46% of survey takers say they plan to move out of the Bay Area

OAKLAND, Calif. (BCN/KTVU) - By Bay City News Service

Forty-six percent of Bay Area residents are planning to leave the region in the next few years, according to a survey from the Bay Area Council.

The survey results show a 6 percent increase from last year in residents who want to relocate. In 2016, 34 percent of survey respondents said they were planning on leaving.

Residents cite housing costs, overall high costs of living and traffic as reasons to move out of the area.

"These results are tough to report, but we can't let this growing pessimism become a self-fulfilling prophecy," said council president Jim Wunderman in a news release.

"Reality is pointing a lot of people to the borders, said Don Perata, one of the Bay Area's elder retired statesmen. The former school teacher, Alameda County Supervisor, State Assemblyman, State Senator and Senate President, now a political consultant, has spent almost all of his professional life in public service.

Perata says housing is only the sorest of sore points. "In Oakland, right now, 97% of the 2,000 units that are in construction, are market rate," said the Former Senate President. His only vote these days: the same one we all have. "We are hollowing out our middle class. People cannot afford to live any longer and we are hollowing out our servant class," said Perata.

Perata summed up the rampant Bay Area's homeless situation as such:  "The hard fact of homelessness today is, that is the result of decades of making decisions without any accountability." 

Of the 461 respondents who said they wanted to leave the Bay Area, 24 percent said they would move within California and 61 percent said they would leave the state altogether. 

KTVU's Tom Vacar contributed to this report