Housing near jobs, and jobs near affordable housing has become the unattainable California dream. Affordable housing in metropolitan job centers throughout California is largely unavailable, forcing many families to move to remote rural regions where affordable housing is relatively abundant. Consequently, Californians are spending countless hours in their cars, traveling to and from distant locations on a daily basis, contributing to increased traffic congestion on many of California's highways, degrading air quality, and experiencing a lower quality of life.

Jobs-housing imbalances will become more prevalent in the coming decades as the State is projected to experience exponential population and employment growth. Nowhere in the state is this problem projected to be more acutely experienced than in the San Francisco Bay Area and neighboring Central Valley. In this region, the San Francisco Bay Area is already facing a housing crisis with housing costs far exceeding those found in the rest of the state and job growth surpassing the development of housing. Yet, the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) predicts that by 2020, there will be an additional 1.2 million residents and nearly 1 million new jobs in the nine counties that ring the San Francisco Bay. Only 428,000 new housing units will be built in this same time period; far short of the estimated 637,000 units needed to house new workers.

With housing costs at prohibitive levels in the Bay Area, many workers are moving to the neighboring Central Valley. The trend is expected to continue as many Central Valley communities are expected to double or triple in size in the coming decades. Pressure to develop housing to meet the demand created by Bay Area workers is generating the growth in these rural communities. Unfortunately, these communities are not projected to attract the equivalent numbers of new jobs. Instead, thousands of Central Valley residents will continue to commute far into the Bay Area, and in many cases will drive two hours or more each way. It is estimated that nearly 100,000 commute trips are made daily over the Altamont Pass, the key connector road between the Central Valley and the Bay Area. If current trends continue, the number of individuals driving over the Altamont will more than double in 20 years.