Currently, there about 4 or 5 hotel projects gearing up in SF… the below misses King St. and one other….
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/print-edition/2015/01/02/hospitality-2015-forecast.html

But, that lack of supply has got to be for a reason, and they get it right in the article… it’s expensive to build something that could possibly not be profitable. It’s scary to think that with 34,000 rooms, we had our last August at 95% occupancy *city wide*, and conventioneers and organizers have been using 6000 Air BnB to supplement that. Last week, mid April, the city was sold out, and any old room would cost $700+. Our hotels don’t gouge, preferring to create long lasting and repeat relationships, but that compression was felt past SFO into the Peninsula, and far into the north bay of Marin.

Well, these two Economist articles are a fascinating, educational, and thougthful read (and relatively quick for the depth) on the paradox of soil, IE land restricting growth. The numbers they have for the Bay Area including Silicon Valley are fascinating, and they go into depth. Links below, but I’ve pulled out a few interesting thoughts… especially the Texas one. I highly encourage these reads!

https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21647622-land-centre-pre-industrial-economy-has-returned-constraint-growth

David Ricardo, an eminent early-19th-century economist who was, among other things, a friend of Malthus’s, would have recognised the issue. Back when land was at the centre of the discipline his observations led him to the idea of a rent: an unearned windfall accruing to the owner of a scarce resource.

Strained food supply would raise food prices, he reasoned, which would encourage landowners to bring ever more land under cultivation. But higher food prices benefited all landowners. A lord sitting on highly productive agricultural land suddenly found his profits swelling: not as a result of innovation on his part but because humanity needed more of something he happened to own. This is what is happening in the world’s cities today……………….

………..Or they could heed the advice of Henry George, an American follower of Ricardo who in the 1880s made the case for a land-value tax. It has many theoretical virtues. Most taxes dampen, distort or displace economic activity by changing incentives on the margins. But a land tax cannot reduce the supply of land, and it would stimulate economic activity by penalising those whose land is unproductive. And your tax base is always right there—a city lot cannot be whisked off to Luxembourg.

In the leader for this issue, they mention this nugget:
https://econ.st/1C6w5Wa

“entire pop of [U.S.] could fit into Texas w/ 1+ acre for each household to enjoy”.

the stats in these two articles are some of the most interesting I’ve seen in awhile. SF just got voted worst renter’s market in US, to boot. But the Silicon Valley and Bay Area data is insane.

Also, I think this interactive map of property value will explain the lack of dev in the Bay Area:
https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/04/daily-chart-2

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