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A photo of a San Francisco meeting ignited a housing war
A photo of gray-haired residents opposing an 848-unit tower in the Marina District drew fury from tech workers who blame older generations for San Francisco's housing crisis.
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A single photo of a community meeting in San Francisco's Marina District has laid bare the generational divide over the city's housing market.
Last Thursday, hundreds of residents packed a gallery at Fort Mason Center to oppose a proposed residential tower on the waterfront. San Francisco Chronicle reporter Laura Waxmann posted a photo of the meeting on X. The image drew immediate pushback from tech workers and younger residents who see the older generation as the main obstacle to new housing.
"These oldsters were dropping acid, dancing naked in Golden Gate Park and living on each others couches 60 years ago," Jason Calacanis, an investor and podcaster, wrote on X. "Now they're banning new housing to protect their $7m Victorians." Calacanis left San Francisco for Texas last year, where he owns a 33-acre ranch.
Evan Conrad, CEO of the San Francisco Compute Company, a marketplace for AI computing power valued at $300 million last year, was blunter. "When rent is $8k for a one bedroom, please remember that the fault is in the people who, for 50 years, showed up to argue against nearly every unit of housing proposed," he said on X.
The Marina District sits on the city's northern waterfront, famous for its views of the Golden Gate Bridge and its Victorian and Mediterranean Revival houses. Local developer Align Real Estate has proposed demolishing the current Safeway grocery store to build a new version with a U-shaped housing complex on top. The complex would include a 20-story and an 18-story tower with 848 units total. Initial project documents were filed in December 2025.