SAN FRANCISCO’S Middle-Class Exodus: “The number of low- and middle-income residents in San Francisco is shrinking as the wealthy population swells, a trend most experts attribute to the city’s exorbitant housing costs. . . . ‘A kind of derogatory term for the city would be Disneyland for yuppies,’ said Hans Johnson, demographer with the Public Policy Institute of California.” (Via NewsAlert).

UPDATE: Reader Rahul Banta emails:

Nice link to the SF housing article. As a resident of the city, I can tell you that what our Board of Supervisors (our city council) has done in their “well intentioned” laws have basically created what they say they don’t want, a very rich San Francisco and a very poor San Francisco. A house with a small yard for an average two child family is over a million dollars. If you are poor, you can put your name in for a lottery for a subsidized house/condo which is paid for by taxes on the wealthy and/or on the developers who build the houses.

There are huge amounts of red tape for builders to put up any amount of new housing and guess what, if you try to add more supply of housing, you get hit with rules on a certain amount being “below market rate.” Translation, less profit and less incentive to build more housing. Then there is rent control. I won’t even start with that.

As we have found in any situation of global “shortage” it is often politically driven and laws reduce supply, not the market.

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Greg Barto comments:

I think that if you want to live in SF and can afford to, that’s fine. And if you can’t afford to live in SF, well, that’s how life goes. What I find interesting, though, is that the leftist rich of San Francisco simultaneously price the guy who makes their Starbucks out of the housing market and laud $4.50/gallon gas as a great way to keep people from driving so much. And then they claim to be for the little guy.

Indeed. Plus this: “While SF screws its middle class, they assuage their rich liberal guilt by making it a mecca for the homeless.”