SAN FRANCISCO—Today more than ever, people want to live incities, and there's no greater demand for one than San Franciscoand the Bay Area. With demand outpacing supply, the cost ofhousing has skyrocketed in San Francisco and thesurrounding areas. The population of San Francisco has steadilyincreased since 1980, with people leaving the suburbs for citylife. This leaves San Francisco in the middle of its greatestaffordability crisis, with the middle class particularly sufferingin this extreme housing shortage. San Francisco is now, by moststudies, the most expensive city to live in the United States.

To address the housing challenge, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee has set as a goal increasing theavailable housing stock by up to 30,000 units. In the middle ofthis crisis, two measures have come to the forefront—one for thevoters and one for the board of supervisors. PropositionB asks the voters to determine the value of a waterfrontdevelopment based on height, and the Housing BalancingAct couples market-rate housing production withaffordable housing production. Without a doubt,the key to addressing this growing problem is to build housing atall levels and to provide incentives that encourage free-marketdevelopers to build more affordable and middle-class stock.

Proposed Legislation