This is what a $350,000 house in San Francisco looks like

[Humanist_Activist]

25. Well, San Franscisco is geographically constrained, so not much room to expand and lower land...

prices.

Its an ideal climate, with one exception, water, a growing problem in much of California. If the drought becomes a more permanent climate for the region, I strongly doubt that much of California would be able to support the population it does now, at least not without massive infrastructure improvements and means of redirecting water from other parts of the country and desalination plants.

However, there's also the issue that San Francisco’s own success may be its downfall before the above scenario plays out. Having a growing homeless population does not make you too attractive to wealthy or professional home buyers. Hell, quite a few of the homeless in the city are actually employed and work in the city, but can't afford so much as a 1 bedroom apartment, if any are available. This isn't a sustainable situation, particularly if surrounding areas aren't equipped to deal with this growing population, or provide them housing. So the city may have to find ways to subsidize housing, even for those people that in any other city in the country(even New York) would never qualify because they make too much money.

The other option, that I can think of, given the geographical constraints, is for them to build vertically wherever possible. Forget houses, think high rises. Since you can't spread out like L.A. you will have to grow like Hong Kong, or Singapore.