But if the scenery hasn't changed much, the price of admission sure has.

A trip down memory lane puts things in painful perspective. Back in 1986, an eight-bedroom home in Bernal Heights listed for $145,000. Adjusted for inflation, that's about $443,000 in today's dollars. Eight bedrooms. In San Francisco. For less than half a million. Today, you'd be lucky to find a one-bedroom condo at that price — and it would probably come with a shared laundry room and a neighbor who plays the didgeridoo at 11 PM.

As one local put it with a sigh: "They used to be more attainable. Looking at income-to-house-price ratios and square-foot price adjusted for inflation versus current prices — it's not even close."

And it's not just Bernal. A move-in-ready three-bedroom in the Sunset went for the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $700,000. A Victorian in Noe Valley? Under a million. One SF resident pointed out that in 1986, "condos at Opera Plaza were $99,000 and they could not get anyone to buy them." Let that sink in.

Now, before we drown in nostalgia, it's worth noting that interest rates in the mid-'80s hovered around 10%, and salaries were proportionally lower. People thought housing costs were absurd back then, too.

But here's the thing fiscal conservatives have been saying for decades: when you layer on decades of restrictive zoning, byzantine permitting processes, and a city bureaucracy that treats new housing like a mortal threat, you get exactly what San Francisco has — a supply crisis dressed up as a "housing equity" problem. The math isn't complicated. Build less, charge more.

Bernal Heights Park is still beautiful. But the neighborhood around it has become a monument to what happens when government makes it nearly impossible to build.