San Francisco's Housing Crunch Prices Out Middle Class

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

With the economy showing no signs of slowing, and with more and more people moving to San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee is finding himself walking a housing tightrope that is getting higher and higher every day.

"It's no longer about the teacher who can't afford to live in the city. It's about the associate at a law firm who makes over $100,000 a year not being able to stay here," said political consultant Eric Jaye.

Jaye worked on the campaigns of both former Mayors Gavin Newsom and Willie Brown, and is no stranger to the town's shifting political winds and voter worries over being "priced out of the city."

Neither is the mayor, which is one reason he is moving to put affordable housing for the middle class at the top of his agenda in the coming year.

The question is, what can he really do about it?

There are an estimated 40,000 units of new housing in the city's planning pipeline, about 10,000 of which have been set aside for families making less than $70,000 a year.

But where is the program for families that make more than $70,000?

Rent-control plus wacky green laws equals: the elimination of the middle class. An honest look at Blue America's war on average people.