Bay Area Housing (three-day lesson)

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Overview

In this three-day lesson, students will consider the difference between a metropolitan region, a city, and a suburb. They will read about the post-war development of the Bay Area and about the anti-growth initiatives that emerged in the 1970s. Students will then evaluate how those policies have affected affordable housing and jobs-housing balance. Finally, students will write an essay that identifies and assesses what they believe will be the greatest challenge facing the Bay Area in the upcoming decade.

Learning Goals:

  • Students will begin to learn about the concept of a metropolitan region and how it differs from the city-suburb model that preceded it.
  • Students will learn about the dominant housing and employment trends that have shaped the Bay Area for the past half-century.
  • Students will analyze the relationship between affordable housing, jobs-housing balance, and certain policies such as Proposition 13 and Open Space Preservation.
  • Students will analyze a wide range of primary documents, including charts and graphs, newspaper articles, and secondary sources.

DAY ONE

Website Materials:

Additional Material: Map of the 9 counties of the Bay Area. [You can find dozens of Bay Area maps on the internet, though a satellite map at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BayareaUSGS.jpg shows which areas are highly populated.]

Step 1: 10 minutes: Introduction

a) Write on the board: What is the difference between a city and a suburb? Where do people who live in cities and suburbs work and shop?

b) Have students write for a few minutes and elicit responses. Responses will likely vary, but should include the notion that cities have more jobs and shops, that suburbs are more residential.

c) Show students a map of the 9 counties of the Bay Area. Explain that the region includes three big cities: San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose.

d) Explain that the Bay Area, California is neither a city nor a suburb. It’s a metropolitan region, and the patterns of employment and housing are more complicated than in the simple city-suburb model. This three-day lesson will give students a deep understanding of some of the patterns of this metropolitan region.

Step 2: 30 minutes: Read documents

a) Tell students that the first round of worksheets will give them a picture of how the history of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s shaped where people lived in the Bay Area.

b) Arrange students in pairs and hand out “WWII” and “Suburbia.” Have students complete questions on both worksheets.

Step 3: 10 minutes: Discussion

a) Share student answers. Discuss the following questions:

  • What does race have to do with the creation of suburbs?
  • Why was San Leandro a good place to live for middle- and working-class white people in the 1960s?
  • What sorts of jobs were available in Oakland? In San Leandro?

b) Before handing out homework, say to students:

“Based on these worksheets, it seems that we have a very typical situation in the Bay Area, where white, middle-class suburbs surround a low-income minority city. But Oakland and San Leandro are only a small part of the Bay Area--both exist in the East Bay. The rest of the Bay Area gets much more complicated.”

Homework

Hand out “Four Stages” and have students answer questions.

DAY TWO

Website Materials:

Step 1: 20 minutes: Read document

a) Hand out “1970s” and have students work in pairs to answer questions.

b) Share student responses.

Step 2: 20 minutes: Analyze charts

a) Tell students that today they will focus more on the effects of Open Space Preservation, and tomorrow they will look at the effects of Proposition 13.

b) Hand out “Fair Share” and “Density/Median Income” and have students answer questions in pairs.

c) Say to students: “Many people have blamed the Bay Area’s lack of affordable housing on Open Space Preservation. They argue that Open Space Preservation prevents new housing development, and the lack of new housing causes the prices of existing houses to rise. Examine the charts on the two worksheets and find evidence to support or challenge this claim.”

Step 3: 10 minutes: Discussion, whole class

Ask students the following questions:

  • What evidence can you find to support the claim that Open Space Preservation has created a lack of affordable housing?
  • What evidence can you find to challenge that claim?
  • If Open Space Preservation were outlawed, do you think we would see a lot of affordable housing built on undeveloped land?
  • What do you believe?

Homework

Have students read “Jobs-Housing Balance” and answer questions.

DAY THREE

Website Materials:

Step 1: 10 minutes: Review homework

a) Review student answers to homework. Generate a list of the reasons why Pleasanton’s jobs-housing balance is off. Be sure to include historical reasons (i.e., who first settled in suburbs), as well as the influence of Prop. 13.

b) Ask students:

  • Does the case of Pleasanton support or challenge the claim that Open Space preservation is to blame for the Bay Area’s lack of affordable housing?

Step 2: 20 minutes: Read document

Hand out “Employment Trends” and have students answer questions.

Step 3: 20 minutes: Discussion, whole class

Ask students the following questions:

  • Is the case of Pleasanton typical or exceptional, according to the information in “Employment Trends?”
  • What information in “Employment Trends” supports the claim that the Bay Area has a jobs-housing imbalance?

Hand out “Public Transportation.” Ask students:

  • Does this transportation system help alleviate the jobs-housing balance in the Bay Area? Why or why not?
  • What should the Bay Area do to address its jobs-housing balance problem?

Homework

Have students write an essay in response to the following prompt:

The Bay Area is a metropolitan region, which means that all of its counties, cities, towns, and suburbs, are interconnected and interdependent economically, politically, and socially. Using the information in the worksheets you’ve read over the past three days, what do you think will be the biggest challenge facing the Bay Area over the next decade? How do you think the Bay Area, as a region, should go about addressing the problem?

EVALUATION CRITERIA:

For an essay to meet standards, a student must fulfill the following criteria:
  • Identify a key challenge that the Bay Area will face in the upcoming decade. These might include the following: affordable housing, jobs-housing balance, increased commute times and congestion, etc. Students may also project certain social consequences of these challenges (i.e., increased unemployment, social unrest, etc.), however because these would be purely speculative projections, the student must demonstrate a firm grasp of the actual challenges of urban growth as presented in the worksheets.
  • Use specific evidence from the worksheets to support their claims.
  • Base argument in a historic view of the forces that have shaped Bay Area growth in the 20th century.
  • Write clearly and persuasively.

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