That got us where we are today. Market rate housing is good but there are limits to what a community can tolerate. It's why we have these places with cute little 1950s houses but nobody can afford to live near their work.
That doesn’t answer the question. Businesses that need software developers could just as easily say that they can’t afford to pay software developers so the government should oppose salary caps on them and not let FAANGs pay as much as they do.
Someone obviously can afford to live near where they work or the prices would come down. If companies couldn’t attract workers because of the high cost of living they would locate to cheaper places or be forced to pay more.
The difference is that software developers dont even appear on the hierarchy of needs. And of course the answer markets not working is government regulations.
Public service workers like teachers, policemen, garbage collectors, etc. All of those jobs are in demand all across the U.S. If they can’t find jobs in San Francisco (just as an example), they will go to a part of the country where they can find a job. Let the cities compete for them by offering a better salary vs cost of living equation. Once San Francisco can’t get enough qualified people, they will have to pay them more and the taxpayers will have to pay more in taxes - instead of putting it all on landlords.
For private employees, they will have to pay enough to attract workers to either entice workers to work for them, or the potential business owners will see that the numbers don’t make sense and set their business up somewhere else.
If the citizens of San Francisco can’t get the jobs or have the services they want, they will move somewhere else and as the demand for housing decreases, the prices will go down.
For example let's say there is lots of local demand for a lunch for $4.99. As a restaurant I can't afford to pay a living wage and still serve lunch for $4.99, but on the other hand, there is a supply of poor, desperate people who will live in substandard, fire-hazard accommodations, or two hours drive each way that will take the job. This person will be miserable and unhealthy. Does our community let that occur on a widespread basis, or do we say, sorry, more density, affordable housing and transit must occur in parallel? What happens without regulation is more and more of the former, which we are seeing now.
So you want your restaurant business to be subsidized by forcing landlords to take below market rates?
If you can’t profitably make a business work at the prices that people are willing to pay, you would start your business elsewhere. If business can’t afford to hire people because the cost of living is too high, they will start locating elsewhere. The people and the jobs will move.
Why does everyone have to live in San Francisco. Companies are already “rural sourcing” to cheaper parts of the United States where the cost of living is lower. There is no reason that software development and the startup ecosystem in particular has to be on the west coast.
