When I see a new location (in person or on screen), I struggle to orient myself until I see what the open spaces look like. Buildings and streets, no matter how quaint, always feel oddly contextless. The Bay Area is defined by rolling hills and the salt flats and marshes surrounding the bay itself.
A mouldering Pick N’ Pull car lot near Silliman Center is being updated into nearly 200 single family homes, as voted on at the Dec. 11 Newark City Council. While houses are definitely preferable to a parking lot, a minority led by Citizen’s Committee to Complete the Refuge felt that the site should instead be added to Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge to provide habitat and a natural barrier against sea level rise.
When I explain my own views on housing versus open space, I think back to one of the stories from my Christian upbringing.
Genesis 25 tells of a set of twins: Jacob the younger, and Esau the elder. In patriarchal times, those minutes count. A firstborn gets a double inheritance, plus family responsibility when the patriarch dies. But this story has a twist.
One day Esau returned home after a hunting expedition, suffering from extremes of hunger. (In the NIV translation, “I am about to die.”) Jacob, cozy at home, is making lentil stew. He agrees to share—if his older brother gives up his birthright. Esau’s like, okie-dokie sounds good.
Let’s defend Esau. He was in the wilderness doing the hard work of bringing down game for the household, probably for his father Isaac who appreciated this skill. There are no falafel joints in the Ancient Near East. The man was hangry. What good is a future benefit like a “birthright” when you’re literally about to drop dead because there’s nothing in your stomach?
In the same way, what good are some marshes, hills and vistas when so many people can’t afford a place to live? Let’s be practical and have some compassion. Esau made the smart choice. But that’s not how people tell the story. We remember Esau as a dupe and Jacob as an opportunist.
Fighting climate change, providing habitat for native species, supporting local farms, and healing residents’ bodies and souls—Bay Area open space is more like a quadruple inheritance to me, as well as a responsibility. I hope it can be that way for future Bay Areans too, and we figure out where to put the houses.
