What happened after that is the birth of Silicon Valley. You have Stanford graduating more and more engineers; you have companies coming here from the East Coast. Palo Alto transformed into something else. It’s not just a suburb anymore. Suddenly, you’re claiming to be the innovation capital of the planet.

To some extent, that kind of dissonance is what we’re still seeing. There are people here who came because it was a nice suburb and are frankly just inconvenienced by the whole Silicon Valley thing. Then there are people who value this place as the economic engine that it is for America. Local government is controlled mostly by older homeowners. They really don’t have an interest in adding housing here. They just plain don’t want to see more people in the city.

Dudley: Did you anticipate that your resignation letter was going to touch such a nerve?

Downing: I had no idea. I thought maybe the local paper would write about it, but that’s about it. Honestly, I’m extraordinarily dumbfounded. For months now [on the city council], we’ve been hearing from our fire department that almost all our firefighters live three hours or more away. We’ve seen teachers come before city council and say, guys, we’re not going to renew our contracts because we can’t afford to live anywhere near here. Those are the stories people should pay attention to. If those people leave, the community is really in trouble. I’m struck by why anyone would care why one lawyer is leaving.

Dudley: When you see some of the comments and responses you’ve received to your letter, you see the sides tend to break on generational lines. You clearly see this as a conflict between younger and older residents.

Downing: I come from a family where we always wanted and expected to see future generations do better than us. What you see in Palo Alto is the opposite. You hear people saying, “My kids can’t afford to live here, and I’m OK with that.” Or, “If you can’t afford to live here, it means you’re not working hard enough. You don’t deserve to be here.” Or they say, “Why don’t you just keep renting forever? You’re not entitled to own a home.”

The reason for the history lesson is: We paved over the orchards to make way for the Baby Boomers, and now the Boomers are fighting with Millennials who want to turn one-story strip malls into four-story apartments.

It’s so jarring. When the Boomers were in their 20s and 30s, the government made it a priority for the middle class to be able to own a home. We created all these incentives to help make the American Dream come true. It’s such a core part of the Boomer generation. Now, these same people say, even though you’re highly educated professionals, you should be OK with renting for the rest of your lives.

It’s not like we’ve magically run out of room. Most of Silicon Valley is just ugly strip malls. We have tons of space for housing. We’re just choosing not to build it.