Last week San Jose became the latest Bay Area city to update its in-law unit ordinances to better serve the need for housing solutions. Once illegal in many cities, this simple way to add more housing — create an additional unit in the backyard, basement, attic or garage — has become a welcome tool in the fight to make urban housing affordable.

The latest update to Plan Bay Area is now underway — and its findings have revealed some troubling flaws in the planning tools we have for managing our region’s biggest challenges: making housing affordable and maintaining our transportation infrastructure. Now that these issues have been made apparent, it’s time to ask what we should be doing differently.

Regardless of what our nation’s new leadership will mean for the issues SPUR works on, here in the Bay Area we are moving ahead, taking dramatic steps to make the world better. SPUR is tackling the big issues our cities face, from fighting climate change to putting economic prosperity in everyone's reach — but we can't do it without your help.

This election, Bay Area voters chose to make critical investments in transportation, infrastructure and affordable housing. And in San Francisco they rejected a series of harmful measures that would have undone years of good government reforms.

The presidential vote was about many things, but it was in part a protest against what the Bay Area stands for. Our embrace of diversity. Our high taxes and social programs. Our willingness to challenge traditional norms of gender. Our love of cities. What do those values mean — and what should we be doing to support them going forward?