Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zoning existed in the 1970s also. > Outside major metros, minimum setback rules, minimum size rules, and myriad other policies conspired to make the average new house twice as large as they were before, while families on average shrunk. Outside major metros, the economy isn't as hot and demand is tapered back significantly. In cities that have poor economies, housing prices are also cheap. In places that are extremel…
In SF you can't build a house that casts a shadow over a park ever no matter how small. The entire western half of the city is zoned for 4-story housing. This is why housing is expensive in SF. SF added less than half as many houses over the last few decades as necessary to keep pace with job growth and there's simply no excuse for it. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:San_Francisco_aerial.jpg
Houses are expensive in SF because people want to live in SF. If SF had 10 times as many housing, then there would simply be 10 times as much economic activity and prices wouldn't budge. If you want cheap housing for your city, make your economy unattractive like Gary Indiana, or, if you like your economy, take the Tokyo approach and make housing speculation unattractive and let units be small.