Housing is not really like that. There are cheaper or more expensive ways to build homes, but in the cities facing these crises construction costs constitute a relatively small portion of the expense of housing. The rest is rent.
You could easily fit twice as many people in SF if zoning codes allowed Brooklyn levels of density. And with Manhattan levels of density you could fit many more still. It's not land that's the limiting factor but the right to build.
Seeing as San Francisco is already more dense than Brooklyn, I question that. However you could over 3 million people in San Francisco if you built up to Manhattan levels of density. That would be impressive.
San Francisco's density is 17,867/sq mi (6,898/km2).
Brooklyn's density is 14,182/km2 (36,732/sq mi).
Brooklyn is a lot more dense— there are numerous subway lines all the way to the Atlantic, and essentially all of them are built up with 4-story+ apartment buildings near the stations. Many former single-family homes (especially enormous brownstone mansions) are split into multiple apartments.
In San Francisco, there are neighborhoods of single-family homes with a single story of living space (built over a garage) a couple stops out from the Mission along the single subway line. Even core urban neighborhoods like the Mission are mostly 2- or 3-story buildings of the sort that are seen something like 10 subway stops into Brooklyn.
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They address that directly:
Housing is not really like that. There are cheaper or more expensive ways to build homes, but in the cities facing these crises construction costs constitute a relatively small portion of the expense of housing. The rest is rent.
You could easily fit twice as many people in SF if zoning codes allowed Brooklyn levels of density. And with Manhattan levels of density you could fit many more still. It's not land that's the limiting factor but the right to build.
Seeing as San Francisco is already more dense than Brooklyn, I question that. However you could over 3 million people in San Francisco if you built up to Manhattan levels of density. That would be impressive.
San Francisco's density is 17,867/sq mi (6,898/km2).
Brooklyn's density is 14,182/km2 (36,732/sq mi).
Brooklyn is a lot more dense— there are numerous subway lines all the way to the Atlantic, and essentially all of them are built up with 4-story+ apartment buildings near the stations. Many former single-family homes (especially enormous brownstone mansions) are split into multiple apartments.
In San Francisco, there are neighborhoods of single-family homes with a single story of living space (built over a garage) a couple stops out from the Mission along the single subway line. Even core urban neighborhoods like the Mission are mostly 2- or 3-story buildings of the sort that are seen something like 10 subway stops into Brooklyn.
sorry, you're wrong on Brooklyn vs. SF
Brooklyn Density: 36,732/sq mi San Francisco Density: 17,867/sq mi
Both figures pulled from Wikipedia for 2013 population estimates from the census bureau.