I'm guessing the people who fear that 25% will stop development are the same people who said raising the minimum wage was a bad idea.

Something has to change, otherwise San Francisco could become the first city to collapse because no one can afford to live there.

Boston and surrounding cities like Cambridge have similar requirements (~15%, varying a bit by neighborhood), and has for some time. I note that development has not ground to a halt.

Sorry, missing a thought above, that some areas in Boston are at 25% already and citywide the numbers looks set to go to 20% average.

#2, I'm pretty sure Vancouver BC will beat SanFran to the punch.

Well duh. If SF's elected officials wanted lower income people to remain in SF, they would have started doing something about this problem decades ago. Glad I lived there for a year in the Fillmore in a grand old house built in 1906 by a ship captain. Wonderful, quirky housemates; two oak staircases; wainscoting and fireplaces in many of the rooms. I loved in a beautiful, spacious white room on the top floor with a stunning views of Civic Center where I loved watching thick fog rolling down the hills, back in the day when SF still had fog. I was 18 years old, worked temp jobs, and my rent was $50 per month.

25% works because the cost comes out of the land, not from decelopers nor financers. But 25% is also about the limit you can get out of the land. See Ricardo and land economics. It's not heterodox, just forgotten by a couple generations of economists who grew up during a period of relatively low land value and probably some other underlying issues.

I skimmed most of this screed, but is the issue affordable housing or millions of people blocked from the labor market?

These "affordable units", assuming the developers choose to build them rather than just paying the penalty into the general fund (which is what many choose to do instead), will presumably be set aside for the BMR* program, which is a well intentioned but paradoxically restrictive program that has soured a lot of people. I haven't read the prop, but I imagine it will be easy to spin toward the negative in the media.

*http://sfmohcd.org/inclusionary-housing-…

Wouldn't the freeze (if it happened) be a good thing in terms of economics? The market is heavily inflated currently, and if developers stop because their profit metrics would be skewed, then it would cause a market correction bringing rates and prices down to actual levels.

People would bitch and cry that their value would go down, but in terms of objective economics, it would be going down to match realistic projections from the inflated current value.

Why is this so fucking hard to understand: If you raise the economic barriers to building (rent control, set-asides, etc.), you will create disincentives that reduce supply.

When you maintain supply, with sustained demand (now pay attention here kids...this is important)...

THE FUCKING COST OF RENT GOES UP!

I swear, every registered bleeding heart should have to take a class in Basic Fucking Economics to understand this. Supply. And its side-kick Demand.

If you want rents to go down in San Francisco, than streamline the permitting process, offer tax incentives for urban good design and density, eliminate (entirely) negative incentives like 10% affordability. Increase supply at a rate higher than demand, and you'll find an amazing thing happens: Rents will fall as choice expands.

And yes, San Francisco will grow, but ultimately not faster than its job-creating capacity. But its job-creating capacity is ultimately a good thing. People working and living happily, without the interference of government and do-gooders fucking up the market through thoughtless intervention. Wow. Wouldn't that be amazing.

Fact is, San Francisco's Knowbetter Liberals have fucked-up that city for 30+ years. Why are we turning to them for a solution to the problem they've created? Build a shitload of housing, let the market determine the pricing, and supply will take care of the cost. Works in every single commodity market. San Fran housing isn't immune to basic fucking economics.

Here Here Zoner! Dead on.

And yes Charles, you still haven't a clue. SF is a beloved city to me (grad school in ECONOMICS at Stanford) and you don't understand how it works.

And Mudede, If you're going to be secular scientist on economic, climate, politics, etc. – let's not stop until we include some social science.

You are correct there are people in the inner cities who won't ever work. And we can agree that – to a point – others who are working (producers) will provide.

But being provided for offers no corrective disincentive for people not working (or ignoring the underpinnings of work, incl. education, socialization, discipline). With incentives (free shit) and without disincentives (social stigmatization) that cohort will expand.

However producers won't have endless tolerance for working, while their resources are bled away. With lessening incentive to work, they too will stop working. Or stop supporting a systems which compels the confiscation of their earnings.

And vitally, people who work hard and people who don't work at all, will begin to exhibit characteristics, and adopt normative values, that are so different from each other that they stop sharing a sense of common interest. (We see this today in Bernie fans and Trump fans).

So we will reach a point – in fact I think we've reached it – where there is a hardened indifference between most people in America (who produce) and people (as you say, in cities) who won't work, or take advantage of the opportunities to prepare for work (education, socialization, discipline, etc.)

The equalizing force in this economic push & pull will be Darwinian. As the amount that productive people are willing to give is finite, and the dislocation between people who do and don't want to work grows, the impetus to start working will be the alternative to work: A cold, harsh, brutal, often violent life in abject poverty. That is black urban life today, and please note that not many people are riding the the rescue.

Compassion will be directed, (through private channels), to those who are trying. Public programs, covering those who won't even try, are subject to extinction – economically and politically. You may have noticed.

The one alternative pathway is confiscation of resources by force. (History has shown that really doesn't end well.) So I'd suggest you spend less time tilting at windmills over income redistribution, and start focusing on value creation through education, socialization, discipline and cultural pillars that honor work and self-sufficiency.