Is “Housing Crisis” A Misnomer?

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I was born here and have witnessed the growth of the Bay Area. Some of the changes have been good, but some of them have been really bad.

For example, it used to take 20-25 minutes to get from our house to my in-laws’ house 22 miles away. I can still make that trip on the weekends and late at night; sometimes I can even make that trip around mid-day. However, if we leave our house at 3 PM it can easily take 40 minutes, and if we leave at 5 PM on a weekday, it can easily take an hour or more.

On September 17, 2019, one of our local news channels, NBC Bay Area, ran a story about the housing crisis. As part of the story, they mentioned that we are in an area where earning six-figures is still considered low-income from a house buying perspective. They referred to this as a housing crisis because the prices are so high due to the extremely small supply of houses.,

The heavy traffic and the high housing prices are tied together and are the result of the same problem – excessive development of commercial space. Additionally, the commercial space is highly concentrated in Silicon Valley and San Francisco. As a result, people are having to commute 1-2 hours each way every day.

So, back to the question: is “housing crisis” a misnomer? I believe so. The infrastructure is already over-taxed. There really isn’t any way to increase the number of cars that can travel on the freeways without increasing commute times. There’s also no room to build more homes where the current commercial development projects are.

Another problem is that our city leaders, county leaders, and the company leaders all claim to be concerned about the environment yet they continue to increase the number of vehicles on the road and the time spent running those vehicles on the road through their prioritization of commercial development. This approach to development is harming our environment.

Let’s stop referring to the current housing situation a “housing crisis.” Let’s start referring to it as over development of commercial space and municipal greed; after all, the cities and counties want the taxes from the commercial development and payroll taxes. They don’t really care about our quality of life.