Oakland is experiencing a housing crisis that threatens to irrevocably change the city. Part of the problem is the imbalance between job growth and housing supply. Last year, Mayor Schaaf assembled a Housing Implementation Cabinet of housing experts, advocates and practitioners to look at the issue. Last week, the cabinet released its action plan to preserve 17,000 existing homes and create 17,000 new ones.

Measure AA, on the June ballot in all nine Bay Area counties, is a $12 parcel tax dedicated to protecting and restoring San Francisco Bay. This is a historic opportunity for the Bay Area to vote as a region and raise local revenue to protect our signature natural resource. It’s our generation’s chance to save the Bay — while there’s still time.

Pressure for development at the urban edge of the Bay Area is growing. At the end of 2015, the cities of Morgan Hill and Gilroy in southern Santa Clara County both proposed expanding their city boundaries into farmland. Upcoming decisions on these proposals, which county analysts have called reminiscent of a bygone era, will set an important precedent for the county’s next phase of growth.

Santa Clara County’s proposed transportation sales tax has been politically contentious. But the reality is, transportation investments have not kept up with job and population growth. Meanwhile, federal and state funding for transportation has declined. We will need better transportation infrastructure in order to enjoy continued prosperity and a high quality of life — and we’re going to have to make these investments locally.

Few low-income Californians will ever have the opportunity to live in a subsidized affordable housing unit. How do we help everyone else? A new paper from the California Legislative Analyst’s Office provides evidence that market-rate housing construction plays an important role for low-income households. The LAO’s data shows that urban counties nationwide with more housing construction had slower rent growth than California coastal cities.