Housing, Transit Crunches Collide in the Bay Area

In a feature that connects the dots between housing and transportation, New York Times writers Conor Dougherty and Andrew Burton join "standard American office worker" Sheila James on her commute from Stockton, California to San Francisco.

"Long commutes are a byproduct of the region’s tech boom, which has given rise to a full-blown housing crisis," the Times writes, noting that James initially moved to Stockton after a developer bought her building and evicted the tenants.

"As home prices have escalated beyond middle-class reach, areas far inland have become an oasis of (relative) affordability ... Prices are so high, and people are commuting so far, that gentrification has moved well beyond prime city neighborhoods to secondary cities and even far-reaching suburbs. As more people move inland, home prices are rising faster in the Central Valley than anywhere else in the state."