Last Monday, one week ago, I traveled to San Francisco to be part of a panel hosted by the San Francisco Bay Area Renters Federation, or SF BARF. Now you can watch the panel in the video embed above. As I mentioned earlier, SF BARF is led by the charismatic and relentless Sonja Trauss. Trauss is emerging as the Bay Areas leader in demanding more housing supply to offset rising housing prices, something that should be obvious by now but isn’t there or here in Seattle. The premise of the event reminds me of Herman Biggs comments about public health made at the turn of the 20th century, “public health is purchasable. Within natural limitations, a community can determine its own death rate.”

The cause of our current housing shortage isn’t technological – we know how to build. It’s not financial – investors are clamouring to invest in the Bay Area. It’s not the result of a raw material shortage – unlike the 1940-45 housing crisis when the war effort diverted labor and materials from private efforts, today we have all the laborers and materials we need.

The cause of our current shortage is 100% political.

As in many aspects of health and disease, we can control our own destiny vaccinating ourselves against measles because it works to protect children. Similarly, handing out more building permits to build more housing will make prices go down. In both cases, folk science can prevail with devastating results. Hopefully Seattle and San Francisco can keep working together and learning from each other to get the politics right and make both cities easier and more affordable to live in.