Item — HN Reader

Something I suspected was the case but hadn't heard the term - or seen any research on.

In SF the battle is over what will happen in the next 5 to 10 years. In that context it is politically dangerous to support market rate "luxury" housing. On a longer timeline this is the only thing that will make a serious dent.

Instead they are pushing for 25% of all developments to be affordable housing, which will retard the whole market and worsen the problem.

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As long as the absolute number of units in that 75% is large enough, it can still successfully kick start this filtering process.

Fascinating to see actual studies supporting what the free market is already pushing for, more luxury housing.

More what I was trying to say is that we're focused on short term gains in affordable housing (the 25%) instead of maintaining our current 12% and focusing on total volume of new housing - whether it's luxury or not.

I would think the biggest concern is creating a twin bubble of tech startups and housing. Then when the tech bubble pops you get all the real-estate developers soaked by the sudden calamitous drop in the value of the housing units they put up (which assumed a steady supply of people moving in with six-figure incomes).