Ooh, tell me again how much you want to illegally partition my room.
I have a friend who’d love to sub-let with you.
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Gosh, if consensual pet play needs brain bleach, I’ll just keep other Bay Area goings-on quiet 
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I just set up a regular camping tent in the bedroom when we needed one of these. I wonder what the SF fire code would say about that?
In Hong Kong(a similarly heady real estate market) the term is ‘cage home’
As you sagely suggest, it’s a lot less charming when it isn’t an exciting and quirky DIY project that you are engaging in on your own initiative.
(But hey, only $230/month!)
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I feel like this is how Kowloon Walled City began…
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Or Venezuela’s squatter-arcology-thing.
In thinking about it; probably one of the two possible growth patterns for a nice, solid, slum: If your ‘informal settlement’ is a greenfield development, there is probably less subdividing because of the stark limits on initial structure size imposed by lack of resources and engineering capability(though those same limits will mean that dwellings start tiny, so density will get high anyway). If it’s an already developed area heading downmarket, increasingly aggressive subdivision of existing structures is the only logical outcome.
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Some of Chicago’s most expensive real estate was created in the same way, with the wreckage from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
How’s about some nice, gaily painted acrylic panels? You could even paint them wood grain.
Probably not much, those can be accessed very easily and are made from flame retardant materials. It’s also not likely it was a long term plan.
Another reason City officials probably reacted swiftly was so landlords and tenants don’t start converting apartments and buildings into hives of bed boxes, like the “capsule hotels” in Japan.
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And add the fact that the surrounding communities are all happy to build new business parks and such but never ever new housing for all the new employees so everyone is forced to live in the city and not close to work.
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That is an excellent article; informative and thorough. Good share!
(and a great example of how the libertarian special pleading for “everyone acting selfishly for themselves will produce optimum outcomes for everyone!” doesn’t actually work in real life)
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Check.
Check.
Check.
Good job Austin, Texas!
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Sure, and this is happening, and like in NYC, SF is ending up with new inventory that is only affordable by the ultra rich.
Hyper gentrification is a bitch.
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They do this in NYC. Then you end up with “poor entrances” and tenants that are forbidden from using the buildings amenities.
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Exactement. This is not about housing but is basically an extension of the Panama problem. Property development in Urban Centres is the safe, reliable and efficient way to launder illicitly gained money. London & San Francisco appear to lead the way–in London Governments of various persuasions have facilitated the process, but it’s not so different from Rotterdam… You just need a stable economy and a government in ore of money.
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Of decentralize. It takes planning, but it allows growth with and the retention of quality of life. Identify a new urban center, and build mass transit from it to the main city.
We should do it here in Melbourne, with a TGV style train out to Geelong.
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Two words: Regulatory Capture.
Ultimately, they’re just rules in books; rules made by people. Stupid people.
And what gets enforced and what doesn’t is up to those stupid people.
But the law fairly and equally also prevents the rich from sleeping in tiny cubicles inside other people’s homes.
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