Nate is an East Bay community papers editor for the Bay Area News Group and East Bay Times. He edits the Hills weekly Alameda Journal, Berkeley Voice, El Cerrito Journal, Montclarion and Piedmonter newspapers; Central Costa County's weekly Concord Transcript and Walnut Creek Journal papers; and East Contra Costa's weekly East County News.
Two things you can count on with ballyhooed state forecasts on issues such as California’s housing and population are that they’ll be incompetent and inconsistent. Usually, they’ll also be outdated even before they’re issued.For years, this state has plagued its cities and counties with inaccurate, vastly varying predictions of housing need. In 2018, the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development predicted California would need to build 3.5 million new housing units by 2025.
There’s been no population growth, but policymakers in the Legislature have nevertheless chosen to pursue density, with nearly all of their new housing laws aiming to encourage more crowded living conditions and assuming that those in the new buildings will own few cars and use mass transit. Of course, mass transit ridership has not risen notably even as new construction arose near light rail stops. So much for that forecast.
Charmed at first by Austin, where many high-tech workers moved when the virus freed them from working in offices, they’re now finding it difficult to move easily from gig to gig as they could in places like Silicon Valley and Orange County’s Irvine area. One recent survey of Austin newcomers saw many yearning to return to California. It’s much the same in cities like Orlando, Florida, and Tucson, both of which attracted many Californians with lower-priced, more sumptuous housing than they could afford in coastal parts of California.
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