[BurningFrog]

These arguments remind me of The Onion's classic "‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens".

Which is to say SF's problems are definitely a result of SF policies! For housing specifically, only SF is responsible for making construction in SF near impossible.

The problems of the nation and state are of course also present there, but that doesn't change that SF is unique.

[dagav]

That Onion headline rubs me the wrong way... Just because a problem is unique to a country doesn't make that problem easily preventable.

[altShiftDev]

Yes, actually it does. You simply have to act like other countries in which it isn't a problem.

[paulryanrogers]

Could it be some countries have unique demographics, climate, or cultural factors not found elsewhere?

I'm not saying SF is blameless, but what works in Japan or Norway isn't guaranteed to work in SF.

[asdff]

It could be, but the broader frustration is that these factors you cite aren't even researched on a local level.

You say the trains run on time in Japan, and people don't respond by researching transit infrastructure in Japan to figure out why that is. They respond by throwing their hands in the air and staying it's impossible, unfundable, politically untenable, whatever fluff reason that's indicative of an unwillingness to think analytically about the problem.

The underlying cause is that there is no thought or scholarship in local government, just electoral risk assessment.