In a system where it's easy to build new housing, you don't need eminent domain. The developer simply buys two-storey homes for much more than they're worth as houses.
You also don't need to limit yourself to the existing local developers with political connections. Construction workers from all over the world could move here, just like software people do.
It's not easy to buy up entire blocks of houses. You get hold-outs, either people who understand that they're in a position to block a potentially lucrative deal and get a big payout, or just people who have a sentimental attachment to their homes or whatever.
The idea that there's a lot of elasticity to the construction trade is also naïve. Construction workers from "all over the world" can't move here -- we have an immigration process, and it's not one that's favorable to construction workers. We are also in an area that is itself not very conducive to living on a construction worker's salary.
And also, who are these developers who are so eager to build high-rise housing in a market that is stipulated to have affordable rents? It's a big capital investment to build a modern skyscraper, especially if there's a construction crunch, especially if you have to do things like buy out large areas without the benefit of government coercion, especially if there are similar projects going up across the city to compete with you. Housing is not typically a highly profitable use of real estate to begin with, and San Francisco is also a city that is not very landlord friendly.
This dream of in-fill development being a simple cure-all to San Francisco's housing ills like most "one simple trick to fix all your problems" -- click bait, not a real solution.
None of this is to say that SF shouldn't have in-fill (it should), or that SF shouldn't reduce barriers to development (it should). But be realistic. Unless you rewrite everything about SF back 50 years, it's not going to dramatically change everything about this city overnight.
> it's not going to dramatically change everything about this city overnight.
Your post I responded to talked about 15 years, not overnight. I absolutely think SF could have been transformed with a different policy if starting in 2001.
Even without any immigrants, there are an enormous amount of construction workers among our 300 million US citizens.
The idea that it's so incredibly hard to build a lot of housing over 15 years is disproven by the many successful big cities that actually do it.
> This dream of in-fill development being a simple cure-all to San Francisco's housing ills
Again, nobody is talking about a simple cure-all in three easy $19.95 payments.
> Construction workers from "all over the world" can't move here -- we have an immigration process, and it's not one that's favorable to construction workers.
Process, shmawsess.
Look what actually happened during the real estate bubble years: a large number of laborers just simply came to California from foreign countries to build houses and condos.
A large number of these workers went to California when they felt like it and left when the bubble burst. The government was scarcely able to impose anything resembling a "process."
You also don't need to limit yourself to the existing local developers with political connections. Construction workers from all over the world could move here, just like software people do.