San Francisco's local, free news rag has a cover story up right now on "top down solutions for San Francisco's housing crisis."   An excerpt -

...a proposal that would set clear priority policies for new housing.  It starts with a finding that is entirely consistent with economnic reality:   "housing prices cannot be lowered by expanding the supply of market-rate housing."

..."San Francisco values must guide housing policy.  The vast majority of housing produced must be affordable to the vast majority of curent residents... The most needy -- homeless, very low income poeple, disabled people, people with AIDS, seniors, and families -- must be priorities in housing production... 

The proposal would limit the height of all new housing to about six stories......limit the amount of new market-rate housing to 25,000 square feet a year -- probably about 200 to 400 units.

If any of this ever makes it to the policy finish line, I suspect it would one day be to economics what the Tacoma-Narrows bridge is to structural engineering.