I’m not a Bay Area native, so I’m just as guilty as the next one. But I will still say it: There are too many of us. Too many people in too little space, and the result is an uncontrollable housing market and a feeling of crowdedness that pervades every corner.

I recognize that there is an attraction: I myself transplanted across the country for college to immerse in the unique tech culture and the innovation-over-tradition mindset that reigns supreme here. I have not been disappointed – Stanford’s entrepreneurial spirit has dragged me out of my comfort zone and my thinking is richer because of it.

I recognize that there is a need: Fast-growing companies are hiring thousands of new employees per year. These people come from all over the world to plant new roots are in Silicon Valley, and most are here to stay – many with their families, friends, and anyone else who is caught up in the “Second Gold Rush”.

But I also recognize that there is a problem. Housing prices are so astronomical that many people cannot afford to live in the Bay Area. Those who grew up here and planned to retire to their childhood region find themselves shut out by ever-climbing unaffordability. Those who seek to work here often end up selecting locations with extreme commutes in efforts to avoid high housing costs, but then pay for it in time and money burned through their travel. The impact of the ever-crowded housing market (and economy overall) on low-income individuals is so horrendous that it makes for an article all its own (so I will not try to treat it here).

The whole place feels like it is busting at the seams. The once-tranquil quality of the rolling California hills that my mom remembers from her youth has been lost to an increasingly urban feel. But there is more lost here than land share per person. California’s paradisiacal quality is not just a factor of its weather; this place is special for its embodiment of the American Dream.

It is – supposedly – a part of the world where anyone can grow and think and be and have space for the soul. Land of hippies and hooligans, artists and academics, gold-finders and gold-wearers…whoever you are, bring it to California.

But I think it has changed, or is, at the very least, changing. And the population inundation is not helping. The more people we add, the more the stress and press of humanity crimps the very culture. No longer a laid-back, happy-go-lucky dreamworld, the palpable pressure is so intense that suicide rates at high schools are five times the national average, for example.

Are we ruining something wonderful by our determination to live within its midst? I think we should all stop to consider the question – ideally before paying to rent a tent in someone's backyard. Maybe there is just not room.