Mixed-use Haussmann buildings like those on Montorgueil Street are typical throughout Paris. The French capital is about the same land area as San Francisco but houses more than twice as many residents.

San Francisco has a habit of framing its housing debates in extremes. Density or “neighborhood character.” Growth or preservation. Victorian or nothing.

It is a binary that has proven politically useful to generations of politicians and functionally disastrous for our housing market and for developing a coherent urban vision for the future.

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San Francisco has spent decades treating density as something to be negotiated, deferred or railed against. That’s in part because single-family homes are the norm here — a strange thing for a city, if you think about it. Vast areas are locked into low-rise, while taller buildings are clustered in just a few designated zones. It’s a pattern that produces scarcity by design.

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Paris, meanwhile, though about the same size as San Francisco, manages to house more than double the number of residents. It does so with a particular building type that is not exceptional; it is the default. Yet these buildings bring density without overcrowding and reinforce the city’s social fabric.

Six stories, no notes.

The housing at 588 4th St. in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood is reminiscent of the Haussmann buildings in Paris

A recent trip to Paris had me falling in love all over again with these ubiquitous — and I’d argue, perfect — Haussmann buildings.

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Built in the late 19th century during a sweeping redesign of Paris led by Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, these elegant and functional buildings are usually 40 to 65 feet tall, with pale limestone facades, generous windows and balconies, and mansard roofs. Restaurants, offices and retail are typically on the ground floor, with apartments above.

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No one — OK, I’m sure some people — complains they’re too tall or cast shade or any of the other familiar NIMBY arguments made against mid-rise construction in San Francisco.

It’s ridiculous to suggest this city should become Paris, but it’s not so ridiculous to seriously consider the Haussmann block. It’s a form that can provide what many call gentle density — while still being compatible with the scale of most San Francisco neighborhoods.

I’d point to one neighborhood as an example of how this might play out: Mission Bay.

There, a collection of architect-designed multifamily buildings — many of them affordable, including Five88 by David Baker Architects and Mithun’s 1180 Fourth Street  — have recently been built alongside resident-serving retail, a pre-kindergarten to fifth-grade public school, cafes, restaurants and a plethora of new public space. People don’t need to drive to shop. They live on top of the Gus’ Market, its produce spilling out onto the sidewalk to lure people in. 

It feels like a real neighborhood.

1180 Fourth St. in Mission Bay is another example of the mixed-use design that would work well throughout San Francisco.

Mission Bay was essentially built from scratch. But that doesn’t preclude other blocks across the city from adopting the elements that work so well here.

Not overnight, and not uniformly, but over time, as part of a clear and predictable framework.

This has been so hard to achieve thus far, in part because so much of the multifamily housing built in the city over the past several decades is nothing to celebrate. Eager to deliver much-needed housing despite the obstacles, we’ve hit a sort of lowest-common-denominator model of building. They’re often five stories of wood framing built over a concrete podium using a limited palette of materials and colors. There’s little or no ornamentation or texture, but often there are unusable balconies. The sameness is an attempt to rein in costs, but it has resulted in a sort of nationalized homogeneity. 

No wonder people don’t want more of it.

Mayor Daniel Lurie’s “Family Zoning” plan opens the door to more units in areas that have historically resisted them and, importantly, to units that can accommodate households larger than a studio or one-bedroom. This is a good thing. But what it doesn’t do is provide any sort of aesthetic roadmap.

To be clear, I am not proposing housing that looks like 19th century Paris (or 19th century Victorian San Francisco — let’s keep the great stock we’ve got of that housing type and move on).

But San Francisco is an early adopter in everything. Why can’t it be more bold in its design direction?

Well, there are lots of reasons: A significant portion of multifamily housing is designed not by licensed architects but by developers, builders or draftspersons. Often, this results in standardized unit plans; an architect may still sign and stamp the plans for compliance, but is likely not involved in the conceptual design or spatial layout.

Like Paris, transportation options that don’t involve driving are readily available in Mission Bay.

Land and labor costs continue to grow, so much of what seems to get built is focused less on inspiring design and more on getting projects to pencil out. The building industry loves a formula that works — and it’s an industry that is loath to change. But a more creative approach could go a long way toward public acceptance.

It’s not just about form and aesthetics — it’s about function. By design, Haussmann buildings promote something San Francisco is letting slip away: social interaction. If you need a light bulb, a coffee or a pair of socks, the default seems to be Amazon or DoorDash. Gig workers are increasingly dispatched to grocery shop.

In Paris, you go out your front door and can pick up what you need in minutes.

Paris has heavily invested in expanding transit and removing cars from its streets: People don’t drive because they don’t have to. Only 28% of households own cars, which means the streets are lively all day because people are walking on them.

This isn’t simply a function of historic development patterns. Mayor Anne Hidalgo actively made the capital greener, pedestrian-friendly and cyclist-friendly over the past two decades. The March mayoral election between Emmanuel Grégoire, one of Hidalgo’s deputies, and Rachida Dati, a pro-car candidate, was seen as a referendum of sorts on the city’s urbanism.

Grégoire won decisively.

In my la vie en rose view, embracing this model in San Francisco would reintroduce things like social interaction, neighborliness and support for local business — things I’ve seen erode dramatically over the past decade as more people opt for convenience over community, optimization over livability.

Family zoning is beginning to shift the density conversation, but we need to pair it with a broader willingness to embrace density not as a threat, but as a way forward.

Guest opinions in Open Forum and Insight are produced by writers with expertise, personal experience or original insights on a subject of interest to our readers. Their views do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Chronicle editorial board, which is committed to providing a diversity of ideas to our readership.

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We’re seeing the result in Mission Bay, which is booming.

The six-story neighborhood provides a template for growth that is substantial and humane — dense enough to address a housing shortage, modest enough to fit within existing neighborhoods, exciting enough to get you out the front door.

Allison Arieff is a columnist and editorial writer for the Opinion section.

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