The Insane Battle To Sabotage a New Apartment Building Explains San Francisco's Housing Crisis

Why HN readers recommended it

It is HN's go-to concrete example of how local regulation and NIMBYism block new housing in San Francisco and California.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

ReasonTV

Topic

housing regulation in san francisco

Format

documentary

Level

general

HN recommenders in dataset

3

HN mentions in dataset

15

Recommendation years in dataset

2019–2025

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• Politics is a huge factor in the lack of affordable housing. Both legislation and concerns by citizen about how new housing will "change" a neighbor make it next to impossible to build higher density housing. Watch this video - it's eye opening [VIDEO]

• Asking why there isn't enough housing is like asking why water is wet. The answer is state/local government regulation. There's an old saying "your margin is my opportunity" and I suspect that the current crop of homes that are built have decent margins, but in …

• "You can't have it both ways. Either change the city and build upwards or stop complaining about the price of living" Yes. Here is an awesome video documenting one persons struggle to create an apartment building: [VIDEO]