[fennecfoxen]

The answer isn't just sprawl, it's "lots of housing", which can mean more tall apartment buildings on a little land instead of individual homes on a lot of land.

Unfortunately, San Francisco proper is very very hostile to real estate development for a variety of reasons and is trapped in a steadily worsening local maximum. A large part of that is policies like rent control, which bestows a sort of quasi-ownership of an apartment that may be even more effective than real ownership at spreading around the benefits of what the article calls a "tax by the haves on the have-nots, and by the old on the young."

Building out the suburbs could also be an answer if you could trust the region's government agencies to provide decent transit options, whether public transit or highways. You can't. At least if you're commuting to work in Manhattan you have a cheap $2.50 subway ride into town from many places that are much further away than you do in San Francisco.