I don't disagree with all of his conclusions. But I think that his piece was so glib as to be meaningless.
He essentially promises that, by lifting building restrictions, you can preserve ethnic neighborhoods from gentrification (for what that's worth), because development will be channeled elsewhere, e.g. into high-rises that the professional class (in his reading) favors.
Just writing it down exposes how facile this is.
And that doesn't even get into other problems, like the unguarded analogies between San Francisco and Miami ("warm-weather cities").
He essentially promises that, by lifting building restrictions, you can preserve ethnic neighborhoods from gentrification (for what that's worth), because development will be channeled elsewhere, e.g. into high-rises that the professional class (in his reading) favors.
Just writing it down exposes how facile this is.
And that doesn't even get into other problems, like the unguarded analogies between San Francisco and Miami ("warm-weather cities").
Here's an article that I enjoyed, which also reached a pro-development conclusion, but with a lot more nuance: http://www.boomcalifornia.com/2014/06/living-in-a-fools-para.... This appeared in a special issue devoted to the SF housing situation.