What many anti-growth, pro-moratorium advocates fear—justifiably—is that more new construction will need to more displacement of existing residents, many of whom are low income and could not afford to rent a market-rate unit in nearly any part of the Bay Area, to say nothing of San Francisco itself. Owners of some apartments will evict current residents in order to build larger multifamily developments—those residents are generally compensated by up to $50,000, though even that maximum payout is not enough to afford unsubsidized rents in the city for very long. A share of those new units must be set aside as affordable to low income households, but the number of new affordable units may or may not exceed the number of households that are displaced.

Following this path, more total housing is provided in the city, which somewhat moderates rent increases in the long run. A pretty sizable amount of affordable housing is built, funded entirely by private investment, because of the inclusionary zoning program mentioned above. The majority of homes are market-rate though, and with median prices of $3,000 or more per month in many areas, they are far out of reach even to middle class households. In neighborhoods with a lot of development, we end up with a lot of rich people housing and a decent amount of poor people housing, and basically nothing in between.

Path 2: Limited Supply, Decreased Short-term Displacement, Homogeneous Population

At the other extreme there is the anti-growth path, which I should note is not necessarily the long-term vision of all those in support of the Mission moratorium—instead, it's viewed by many as a "cooling off" period where the community and city planners can create a framework for more equitable development. That said, in a regional market that's not providing enough housing overall, there's not much one neighborhood in one city can do to limit rent increases in the long run.

If moratorium supporters succeed at limiting the pace of development for years to come, it will be a Pyrrhic victory. Fewer residents will be evicted to have their units torn down or renovated, which is no doubt of great value to those that are protected, but that won't mean the neighborhood will maintain its character. Rent control only stays in effect as long as people stay in their units, so when they move out, those units will revert to market rates, forever out of reach for low income residents. Many of these units will be fixed up as rent controlled residents move out, pulling even higher rents. For those who don't move out, well, no one lives forever.

Private development is a relatively cheap way to provide income-restricted affordable housing, and there's just no way that fully publicly-subsidized construction is going to fill the gap at upwards of $300,000 per unit. Nor should San Francisco or any other city want to rely on public funds for all of its affordable housing needs: Every dollar spent on affordable housing is one that isn't spent on education, parks, public health, or infrastructure. Over time, without a meaningful amount of private housing construction, the city will consist of essentially nothing but luxury housing—or rather, pretty standard housing at luxury prices. The transition will take longer than in Path 1, but the transformation will be absolute in a way that even private sector developers cannot hope to match.

The Third Path: Something in Between

The examples above are, to some degree, two extremes on a spectrum of infinite possibilities. Many of the in-between approaches are probably superior to either of the extremes, and I imagine that many of the pro-moratorium advocates and community members are just looking for some breathing room to develop an in-between framework that suits their needs and recognizes the validity of their concerns. A revised development framework has the potential to affect the lives of real people in positive ways, so I don't mean to discount it entirely. But whatever the outcome, it will amount to tinkering at the edges compared to the scale of the problem.

Anyone who's read my blog knows that my opinions are decidedly on the "build more housing" side of the argument, but this post isn't about villainizing moratorium supporters in the Mission. It's about acknowledging the fact that rents are very unlikely to decline, and that, as a result, things are unlikely to get any better for San Francisco or its low income residents. No city can afford to subsidize the rent for half its population.

San Francisco is in a particularly unenviable position because, despite its failures, it has actually done more to combat increasing rents than other Bay Area cities—places like Palo Alto and Mountain View that have greedily attracted tech employers while leaving the un-sexy, and much more costly work of providing housing to their larger, more compassionate neighbors. Not to absolve SF entirely, but no single city should be forced to completely transform itself to appease the greed of its neighbors, especially when those neighbors make no sacrifices of their own. Because of the limited size of San Francisco relative to the Bay Area as a whole, even a complete "Manhattanization" of the peninsula might only have delayed its fate in lieu of similar efforts from Oakland, San Jose, and all the smaller cities in between. San Francisco was never in a position to fix the problem of housing affordability all by itself, but this is not the case for many other places in the U.S.

So, growing coastal cities throughout country, take note.

THE LESSON FOR OTHER U.S. CITIES

Nothing new here: Growing cities need to build more housing where and while they can, period. The more they build, the less competition there is for each available housing unit, and the less rents will increase. Period. More development also means more opportunities for inclusionary zoning and other value capture mechanisms. The takeaway here isn't anything you haven't heard a million times before, but hopefully this framing adds some sense of urgency for cities that are still in the early and middle stages of across-the-board gentrification.