I certainly didn't say "unending population increases" or "above all else."
But if you think that building enough housing for the people means unending population increases, that's really in line with the garden variety xenophobic anti-immigrant thinking I grew up with in the Midwest.
The zero-sum philosophy of a newcomer arriving meaning that a current resident loses out, or that the newcomer is "extracting" from the community rather than contributing to it, is also gaining popularity in SF, and is also a very common xenophobic trope.
> I certainly didn't say "unending population increases" or "above all else."
If you don't think that, then there's a certain density level where it's considered fine to oppose it, and there are certain things one could prioritize above population increases that could lead people to favor restrictions. Maybe some of the people favoring restrictions think the high point of density has been reached, or perhaps they favor restrictions because of what values they place above population growth. It's worth at least considering before we simply dismiss them all as xenophobic.
Pointing out specific, xenophobic viewpoints doesn't mean dismissing everybody as xenophobic. If they have legitimate density complaints, please bring them. But I will also point out that these density complaints are even more xenophobic in origin. Density restrictions and zoning in San were invented a century ago to push the Chinese populations out of their neighborhoods.
And for me, this isn't about more or less restrictions. This is about meeting the needs of the people of a city. Not just the wealthy, not just keeping buildings the same, not just the people that have lived there the longest. The needs of the entire people. Which includes people that don't yet live in the city but need access to the economic resources.
So I definitely think that there should be density restrictions, but rather than maximums there should be density minimus. It should be illegal to build a single unit on a 5000 square foot lot anywhere in San Francisco. When somebody tears down a tiny Victorian, they had better replace it with many homes rather than just one. And if somebody remodels those exclusionary Pacific Heights homes, they better be adding more units, IMHO.
