What’s Gone Wrong?

In the 1890s, University and California Avenue were founded and flourished as compact, vibrant rail town centers. Since then, Palo Alto has attracted creative, innovative souls from around the country and the world, and enabled them to invent the future.

We failed to build enough housing!

A strong local economy significantly increased the number of jobs in Palo Alto - yet the city has over time refrained from building housing and supporting transportation policies necessary to sustain economic growth in this area. This has resulted in more people traveling to work from further away, causing traffic congestion and air and climate emissions impacts. Despite work-from-home policies, Palo Alto still more than doubles in size as workers commute long distances to their jobs because they cannot afford homes locally.

Given a nearly stagnant housing supply in Palo Alto, housing has become extraordinarily expensive and whole groups of workers have been priced out of living in the community they serve. The result has meant a city whose population is skewed with many more older adults than younger ones. Many older adults would like to downsize but have no appropriate options to do so while remaining in Palo Alto, and therefore often must leave their lifelong friends and grandchildren.

If we don’t act, it will only get worse

On its current course, Palo Alto will continue to experience traffic issues, air and climate emissions, local business declines, and school enrollment declines. We turn away new businesses and new workers who no longer have appropriate housing — and we all suffer the impacts.