Bay Area's Future Looks Older, Crowded

By Ariana E. Cha and De Tran, Mercury News Staff Writers

By 2020, the Bay Area's baby boomers will be gray, doubling the elderly population. Many 20- and 30-somethings will be forced out as housing prices climb out of sight. Whites will be a minority.

And it will be much, much more crowded, according to a report released Thursday by the Association of Bay Area Governments.

Most of the changes will take place in the South Bay, which the report dubs a ''hot spot.''

Santa Clara County will generate the most new jobs, some 400,000, mostly in the technology and service sectors. The outlook is even rosier than previously predicted. The county, said ABAG research director Paul Fassinger, will be ''the driving engine for the Bay Area's growth.''

The nine-county region will gain some 1.4 million new residents, increasing the population to 7.8 million. Contra Costa County will lead in population growth -- with about 211,700 more people -- followed closely by Santa Clara County at 190,900. San Jose's share of the growth will be 128,800, meaning that it will be home to 1.1 million people by 2020.

While ABAG researchers summed up the future as positive, they said the problems government officials have been ranting about for decades -- lack of affordable housing, turtle-like traffic, overcrowded schools -- will not go away in the coming years. In fact, the report states that a daunting minimum of a half- million new housing units will have to be constructed by 2020.

But the most worrisome part of the predictions, government officials said, is the shifting age demographics.

While there is good news in that life expectancy in the Bay Area is greater than the U.S. average due to healthier lifestyles, it means that the elderly population will jump from about 1 million now to 2.1 million.

Many of today's baby boomers will retire here and hold on to their homes, driving thousands of young couples ready to settle down to the more affordable Central Valley, Fassinger said. In 1990, about one out of every three people in the region -- long considered a magnet for young, hip adults -- was aged 20 to 39. By 2020, it will be one out of four. Meanwhile, the school-age population will continue to grow.

''Now we talk about a youth-driven society, and things are geared toward youths, ads are geared toward youths and being young. That's going to change,'' said Paul Isaacs, deputy director of the Council on Aging of Santa Clara County.

''Older people are going to be needed in the workplace. Health benefits are going to change. The pace will be altered to cater to a changing society. You won't be working 20 hours a day.''

Not set in stone

But Doug Henton, an economic consultant for Joint Venture Silicon Valley, said that ABAG's projections ''won't necessarily come true'' if the valley builds enoughaffordable housing.

''The region should make sure younger people . . . can live here,'' he said. ''They are the people who fuel entrepreneurial spirit.''

Santa Clara County already is scrambling to revamp social, housing and health- care services for its increasing number of seniors. The United Way of Santa Clara County has designated in-home care for seniors as one of its priorities.

Some other likely changes, according to Isaacs: Traffic lights will takelonger to change to allow elderly boomers more time to cross the street. Programs such as Meals on Wheels and elderly transportation services will become as popular as ''Baby on Board'' stickers were in the '80s.

''In the near future, it won't be uncommon to see a 70-year-old woman caring for her 75-year-old-husband and her 90-year-old mother,'' Isaacs said. ''She is going to need help.''

The report encourages developers to build new housing that caters to the needs of senior citizens: close to public transportation and hospitals.

With the region's soaring cost of living and changes in Supplemental Security Income and pension benefit rules, more elderly will be working. About 22 percent of men over age 65 and 12 percent of female seniors are expected to be working in 2020.

Other changes

Among the report's other predictions:

Whites no longer will be a majority in the Bay Area by 2020. San Francisco and Alameda counties already are "majority minority." People of Asian descent are expected to make up a smaller share of the area's population than previously thought. Demographers now predict Asians will make up 20 percent of the population in 2020, while just two years ago they were predicting that the population would hit the 22 percent mark in 2015. This is due to the high birth rate among Latinos, who will make up 24 percent of the region's population, and a leveling off of immigration.

High-tech employment will continue to spread out from the Highway 101 corridor between San Jose and San Francisco. Much of it will go to southern Alameda County.

Although most new jobs will be in Silicon Valley, the most dramatic percentage growth will occur in the Tri-Valley area which comprises Livermore, Dublin and Pleasanton and is increasingly being touted as a telecommunications hub. The number of jobs will more than double.

The number of jobs in East Palo Alto is expected to grow threefold to about 8,000 in 2020. Forecasters are optimistic about the renaissance of the struggling city of 24,000 because, with few empty land parcels in Silicon Valley, it has become a developer's dream.

In the past few years, plans for three major development projects have taken shape: a 500,000-square-foot shopping center known as Gateway 101, just east of Highway 101; an office and hotel complex at Whiskey Gulch just west of the highway; and commercial buildings in the Ravenswood Industrial Area. Ravenswood had remained untouched largely because it was believed to contain extensive contamination from decades of industrial and agricultural use. In May, the White House awarded the city a $125,000 grant to clean up the land.