Population growth laps housing development in San Mateo County

A story this morning in the San Jose Mercury on population growth in the San Francisco Bay Area, set me back on my heels.  In 2012, the population of San mateo County grew by more than 7,000 or 1.1 percent of the total population the year before.  We built 700 new housing units that year and there are another thousand in development.

Anyone see a problem here?

The Bay Area is experiencing an economic boom, separate from the rest of the country.  San Mateo County has an unemployment rate of 5.8 percent, which compared to the rest of the nation is a full employment level.  Lots of people are getting jobs... and they are commuting or living in substandard housing.  When you are young and single, that might suffice, but these new workers coming in will want to build families in a few years and sleeping in someone's laundry room for $500 a month will not suffice.

We are going to have to get serious about development unless we want to roads clogged with commuters.