Here's a fun stat to ruin your morning: across roughly half the country, there's actually a surplus of apartments right now. Vacancy rates are climbing. Landlords are offering concessions. The market is — dare we say — functioning.

And then there's San Francisco, still running short.

Let that sink in. Cities that built housing are seeing supply catch up with demand. Meanwhile, SF — a city that has spent decades layering permits, reviews, appeals, environmental studies, and neighborhood vetoes on top of every proposed project — is somehow still wondering why there aren't enough places to live. It's not a mystery. It's math.

The consequences are real and deeply personal for the people who actually live here. One SF resident described the anxiety of facing a potential displacement after 30 years of rent control: "We freaked out and spent months visiting areas of Marin, Berkeley, etc just in case we had to leave the city because of how bad the rent market is here right now." Another local put it more bluntly about coping with the affordability crisis: "Just don't think about it? Unnecessary stress."

That's the vibe in 2025 San Francisco — cross your fingers that your landlord doesn't sell, sock away whatever you can, and try not to spiral. One renter noted they're actively investing money saved from rent control each month, adding, "I'm lucky that my income has outgrown my rent expenses over time." Lucky is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

Look, rent control isn't evil, but it's a band-aid on a bullet wound when the underlying problem is supply. Every unit that doesn't get built is another family priced out, another worker commuting 90 minutes each way, another small business that can't find employees willing to live nearby.

Other cities built their way toward balance. San Francisco regulated its way toward scarcity. The data is staring us in the face. The question is whether City Hall will keep pretending the answer is more process, more bureaucracy, and more delays — or finally admit that the single most effective housing policy is also the simplest one: let people build.