Let's talk supply and demand. The two forces shaping every home price in this county.

Start with demand. People want to live here. The coastline, the climate, the proximity to high-paying Bay Area jobs, and price points that, until recently, looked like a bargain compared to Palo Alto or San Francisco. Of course they want in.

Now supply. Geography does most of the work against us. A narrow strip of flat, developable land squeezed between the ocean and the mountains. The same features that make Santa Cruz desirable make it almost impossible to expand. We're the second smallest county in California, behind only San Francisco. There isn't much room left.

None of that is changing.

Will people stop wanting to live here? No. Will undiscovered acreage suddenly appear inside the parkland and open space ringing our neighborhoods? No.

So where does that leave us, now that we're the #1 most expensive place to rent and the #2 most expensive place to buy in the country?

This is not just a crisis for low-income earners. It's a crisis for teachers, firefighters, retail and service workers, middle-class families, and the kids who grew up here and can't afford to stay.

For the moment, it leaves us watching. New buildings are rising downtown and along the major transportation corridors. The scope and scale of these projects is shocking to longtime residents. The number of new units coming online is even more so.

This is the pendulum swinging back. After fifty years of being held in check, slow growth politics is finally losing its grip. The movement started in the early 1970s with the right intentions. But somewhere along the way, it stopped accounting for change, for an aging population, and for the next generation that still needs somewhere to live.

The era is ending. What replaces it is the conversation worth having.