[kansface]

> Where's a profit in cheap housing/low rents?

1. The size of the housing problem grossly outsizes the budget of the public sector. Its not even close - this problem can only be addressed through private capital. 2. Private capital will only build things that are profitable with a comfortable margin considering unexpected costs and other, possibly more efficient allocations of the same capital. 3. Every regulation/requirement you throw at housing developers increases the minimum cost of new housing. As it currently stands, its mostly a physical impossibility to build middle class housing in SF profitably given existing requirements (which effectively add a couple hundred thousand to each unit). This means that no middle class housing will be built.

If you want more affordable housing, you fundamentally need to change the incentive to build affordable housing. You can't do this and chase off developers at the same time.