SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
Part 1 of an examination of living-working-commuting patterns in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. Which counties have good jobs-housing numbers and which are skewed?
Part 2 is here:
http://meetingthetwain.blogspot.com/2018/03/sf-bay-area-2-live-work-commute.html
Part 2 is here:
http://meetingthetwain.blogspot.com/2018/03/sf-bay-area-2-live-work-commute.html
Link for sharing this post: https://meetingthetwain.blogspot.com/2018/02/sf-bay-area-1-live-work-commute.html
Image from: https://mymodernmet.com/san-francisco-bridges-beautifully-blanketed-in-fog
Summary:
In looking at jobs-housing-commuting patterns in the San Francisco Bay Area by county or group of counties, we find most counties are in approximate balance. I.e., they provide housing for about as many workers as they have jobs for. Many commute from one county to another, but with two exceptions, the housing for workers within each county balances out or there is housing for more workers than there are jobs - a "housing surplus".
The two exceptions are San Francisco and Santa Clara counties. Contrary to popular belief, the biggest increase in jobs is not Silicon valley, but San Francisco. The US Census Bureau tool "OnTheMap" shows that in the graphic below:
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| SF has 642,375 jobs, and 413,766 workers. They are short of housing for 228,609 SF would have to increase their housing over 50% to accommodate all those workers. "OnTheMap" described here: http://meetingthetwain.blogspot.com/2016/12/how-to-use-onthemap.html |
Because of it's larger population, Santa Clara County's "housing deficit" of 114,000 would require only 14% more housing units. With lots of open space and more businesses moving to central San Jose this can be done without too much strain.
This is part 1 of a a multi-part series on the SF Bay Area county live-work-commute issues. Previous explorations have focused on cities in Santa Clara County. The most recent on Palo Alto is here: http://meetingthetwain.blogspot.com/2018/01/palo-alto-work-live-commute.html
Nine County Basic Info:
Population:
A map of the nine counties is seen below.
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| Four "North Bay" counties in blue, two "East Bay" counties in yellow |
Counties listed below by population:
- Santa Clara: Population 1.8M, County seat & largest city: San Jose, Pop. 1M
- Alameda: Population 1.5M, County seat & largest city: Oakland, Pop. 412,000
- Contra Costa: Population 1.1M, County seat Martinez, largest city Concord: Pop. 129,000
- San Francisco: Population 871,000
- San Mateo: Population 765,000, County seat Redwood City, largest city Daly City: Pop. 101,000
- Sonoma: Population 503,000, County seat & largest city Santa Rosa: Pop. 186,000
- Solano: Population 440,000, County seat Fairfield, largest city Vallejo: Pop. 121,000
- Marin: Population 261,000, County seat & largest city San Rafael: Pop. 59,000
- Napa: Population 142,000, County seat & largest city Napa: Pop. 80,000
(Data above from county entries in Wikipedia)
Total population of the 9 counties bordering the San Francisco Bay is 7.38 million.
Some would include Santa Cruz County in the general "commute shed". Santa Cruz County's population is 261,000. Adding the population of Santa Cruz County to that of the other nine counties gives a grand total of 7.64 million for the ten counties.
The 4 northern counties of Sonoma, Solano, Marin, and Napa are the least populated. Census data (shown later) reveals that most commuting in that northern four county area is within the same four counties. The entire four counties can be considered a "bedroom community" - relieving the strain on housing for San Francisco. From now on, we will treat them as a single entity on par with the other counties. (Click on chart to enlarge)
SF Bay Area Population & Households
Income:
Income per capita below. San Francisco County has the highest per capita income in California at nearly $50,000, except for Marin County ($58,000). Marin County has only 261,000 people (2017) - less than 30% of San Francisco's population and less than 3.5% of the entire nine-county region.
Per Capita Income By County
Average = $41,000
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| Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_locations_by_income |
Workers:
We are interested in exploring job-worker imbalances. That is, "has County X created more jobs than housing? " If so, then some other county has to create more housing than jobs.
(Data is from the US Census tool "On the Map". I describe how to use it here: http://meetingthetwain.blogspot.com/2016/12/how-to-use-onthemap.html )
The next chart shows each county's number of primary (not part time) jobs, and how many residents in that county were employed full time somewhere - not necessarily in the county in which they live. The blue bar shows how many fully employed workers reside in that county (who may work in other counties), the gold bar shows how many primary jobs there are in that county. If there are more jobs than workers, there is a "housing deficit" in that county which must be made up by some other county providing more housing for workers to commute from.
2015 Jobs, and Resident Workers
San Francisco Bay Area
Reading the above bar chart:
1. The first pair of bars shows Santa Clara County has a "housing deficit" - the difference between the bars. The blue bar shows about 820,000 workers residing there (who may work in other counties). The gold bar shows about 934,000 jobs. Subtracting we get (943,000 - 820,000) = 114,000 net workers for whom there is insufficient housing in Santa Clara County.
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| Santa Clara 820,000 Workers & 934,000 jobs. "Housing Deficit" of 114,000 workers. |
The next set of bars for the four northern counties and Contra Costa County shows more workers than jobs. There is then a net "housing surplus". This means those counties are "exporting" workers to the counties that have more jobs than workers. These five counties are typically called "bedroom communities".
Continuing down, we see San Francisco has a huge "housing deficit" - blue bar (housing) much shorter than the gold bar (jobs). With 642,000 jobs and only 414,000 workers, there is a "housing deficit" of 228,000. That is a shortage twice the size of Santa Clara's even though Santa Clara County has over twice the population.
And last is San Mateo with a negligible "housing deficit"
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| 414,000 Workers & 642,000 jobs. Short housing for 228,000 workers. |
Most county and state governments prefer more jobs since commercial enterprises generate a lot of tax revenue per acre but don't use a lot of expensive services like parks, schools, police. A few towns within each county, like Atherton in San Mateo County, are willing to pay higher property taxes to have very little commercial activity and a more rural environment. They're richer and can afford it. Less rich cities prefer more jobs than housing for the extra revenue.
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| Atherton - Right next to Redwood City |
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| Redwood City - Right next to Atherton |
Creating more jobs than housing has several additional negative repercussions: it forces more people to commute from counties with housing to counties with jobs thus clogging roads and wasting time.
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| "Housing Deficit" = time wasted commuting |
It also drives up the price of housing in the job-rich city as people wishing to avoid the commute bid up an insufficient number of houses near work.
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| Bidding wars on housing to be close to work and avoid the commute |
Job Growth 2002 to 2015:
Which counties are the major job centers is no surprise. Santa Clara County has the most jobs, followed by Alameda, San Francisco, and San Mateo counties as seen in the following charts:
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| Percentage of Jobs in Each County in 2015 |
Every county added jobs over the period 2002 to 2015. Many think of the high growth in jobs as being primarily in Silicon Valley - particularly in the counties of San Mateo (Facebook, Oracle) and Santa Clara (Google, Apple, and many others). But the biggest growth in jobs was in San Francisco, even though San Francisco is only in fourth place in terms of population.
Absolute numbers of jobs added
San Francisco #1 at 165,000
Santa Clara #2 at 127,000
Jobs added by San Francisco exceeded that of the lowest six counties combined! Jobs added by the bottom six counties (Marin + Sonoma + Napa + Contra Costa + San Mateo + Alameda) = 150,000, still 15,000 short of San Francisco's 165,000.
Percentage growth:
From 2002 to 2015
517,000 Jobs Created in SF Bay Area
517,000 Jobs Created in SF Bay Area
32% of them were in San Francisco
All 9 counties increased jobs.
People commute in and out of every county since not everyone who lives in a county works there and not everyone who works there wants to live there. We see imbalances in the graph below which shows how many commute out of a county, how many commute in, and the net flow - the in-flow minus out-flow of commuters. (For this analysis, we don't show the many commuters who both live and work in their county.)
For example, in the first three bars below we see that San Francisco had 387,000 workers commute in (blue), 159,000 commute out (red), so net flow was 229,000 commuting in (yellow). That means San Francisco was short of housing for 229,000 workers. Santa Clara also had a net influx of 114,000 commuters. All other counties either were in approximate balance or had a net flow out. The results for all counties is seen in the graph below:
2015 Commuters: In - Out - Net
San Francisco worst with 229,000 housing deficit
Contra Costa best with 112,000 housing surplus
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| Contra Costa and the four N. Bay counties are providing more housing than jobs. |
San Francisco's Huge Housing Deficit
Dramatic increase in housing needed.
Not going to happen!
There is zero chance of that occurring. The current building pipeline is only going to make it worse. We learn from Paragon Real Estate's June 2017 report
"Building Cranes Everywhere"
"Approximately 64,000 housing units, 31 million sq.ft. of commercial space & 25 hotels with 4685 rooms are now in the SF new construction pipeline - with 5700 units, 10 million sq.ft. and 5 hotels currently under construction. "
As the attached graph shows, many of those housing units are "planned" (in the very loosest sense of the word) for 2027 to 2042. That is 10 years to 25 years out. That far into the future is more in the realm of idle speculation than actual planning.
The 31 million sq. ft. of office space will accommodate anywhere from 77,500 (400 sq. ft. per worker) to 124,000 more workers (250 sq. ft. per worker). Split the difference and call it 100,000 more jobs.
So they are "planning" for even more workers than housing - falling even further behind in supplying housing for it's job holders. With a current 291,000 housing deficit they are adding 100,000 more jobs but only 64,000 more housing units - over 25 years. The deficit will increase from 291,000 to 327,000. Words fail me.
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| https://www.paragon-re.com/trend/june-2017-crazy-hot-san-francisco-market-again |
The commute gets worse, the required infrastructure costs more.
Actually, the new Bay Bridge was proposed as a 2 year, $2 billion project. It took 10 years and cost $10B. If they are suggesting $12B to $15B perhaps we should be thinking $60B to $75B.
There is much more to say but this is already too long. Part 2 is here: http://meetingthetwain.blogspot.com/2018/03/sf-bay-area-2-live-work-commute.html
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| https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-gets-serious-about-a-2nd-East-Bay-S-F-12628607.php |
"...It would be the biggest Bay Area infrastructure project, probably, since the BART system was built more than 50 years ago, and it would cost twice as much as the new Bay Bridge, from $12 billion to $15 billion at a minimum."
Actually, the new Bay Bridge was proposed as a 2 year, $2 billion project. It took 10 years and cost $10B. If they are suggesting $12B to $15B perhaps we should be thinking $60B to $75B.
There is much more to say but this is already too long. Part 2 is here: http://meetingthetwain.blogspot.com/2018/03/sf-bay-area-2-live-work-commute.html
