[hunter23]

The problem is that the local governments are not doing their jobs so private industry is stepping in to address the gap (with obviously a biased interest towards their customers, shareholders, and employees).

Literally every Bay area government has regulations (zoning, community review, etc.) that prevent housing to be put in place. On the transit side, we have multiple transit organizations (Muni, BART, Caltrain, etc.) that do not coordinate and operate as one entity; contrast this with NYC where the transit orgs have a common leadership.

What is happening in the Bay is that we are having an infrastructure crisis because a Nimby philosophy is preventing investment in critical areas like housing, transport, etc.

I agree that private industry won't solve this problem correctly because of its self interest, but frankly the problem is that the policy makers have no interest in solving the issue. Their loyalty is to their wealthy vocal residents who have no interest in creating housing or transit. They definitely do not care if underserved and disadvantaged people are suffering.

So while I agree that private industry will not tailor their solution to the disadvantaged (due to self interest), I don't think policy makers will either (due to self interest). Proposition 13 is a perfect example of how the voting population does not care about infrastructure for the poor. Prop 13 was marketed as a relief provision for the elderly, but the bulk of the measure is essentially a tax break for largely white wealthy landowners.

[abeppu]

Property owners have no interest in creating housing; scarcity keeps their property values high. However, I don't get why it is that renters seem ineffective as a block in advocating for more construction. There are lots of renters, many with more roommates than they'd like, and they're all vaguely aware that their landlords could decide to evict everyone and sell, so they should be motivated to try to build the stock of alternatives.

[barry-cotter]

Can you imagine how much more valuable property in Queens would be if it was zoned so you could build at Manhattan densities? You can create value just by increasing density, by making building more housing legal where it isn’t. In the very long run this may not be an obvious win for all property owners, as a group. But they’re not a group, and if you can be one of the first people to build a lot of housing in a supply constrained market you’ll make a lot of money.

If building more housing in the Bay Area was legal there’d be more housing. If they built enough housing prices would even fall eventually.