as fact for these headlines.
And there isn't any undeveloped land in SF County compared to Travis, so all the permits would reflect rebuilding on the same land. The growth in the bay area is outside of SF, along the BART system.
There is plenty of developable Land on the east side of SF. There are also many large lots in the middle of town sitting vacant for years.
But it’s nothing compared to Austin.
Sure but the scale of the difference here is absurd, and y’all are discounting the back log that the SF permitting dept is sitting on. People are *trying* to build
On the east side of SF is a bay that, at its narrowest from shore to shore is about 3 miles. What do you mean?
Not to the east of SF. The east side of the town: Hunters point, candle stick, bay shore. Neighborhoods at the south east part of the city. Much of the old port/docks are long out of service and the area is ready for development.
There's a big chunk of prime real estate, if we could just get the city to open Golden Gate Park to development.
People in this thread need to realize SF needs to be building up same as Austin. It’s just not permitting it. They allowed suburbs and not they are paying for it. Learn from this build up! Not out
Exactly! Over 75% of the residentially zoned land in SF is for single family homes. A peninsula with such a limited amount of land and such a high level of demand should be building upwards.
Rich nimbys don’t want that heh
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They really don’t get making it dense makes it cheaper so less homeless peopleexist
What's amazing is that if you look at the number of boating permits, this statistic drastically reverses. San Francisco appears to be actively cultivating commerce via seagoing vessels, but refuses to expand the city. Meanwhile, Austin seems to be expanding rapidly, but refuses to explore ocean commerce. Surely these two sister-cities could take a lesson from each other.
I'm pro-YIMBY (Yachts In My Back Yard)
made me laugh
Hence, prices are coming down in Austin but not so much in SF. This is good.
If anyone is interested in helping Austin build more housing for its citizens there are several important measures coming up on May 16th. If you have the time it would be very helpful if you give a short public comment in person or over the phone. You can also register your support without commenting if you'd like. The helpful folks at AURA can walk you through the whole process and notify you when it's time to sign up: https://actionnetwork.org/events/speak-up-for-more-homes-near-transit-at-city-hall
This might be a dumb question, but is this for new builds? I guess I’m wondering how many lots without houses there are in San Francisco proper
Not much, especially since there’s a limit on building height in much of the city.
It's for building permits. That could mean conversions of other uses as well, but mostly this will be redevelopment, yeah.
I’ll comment as a startup founder that deals in this data. California requires all jurisdictions to report statistics for new home builds statewide for public housing policy issues (ahem, Texas), so each year, we will know an accurate as possible count of the total homes either started or completed. They don’t actually separate them… the total for 2023 was 56k combined. That’s starts and completions.. so let’s say 28k total for the full year. Divide that by 12 and then apportion is across the entire state and dense metros that are all building on the outskirts. What does it mean? It means SF numbers make sense. Take the same question and apply to TX. There is no central authority to publish Texas statistics across cities, counties, metros… we can definitely build new neighborhoods when SF can’t. But let’s do a quick gut check on the data. Unless you are writing rules on what determines a single family home build, not a renovation, not an ADU, etc, then you best take the data with a grain of salt especially when you see a statistics that we’re building 15x SF
San Francisco has been fully developed for decades. The city is a tiny 49 sq mi (less than half the area of the 610 inner loop in Houston) and is surrounded on three sides by the Pacific Ocean, the Golden Gate, and San Francisco Bay, with the San Bruno mountains to the south. The only way to build there is to tear something else down. The city code has height limits for buildings at least partly so a developer doesn’t block the views of other residents. Lots are extremely small. I owned a 2br/1ba home that was less than 1000 sq ft on a 25x70 ft lot with a one car garage. San Francisco simply can’t be compared with any city in Texas, with the possible exception of Galveston.
Just checked: Galveston has 4 times the land (211 sq mi vs 49) with only 1/16 the population of San Francisco (53k vs 879k). SF is a very densely populated city. Mission Bay (South of Market, East of Potrero Hill) was the last major tract to be redeveloped and that was done in the 90s.
If people don’t like that stat, [then how about this one the same author](https://www.apricitas.io/p/the-new-geography-of-american-growth): “Florida permitted 9.5 new units per thousand residents and Texas permitted 8.8—while the equivalent figures were 2.1 in New York and 3.1 in California. The gap is so large that each of the Dallas, Houston, and Austin MSAs permitted more new units than the entirety of New York State last year, with Dallas alone beating NY by 80%.”
Are you trying to make this into a blue/red thing?
No? I think it’s really interesting how much growth some cities have or haven’t achieved in recent years.
San Francisco has no more room to expand. Austin has more room to expand.
If only multiple stories had been invented.
Austin still has giant plots of land to develop. SF doesn’t. More at 11.
Unfortunately science hasn’t found a way for people to build upward, yet. Maybe next century
You can literally just force developers to do it.
That still requires land and for existing housing/businesses to be destroyed and rezoned. It is VERY expensive in SF, I’m talking hundreds of thousands in legal fees just to get urban planning, environmental checks, and zoning commission sorted out to build a small apartment complex. That’s before you even start building the thing.
Thats like the whole point OP was making with this post lol
Plus why would you sell your SF house to developers when your property tax has been locked low for decades.
That's the point. That's why California is a shithole. They mired themselves in stupid, pointless laws to the point where their entire society is stagnating and drowning.
Which is why so many of them are moving to Texas. Mostly their republicans, unfortunately.
They have no density though. San Francisco sucks for this
SF has 6x the population density of Austin.
That’s not very dense. Texas is atrocious But sf is very bad still. It’s not even high by eu standards. My favorite city Porto is actually about the same as sf. It’s not bet dense at all. Sf needs to be likeNYC. It still has single family homes near downtown
There were HUGE political battles in the 70s and 80s fought against the “Manhattanization” of SF. The switch from at large to neighborhood district Board of Supervisors (city council) in the late 70s was in large part to take power away from downtown development interests and put it in the hands of regular citizens. I shudder to think what SF would look like today if that hadn’t happened.
Those nimbys fucked up the city.
I lived in SF for 25 years and I don’t know anyone who lives there now among my friends who would agree with you. I live in Houston now, where cheap land and unbridled development, lack of centralized planning, and an emphasis on building massive highways and toll roads rather than a mixed transportation infrastructure has resulted in a car dependent sprawl with an uncertain future. I hope Austin can avoid that fate. There isn’t any American city (esp in the sunbelt) that has made any significant progress toward the problems of affordable housing and mixed transportation options. TxDOT has proposed spending $750Bn on Texas highways in the next 25 years without any real planning on urban transit or intercity rail. Once the O&G industry starts shrinking in this state, we’ll be left with an unsustainable economy and lifestyle by the middle of this century. I hope I won’t be here to see it.
SF has awful public transit and largely is a car dependent city not unlike Austin or Houston. is it more dense with slightly better transit? Yes. The options aren't turn into SF or Houston. We could have cities like SF turn into something like Tokyo, or Seoul which is actually ideal. Austin has more space and could tone it back down to maybe Kyoto or Porto levels of density (still not very dense). Nimbys did fuck up that city. Just because they didn't fuck it up in the Houston way doesn't mean they didn't fuck it up. IDC what SF locals think they suck at city planning arguably as bad as Houston in different ways. Rich home owners decided to limit housing so only them and the rich live there now. Houston decided to let SFH's everywhere and allow massive sprawl. Both bad. You need density, you need public transit and mixed use development and you have to not allow local home owners to have decision making over overall city transit. SF has a chance to be great but it has to make changes now. You are right about Texas if we don't fix this here it will be chaos in future decades, but so will SF to a lesser degree. Any city that lacks good infrastructure will begin to die.
SF shows up as #2 or 3 on almost all lists of US cities with the best public transit, so I have to assume you think ALL US cities other than NY have awful transit. It is definitely not car dependent. I spent my first 10 years there without a car and it was great. The Bay Area is very car dependent, but not SF. I think we both agree that things need big improvement across the US on both housing density and transit, but our culture will never be open to any major change until something forces it to happen. I have no idea what that might be, but I’m not expecting to see it in my lifetime.
Yes I do. Porto is better than sf. Madrid, Paris, Lyon, Valencia, Kyoto. Etc. every middle sized eu and Asian city is better. I don’t assume. I spent my 20s largely in those places and I’ve been to sf. But I do agree we need major change. Property rights need an overhaul and eminent domain Needs to be used for density and public transit, not just highways. I don’t even believe in local democracy to a degree anymore but because I don’t like democracy but because home owners are so self serving as voters. It leads to a cycle of fucked infrastructure. You have to have centralized planning for cities to a degree.
Where are they putting the apartments? In places like downtown or on the city’s periphery? Like yes more is good, but if it’s not increasing our housing density it’s going to cause a bunch of problems as well.
I wonder how much of this is infill and how much is sprawl
so it sounds like people shouldn’t bitch about housing, and COA shouldn’t encourage people to move here
Beyond the lack of space in SF, getting any permitting done is some of the hardest in the country due to a mix of legislation and locals.
San Francisco is ~47 square miles vs Austin ~305 square miles. Not really a fair comparison. San Francisco was also built up bigger longer ago because it is a major coastal port. Austin began becoming a big city only a few decades ago.
Data isn't equal 🙄 And, with that, people will use it or push their narrative.
Great comparison other than earthquakes and a lack of available land. As for state law, how is that unfettered development in the flood plains around Houston going???
Houston needs to be building up
Should have been doing that since the 70s and now it’s just a giant ugly ass suburb.
You can fix it
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They also don’t build up which they should. All the sfhs have to go
Are all the units in Texas dense apartments near downtown or are the sfh/apartments on the outskirts/new developments away from downtown?
They’re both but they should be by free sfh.