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Originally Posted by wakamesalad
Most of the city looks like this:

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Uh...not really.
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Originally Posted by wakamesalad
Charming?
Hardly.
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Speak for yourself.
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Originally Posted by wakamesalad
But it's the dirty secret that SFers don't want the outside world to know about
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It is? I've lived in SF my entire life and have no idea what the hell you're talking about.
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Originally Posted by wakamesalad
- yes, the Victorians and cable cars and beautiful homes built upon steep hills is only a fraction of SF. Most is built as cookie cutter stucco low density housing.
I've outlined a very loose, unscientific map of what I mean- the enclosed red bordered area is comprised of this type of development:

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So the sunset district, outer richmond, and the southern third of the city now equals "most" of SF, and are supposedly comprised only of that type of home that you apparently hate so much? The tons of apartments, Victorians, etc, don't exist anymore? And how are those homes any more "cookie-cutter" than a row of victorians anyways? Not to mention that the areas of SF with lots of that kind of "low density" housing are more densely populated than 99% of America (think 10,000-30,000 people per square mile). So really they're not doing bad in terms of density, by American standards.
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Originally Posted by wakamesalad
I say, re- built all the single story single family homes built in the western and souther parts of the city after WWII into a dense up to 8 story multi use district. That would put a huge dent in housing costs. And retain the "human scale."
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I'm sure the hundreds of thousands of people who live in the areas you want to raze would be really happy about that. Also, "single" story? They look like two stories to me. Maybe you feel that garages are unworthy of qualifying as a "story", but in that case remember that probably half of those homes have in-law apartments in the garage/ground floor.
I live in the sunset district, in a three story apartment building (on a block full of them), in an area you believe to be 100% "single story" homes that are supposedly too ugly to admit existence of...and I find your attitude kind of insulting and ignorant.
The city can add a whole lot of people in other ways before we start advocating the destruction of entire districts. It would be nice if the sunset was originally developed denser...but it wasn't. And that's not changing anytime soon, for a multitude of reasons.
Your idea of razing entire swaths of the city is the exact kind of draconian boogeyman shit that NIMBYs have always feared, and which motivates them to block development. And I think most pro-development people would be against it too, because whether you agree or not, those homes do contribute to SF's "architectural charm" or whatever you want to call it.
Here's a more realistic idea for densification of the sunset district: raise height limits along major transit/commercial corridors, like 19th avenue, taraval, judah, irving, lincoln...maybe Noriega? But good luck even getting that to happen.