You get San Francisco.

A new city report has landed with a conclusion that should make every resident's blood pressure spike: despite rents soaring across the city, actually constructing new housing still isn't economically feasible. Let that sink in. The market is screaming for supply, tenants are getting squeezed harder every month, and developers still can't make the math work to break ground.

How is this possible? The usual suspects. Permit fees, impact fees, construction costs, years-long approval timelines, and a regulatory environment so Byzantine it could make a tax attorney weep. San Francisco has spent decades layering bureaucratic requirements on top of each other, and now the bill has come due — in the form of housing that simply doesn't get built.

This isn't a market failure. This is a government failure. When demand is high and prices are rising, new supply should rush in to meet it. That's Econ 101. But San Francisco has effectively built a wall of red tape so tall that even sky-high rents can't justify climbing over it.

The human cost is real. One SF resident recounted their apartment search: "Back in 2015ish I went to an open house and applied. They called me the next day and said that another applicant was willing to pay double the rent in advance and asked if I wanted to counteroffer!" If that was nearly a decade ago, imagine the bidding wars happening now.

The fix isn't mysterious. Streamline permitting. Cut excessive fees. Stop treating developers like enemies and start treating housing like the emergency it is. Other cities have figured this out. Tokyo builds. Houston builds. Even Minneapolis builds.

San Francisco commissions reports.

City Hall will likely respond to this study with another task force, another hearing, another round of hand-wringing. Meanwhile, rents keep climbing, working people keep leaving, and the city keeps wondering why it's hollowing out.

You don't need a feasibility study to see what's feasible: get out of the way and let people build.