Despite money and effort, homelessness in SF as bad as ever
The high cost of housing and commercial real estate in SF, NYC, Boston, DC, LA, London, ....all have the same underlying cause which was fixed in Japan by the Japanese federal government.<p>It is a market inefficiency caused by zoning density restrictions and overuse of historic landmark status which creates a politically induced artificial scarcity in housing (scarcity = rising prices).  These &quot;rent-seeking&quot; restrictions are a regressive tax transferring income from renters to wealthy landlords including Donald Trump.  It is wrong, and Japan has fixed the problem removing zoning density restrictions at the local level.  The result, in 2014 there were 140,000 homes built in Tokyo compared with about 90,000 for all of California and 20,000 in NYC.<p>Economist David Ricardo wrote about this phenomenon of &quot;rent-seeking&quot; about 200 years ago related to the Corn Laws.  Corn Laws taxed the import of all grains which benefited not farmers but landowners.  Ricardo joined Parliament and managed to overturn the &quot;rent-seeking&quot; law.<p>The solution is a federal law in the US following the example of Japan.