Why and how did that ear worm infect so many people?
It's a story they want to believe.
The big bad out-of-town corporation is causing the housing crisis and not the complex web of dozens of factors: existing owners wanting to protect their largest asset, more people wanting to live in fewer places, inflation, tariffs on Canadian lumber, safety standards, etc.
Unfortunately, there are a ton of people who will deny that that factual, well-studied shortage exists, and will try to blame its effects on anything and everything else even tangentially related.
A desirable location will never have enough capacity. Regardless of how much building occurs. If you don’t believe me, look at NYC, Paris, etc, etc.
People move as close to a desirable location as they can afford. And often more.
Don’t get me wrong, rules set where and how bad the line is, but there is no realistic situation where everyone who wants to live in SF can, and can afford to, and it is anything like SF.
Anti-growth people will point to neighborhoods like Glen Park, NoPa and Noe as "SF" while forgetting most of the surface area of the city is empty neighborhoods like Parkside, Mt Davidson Manor, etc.
And because larger cities tend to also be more attractive (Tokyo is still growing, for instance), you’ll never have enough density to be ‘enough’ - aka where it’s cheap enough for everyone to live where they want.
You will have more people though.
There were two years during the pandemic when people moved out- because jobs let them - but people moved back and it has more than made up for it since.
Every major city in the world has seen significant population increases as mechanized farm work and fertilizers have removed the need for many farm workers, and economy activity has concentrated.
It’s been a consistent trend for almost 100 years.