YIMBY Denver

Week 3 is one of the marquee match-ups this season. There’s a lot of hype in San Francisco about getting on the right path after decades of poor leadership and sclerotic politics. The modern YIMBY movement started in San Francisco, and you’ll see why as we break down this competition. YIMBY Denver is a part of YIMBY Action, so normally we’d call each other friends, but not for game day. Let’s see how the cities stack up against each other. #SFvsDEN

https://twitter.com/Broncos/status/1573134555892047872

The Fundamentals

How do these cities stack up against each other? How's their housing production? Do they play a successful defense against NIMBYs? Are they meeting the affordability needs of everyone?

Production

As always, let’s look at the record for building housing. We look at the metro area through the MSA, and it looks painful for SF. We’re going to break this down in more detail later though, there are some key details in this head-to-head matchup you won’t want to miss. Believe it or not, it gets even worse for SF!

Rent

How about those rents? We’ve got the plots, but it’s easy to find tales of six people making six figures all bunking together in a studio apartment because that’s all they can afford. There’s a reason that the YIMBY movement started in SF.

Ownership

Home prices? It’s easy to hear people in Denver say they moved here because they couldn’t afford there.

The fundamentals favor Denver, so let’s see how they got here!

How We Got Here

Racially-exclusive zoning started just across the Bay in 1916. We know it’s not San Francisco, but the idea that cities could use arcane rules to segregate didn’t start in Colorado. That's not to say Denver's track record is great though.

Historically, both teams have been prone to unforced turnovers of housing into parking as well.

Here's what Denver did in the past:

Here's what San Francisco is doing now:

Another Housing Denial: Concerns Over Apartment Size Kill 57 Units on Parking Lot