The New York Times has a published a story about a battle over housing in Lafayette,California, a suburban community outside of San Francisco, which is described as “a small town next to a big town [which] maintained its status by keeping the big town out.” 

The conversations and worries in Lafayette sound similar to many we’ve had in Newton.  I recommend reading the whole thing before commenting, but here’s some excerpts that summarize the larger problem:

There is, simply put, a dire shortage of housing in places where people and companies want to live — and reactionary local politics that fight every effort to add more homes.

 

Nearly all of the biggest challenges in America are, at some level, a housing problem. Rising home costs are a major driver of segregation, inequality, and racial and generational wealth gaps. You can’t talk about education or the shrinking middle class without talking about how much it costs to live near good schools and high-paying jobs. Transportation accounts for about a third of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions, so there’s no serious plan for climate change that doesn’t begin with a conversation about how to alter the urban landscape so that people can live closer to work.

 

and…

America has a housing crisis. The homeownership rate for young adults is at a multidecade low, and about a quarter of renters send more than half their income to the landlord. Homelessness is resurgent, eviction displaces a million households a year, and about four million people spend at least three hours driving to and from work.