Culture
What's Behind San Francisco's Sudden Building Boom?
Traditionally stingy with new growth, the city appears to be on the cusp of a major construction cycle.
San Francisco has long had a reputation as an anti-growth town, as a place not much interested in big new developments or massive change, where people who can afford to have learned to live with the consequences (notably in the form of exorbitant rent). In 2011 alone, the city added just 269 new housing units, pushing its badly imbalanced residential supply and demand even further out of order. Around this time last year, the San Francisco Business Times dubbed 2011 “The year of (almost) no new housing.”
Add to that local culture the effects of the national recession – which still linger across the country today – and San Francisco would seem poised for a prolonged and silent construction season.