By Letters to the editor
December 13, 2025
https://www.marinij.com/2025/12/13/marin-ij-readers-forum-for-dec-14-2025/
In the article published Dec. 2 with the headline “Marin benefits, spending outlined in regional plan,” Metropolitan Transportation Commission planner Adam Noelting touts the benefits of Plan Bay Area 2050+. However, based on my calculations, the plan appears to rest on implausible forecasts.
It projects that from 2020 to 2050, the Bay Area will add 1.1 million people (up 23.7%), 1.4 million jobs (up 35.1%), 1 million households (up 35.7%) and 1.1 million housing units (up 39%). But since 2020, it has experienced flat or negative growth on those measures. MTC seemingly assumes the Bay Area will grow nearly 10 times faster than the rest of California despite historically growing slower than the state.
No credible demographic or economic evidence supports this explosive scenario. I am concerned that MTC reverse-engineered its numbers to justify building 1.1 million housing units by 2050.
Structural shifts appear to be reshaping the region. It is now one of California’s oldest, with a median age of 41 — a profile that yields a negative natural growth rate. Post-pandemic domestic migration has turned sharply negative as remote work enables residents to relocate to more affordable areas. San Francisco and San Jose face some of the highest office vacancy rates in the nation, signaling weak job growth, not a boom.
International demographic trends reinforce this picture. Mexico and Asia — historically major sources of Bay Area immigration — are aging rapidly, while U.S. immigration policy has tightened. Considering that, I see no demographic path to the 1.8 million new residents MTC assumes.
If MTC’s projections turn into taxpayers’ mandates, they could prove disastrous. The Bay Area already has one of the highest tax burdens in the country. I suspect higher taxes would cause both employees and employers to flee the Bay Area even faster. Read more at bit.ly/3YkiLSj.
— Gaeton Lion, Mill Valley