There are multiple issues as play with plenty of guilty parties:
The city of SF: Its horribly run to put it mildly, it gets an absolute fortune from taxes and the money "disappears". See the myriad homeless everywhere, think why doesn't the city spend any money on fixing the problem? They do, they spend 300M dollars a year on the homeless [1]. Lets talk about their budget, 13.7B[2], yes that Billion for a city with 883k residents. Looking elsewhere in CA at San Diego with has 1.3M residents, it has a budget of 4.3B[3] and although there are homeless in SD its not an apocalyptic scene like SF is.
Tech Companies: Having a huge number of offices in SF with everyone making 2-4x what an average family makes in a year in the US is going to bring in some serious money. While its fine they make that much, what is not is having a extreme concentration of companies that can run their business anywhere in the US or World. With Covid we are seeing record numbers leaving the city as they are no longer shackled to the SF offices.
Residents: Alot of SF housing owners are extremely resistant to building(as more housing supply reduces their home value). There is a fierce nimby movement that would like nothing more but to halt all development in the city as it changes the 'character' of the city[4].
Strict zoning/environment laws: These laws are typically voted in by alot of residents but some have been around a long time and plague california stifling development and housing. A very long read article that goes into depth can be found here - https://techcrunch.com/2014/11/02/so-you-want-to-fix-the-hou...
Summary: Add an incompetent local govt. mix in a huge influx of wealth and a splash of laws that stifle housing development in a city bound by 3 sides by water and you get the disaster that SF is.
The city of SF: Its horribly run to put it mildly, it gets an absolute fortune from taxes and the money "disappears". See the myriad homeless everywhere, think why doesn't the city spend any money on fixing the problem? They do, they spend 300M dollars a year on the homeless [1]. Lets talk about their budget, 13.7B[2], yes that Billion for a city with 883k residents. Looking elsewhere in CA at San Diego with has 1.3M residents, it has a budget of 4.3B[3] and although there are homeless in SD its not an apocalyptic scene like SF is.
Tech Companies: Having a huge number of offices in SF with everyone making 2-4x what an average family makes in a year in the US is going to bring in some serious money. While its fine they make that much, what is not is having a extreme concentration of companies that can run their business anywhere in the US or World. With Covid we are seeing record numbers leaving the city as they are no longer shackled to the SF offices.
Residents: Alot of SF housing owners are extremely resistant to building(as more housing supply reduces their home value). There is a fierce nimby movement that would like nothing more but to halt all development in the city as it changes the 'character' of the city[4].
Strict zoning/environment laws: These laws are typically voted in by alot of residents but some have been around a long time and plague california stifling development and housing. A very long read article that goes into depth can be found here - https://techcrunch.com/2014/11/02/so-you-want-to-fix-the-hou...
Summary: Add an incompetent local govt. mix in a huge influx of wealth and a splash of laws that stifle housing development in a city bound by 3 sides by water and you get the disaster that SF is.
[1] - https://townhall.com/tipsheet/timothymeads/2019/05/18/san-fr...
[2] - https://sfmayor.org/sites/default/files/CSF_Proposed_Budget_...
[3] - https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/iba/pdf/...
[4] - https://reason.com/2018/01/05/nimbyism-in-san-francisco-reac...