Regulatory constraints on supply are a key factor in San Francisco’s affordable housing crisis

In recent months, much has been made of San Francisco’s affordable housing crisis, with many commentators blaming the increased demand for housing on the influx of affluent workers drawn to the Bay Area’s creative and tech industries. Using a dataset of more than 7,300 land parcels, Nils Kok and Paavo Monkkonen find that San Francisco’s real problem is its poor supply of affordable housing. They argue that the city’s relatively low rate of affordable house building can be attributed to regulatory barriers in the form of extensive project approvals and project reviews, which are fuelled by the power of local stakeholder organizations.