the question is always relative. yes, "NIMBY"-ism fights everything. nevertheless, it is much, much easier on a per-unit basis to succeed in developing greenfield than infill. 1/

(per-unit meaning not "one unit", but comparing the bulk of housing you successfully place in eg San Francisco Bayview relative to trying to build the same quantity infill elsewhere in the city.) 2/

people have all these stories intended to flatten really obvious distinctions. but even though, yes, there are the same forces everywhere, there intensity, the quantity and likelihood of overcoming resistance at scale differs a very great deal. 3/

re buses and distance and commutes and all of that, another defensive mechanism of overstuck YIMBYs is to presume that all shards of urbanity need to be an easy commute to SF or Santa Clara. 4/

but if you create any kind of high-quality urban district, anywhere on the penninsula, or in Marin or even north of Marin, towards Petaluma, there's a population of people willing and eager to live and be integrated by G-bus style transit. 5/

the desire for living in the region is intense. the slow ferries from Larkspur to downtown SF are well utilized. not everyone in the region needs an everyday commute, and people with greater remoting flexibility will sort themselves into more remote districts. 6/

if their only trade-distance-for-price-and-space choices are SFH developments, they'll fill them, as they are already (tragically) on parts of Mare Island. 7/

but if we build nice, dense, Eurostyle districts, integrated by upscale bus, if we let @holz-bau.bsky.social work with future residents to design living spaces for communities, people would pour into those in preference to what Lennar or DR Horton are endlessly building. /fin