The premise of “The American Housing Market Is Stifling Mobility” (Review, Sept. 4) is that migration to large cities is a sign of national vitality. Maybe so in the 1950s and earlier, but today our large cities are choking on overpopulation.

Look at Los Angeles County: 10 million people in an area beset by drought and jammed freeways, perhaps a million immigrants there illegally and more than 60,000 homeless. Do we need more people in Los Angeles? People used to migrate to where the jobs were, but the internet has altered...

Homeless encampments on an overpass of the 101 freeway in Los Angeles, July 7.

Photo: Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press

The premise of “The American Housing Market Is Stifling Mobility” (Review, Sept. 4) is that migration to large cities is a sign of national vitality. Maybe so in the 1950s and earlier, but today our large cities are choking on overpopulation.

Look at Los Angeles County: 10 million people in an area beset by drought and jammed freeways, perhaps a million immigrants there illegally and more than 60,000 homeless. Do we need more people in Los Angeles? People used to migrate to where the jobs were, but the internet has altered the equation. Why not encourage people to live in smaller cities where housing is far cheaper than L.A. or San Francisco and need more people?

California’s Proposition 13 was necessary because homeowners had been overwhelmed by high property taxes that went up every year. Many were unable to pay and were losing their homes.

Robert Newman

West Hills, Calif.

Continuing drought and uncontrolled wildfires owing to the unsustainable water demand of existing housing are elements of shortages ignored by the authors. Their professed remedy of a cost-benefit analysis for new developments is a make-work proposal for economists. The problems and remedies are more complex.

Marc Del Piero

Pebble Beach, Calif.

The authors self-righteously cancel the pioneering environmental organization Save the Bay. This grass-roots group did indeed save the San Francisco Bay. To fit this story into their tale of exclusion and privilege, the authors cast the founders as “three impeccably upper-class women” who “cloaked themselves in the mantle of public service.” I was privileged to know Sylvia McLaughlin, one of the founders of Save the Bay, who was indeed an impeccable woman and a fierce advocate for the environment who wore cloaks only in winter.

I found this description by KQED to be more accurate: “In the 1950s, San Francisco Bay was in dire shape. There were plans to fill in most of it for development, leaving just a narrow channel of water. The Bay was regularly filled to provide space for ports, industry, airports, homes, and even garbage dumps. Families didn’t stroll along the shoreline because it was rife with trash and industrial development. The wetlands and wildlife were quickly disappearing. McLaughlin could not sit by. She and friends Kay Kerr and Esther Gulick started a movement to stop Berkeley’s plan to fill in 2,000 acres of the Bay.”

George Tucker

Berkeley, Calif.

Housing in the San Francisco Bay Area has become unaffordable because of many actions by the people and government of California. In the name of “preserving the environment,” any large tracts of land close to the Bay Area that become available (e.g., a farmer retires) are snapped up, often after strong-arm persuasion by environmentalist groups, and made “open space.”

I do a lot of hiking in these open spaces and can hike for hours without seeing another person. It’s nice to have a 6,000-acre park all to myself, but it makes little sense for the region. Many of the newer open spaces have limited recreation value and use.

People who can’t afford to live in the Bay Area but have jobs there must commute from hot inland valley locations such as Stockton or Modesto. How does spewing carbon dioxide into the air for four hours a day “preserve the environment”? How does living in a location where you have temperature extremes that require much more energy consumption help the environment?

Jim Bathgate

San Jose, Calif.