Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
SF won't have 1.5 million anytime soon. Despite the fact that the SF Bay Area is booming economically(which leads to a lot of apartment building), SF isn't actually building as much apartments as one would think due to high costs and lack of buildable lots. I was shocked to learn that SF city limits only delivers about 4-5k new multi-family units a year. You would think it would be more on the scale of 8k-10k based on how much growth it's Tech sector has experienced over the last five years.
Imagine how much redevelopment SF would have to go through to essentially double it's population. It certainly wouldn't be the SF we all know today of 2-3 story quaint, charming urban neighborhoods outside of it's NE core.
It could redevelop some of the more suburban southern and southwestern sides of the city, but do people want to live that far away from downtown is the question?
SF won't have 1.5 million anytime soon. Despite the fact that the SF Bay Area is booming economically(which leads to a lot of apartment building), SF isn't actually building as much apartments as one would think due to high costs and lack of buildable lots. I was shocked to learn that SF city limits only delivers about 4-5k new multi-family units a year. You would think it would be more on the scale of 8k-10k based on how much growth it's Tech sector has experienced over the last five years.
Imagine how much redevelopment SF would have to go through to essentially double it's population. It certainly wouldn't be the SF we all know today of 2-3 story quaint, charming urban neighborhoods outside of it's NE core.
It could redevelop some of the more suburban southern and southwestern sides of the city, but do people want to live that far away from downtown is the question?
The reason San Francisco has so little construction has nothing to do with high costs and a lack of buildable lots. It has everything to do with the existing residents wanting virtually nothing over four stories built anywhere outside of SOMA. San Francisco has one of the worst zoning codes in the country for development, and residents in neighborhoods have tons of power to block anything they don't like from being built for the most trivial reason.
San Francisco could fit a ton more people if it did away with its antiquated zoning codes and upzoned a lot of the city to have six-story midrises (similar to European density). Fat chance of that happening any time soon though.
I don't think it's inconceivable for SF to reach 1.5 million people in its city limits. Maybe not my lifetime - though 1.25 million people is not out of the question for that span of time.
I don't think SF can even house 1 million people. It has very strict zoning, and very little housing construction. It would be hard to imagine a plausible scenario where you could fit 20-25% more people in the existing housing stock, especially as the city grows wealthier and as household sizes continue to decrease.
The reason San Francisco has so little construction has nothing to do with high costs and a lack of buildable lots. It has everything to do with the existing residents wanting virtually nothing over four stories built anywhere outside of SOMA. San Francisco has one of the worst zoning codes in the country for development, and residents in neighborhoods have tons of power to block anything they don't like from being built for the most trivial reason.
San Francisco could fit a ton more people if it did away with its antiquated zoning codes and upzoned a lot of the city to have six-story midrises (similar to European density). Fat chance of that happening any time soon though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NOLA101
I don't think SF can even house 1 million people. It has very strict zoning, and very little housing construction. It would be hard to imagine a plausible scenario where you could fit 20-25% more people in the existing housing stock, especially as the city grows wealthier and as household sizes continue to decrease.
I don't think SF will have 1.5 million people in my lifetime, or probably anyone's who is typing away on these forums today.
But 1 million people is possible and probable within 20 years. SF only needs to develop another ~70-80K housing units to do so, and about 50K are already spoken for and in the pipeline, mostly approved for development.
The challenges are all political, not due to lack of demand. The talk of up-zoning Sunset and Richmond districts is happening every month now. Spot-zoning in the NE quadrant is common place now, though not politically expedient.
If SF plans on having 1 million + in its city, it might want to modernize one of the worst mass transit systems in the country. I moved there when 800k lived there. I can't imagine what it would be like with 200k more taking the same antiquated buses. Buses cannot support a dense city of 1 million people. More rail lines are needed or massive bus systems like Bogota, which still don't do as well as subway systems. And building one short line from SoMa to North Beach will do NOTHING. It's just the tourists that go between those places mostly. Try taking a bus down Geary or Van Ness or Divisadero during rush hour. I used to commute down Geary from the Richmond to downtown several days a week for work. It's a miserable commute. Buses are always late and getting stuck in traffic. Takes sometimes over 1 hour to commute 3-4 miles. That's not normal or good.
SF needs to take some lessons from Europe. Madrid, for example, has been preserving the facades of old buildings, but just building modern features within the walls and building them higher. That way, the old charm is preserved, people can stay living in the main core of a city, and the city can continue to densify. Once SoMa is built out, unless SF starts work in other neighborhoods, there is nowhere else to go. If NYC can continue to densify the way it has, SF has no excuse.
Greater Philly is not more built up, though, on any metric. Not only are there more people just between SF and SJ MSAs, which are connected and contiguous, than Philly's MSA, the density at which all these millions of people live is significantly higher. Not only is there a good ~50% more office space in the city limits of SF than the city limits of Philadelphia, there is a ton more in the Bay Area than Greater Philly. The same goes for just about anything else, as well.
The one area I can think of where Philadelphia matches SF in terms of development intensity is the fact that you can cherry pick a ~50 sq mi area of Philadelphia and match the population, and thus the residential density, of SF.
I'd like to see the math that gets Philadelphia the same contiguous level of density with as many people as in the Bay Area.
I don't think it's inconceivable for SF to reach 1.5 million people in its city limits. Maybe not my lifetime - though 1.25 million people is not out of the question for that span of time. The demand and drivers to force this population growth and densification are in place. Political will is not quite there, though changing as necessitated (because of the uniquely strong demand in place). The reverse seems to be true for Philadelphia. Both Philly and Chicago are seeing a resurgence downtown and already nice areas, but aren't seeing the large demand forced by economic expansion that the Bay Area, or DC, or Boston are seeing, and thus overall aren't seeing rapid population growth even in spite of being effectively built out.
In terms of "unique", I'd say both Philly and the Bay Area as well as Boston, DC, Chicago, SoCal, and New York are unique in this country in terms of scale/intensity of development. South FL as well. The US is one of the largest and most developed countries in the world. To be at the top of the food chain of such a country (in size and stature) automatically makes a place quite unique in scale/intensity of development, and you feel it while you're in one of these cities.
well a ton more of everything, ok... You bay posters make me want to not like an area I actually like a lot but wow you have some lurid love fest with your place
there are about what 5 million in the inner bay, the rest isnt as connected and continuous but is large
Philly probably has a larger more intense urban development (say to the first 2 or 2.5 million) but the bay is more consistently developed mostly high density suburban but yes has the higher weighted density overall
the last one million is very exurban in Philly probably 1-2K ppsm so yes agree not the same intensity throughout, the development styles are different with pros and cons to both
and agree Philly is not growing at the same rate, no doubt
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
