[_delirium]

I don't think it'd be that inaccurate to model the supply of tech workers looking to live in SF as "very large" relative to demand, i.e. not likely to be meaningfully diminished by a dozen or two condo towers. Plus, demand itself depends on housing stock, and good new housing stock tends to produce more demand: people's friends move to SF, they hear about a new condo tower, the whole area gets more desirable. If you modeled Manhattan redevelopment that way, you'd have good results: the construction of new condos in Manhattan has not appreciably diminished the remaining outstanding supply of people wanting to move to Manhattan. If anything, the opposite: the "cleaning up" of Manhattan from redevelopment has increased the demand to live there by more than the new apartments have provided, so the supply/demand imbalance is actually worse than before! Now that might still be good for other reasons, but not if your goal is to lower prices.

I mean, assuming we're not talking about putting in 500,000 new units or something, Stalinist-apartment-blocks style: that would really produce enough supply to soak up any excess demand (which was precisely the point of Stalin's building programme). And their unattractiveness might reduce demand, too...

[w1ntermute]

> It's reasonably accurate to model the supply of tech workers looking to live in SF as not likely to be meaningfully diminished by new construction, i.e. demand >> condo_size.

Based on what exactly? I don't think you can compare Manhattan to SF in this regard. Manhattan has general appeal and is well-known worldwide, whereas this issue with SF is specifically due to tech workers.

And I am not convinced that there are so many tech workers that you cannot accommodate everyone else as well. They definitely aren't going to be "pushed out of SF" if you allow high rise construction in all parts of the city.