More "density" propaganda

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In a long op-ed in the Sunday NY Times, a Washington D.C. writer opines that San Francisco isn't allowing enough housing to be built. His piece is fact-free about our city, except for this:

The average wage per job in Phoenix rose $10,700 from 2000 to 2009, while in San Francisco the increase was $14,500. But, while wages are growing in San Francisco, they would be growing faster if the city allowed the construction of more housing. More workers would be able to take advantage of the good job opportunities in the Bay Area, and the metropolitan and national economies would function better.

Maybe he got the idea that San Francisco is discouraging housing from Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius and highrise booster Gabriel Metcalf of SPUR. 

The opposite is the reality. City Hall has been aggressively pro-development for years, okaying a number of large, dumb housing developments, beginning with the Market and Octavia Plan, allowing UC to rip off the old Extension property on lower Haight Street for a large housing development, and, more recently, adding even larger developments on Treasure Island and at Parkmerced. 

The only thing that's delayed the over-development in the Market/Octavia area, by the way, is the Great Recession, which made it hard for developers to get loans.