Let's be blunt about what's happening. San Francisco has spent decades making it nearly impossible to build enough housing to meet demand. Between labyrinthine permitting processes, neighborhood opposition to new construction, and layers of regulatory red tape that would make a Soviet bureaucrat blush, the city has engineered its own affordability crisis. When supply is artificially constrained and demand stays white-hot — fueled by tech salaries and concentrated wealth — prices do exactly what Econ 101 says they'll do: they skyrocket.

As one SF resident put it plainly: "The cost of living in SF continues to skyrocket. Nothing involving manual labor can function sustainably under these conditions and things are starting to crack under the pressure. We need to build housing."

That's the whole ballgame, really. Build more housing. It's not a radical idea. It's the most basic market principle imaginable. Yet City Hall continues to treat every new development like an existential threat rather than what it actually is: the single most effective tool we have to bring costs down.

The report highlights that high-income buyers are driving up payment prices, but framing wealthy people as the villain misses the point. High earners will always compete for scarce goods. The question is whether we keep supply artificially scarce or finally let builders build. You don't solve a housing shortage by shaking your fist at people who can afford to pay — you solve it by creating enough units that the math starts working for more people.

San Francisco loves to talk about equity and inclusion. But there is nothing equitable about a city where homeownership is a privilege reserved for six-figure earners. Every rejected housing project, every multi-year permitting delay, every NIMBY appeal is a brick in the wall keeping working families out.

The report is just the latest data point in a long, depressing trend. The solution has been obvious for years. The only question is whether our leaders have the spine to act on it.