The San Francisco Bay Guardian, my favorite local rag, offers a few telling figures about local housing prices: "In 2000, the median owner-occupied home in San Francisco cost $369,400, and by 2010 it had more than doubled to $785,200. Census figures also show median rents have gone from $928 in 2000 up to $1,385 in 2010 — and even a cursory glance at apartment listings show that rents have been steadily rising since then."
They come to the conclusion that all the cool people are moving to Oakland- largely because only a smidgeon of the housing constructed in San Francisco over the last decade has been built to serve moderate and low income populations.
Somehow, I don't think 2012 is the first time anyone has noted spiraling housing costs in San Francisco or bemoaned a trend showing outward migration. The solution the Bay Guardian offers is for the city to step in and mandate more affordable housing. I don't think it's that simple. But as someone living in an apartment with four other people, I can agree on one thing: the rent is too damn high!
Yet I love this city.
[Update] SFist has chipped in with this observation: "We'd argue that most newly developed affordable housing, with its income limits and application processes, favors the poor and elderly on fixed incomes with stable lives, and not 25-year-olds who move around and travel a lot and can't afford better housing because they have transient and inconsistent jobs. The cool kids are always going to need cheap housing, but they're not looking for it in city-sponsored affordable housing complexes."
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