The Boston metro region has a lot to recommend it. The economy is thriving, neighborhoods are revitalizing and, despite the natives’ predilection for complaint, the weather isn’t actually that bad.

Boston’s current desirability has many contributing factors: The city is still reaping rewards from its history as a scholarly hub. It adapted rapidly to accommodate vibrant and engaged residents as well as innovative and intellectual workers. Contrary to historical precedent, the city’s leaders were able to keep an open mind about the changes that took place within and outside the city limits.

And some of it was just good marketing. A lot can be said about the late mayor, but you can’t say he wasn’t canny. Boston’s current mayor, Marty Walsh, enjoys high approval rates that he generally deserves, but he has been in many ways a steward of Tom Menino’s legacy. Menino is not solely responsible for the city’s restored fortunes and he made his fair share of enemies along the way, but imagine how pleased and proud he would be of what the city has become. (He would, of course, take all the credit.)

For all these reasons and more, people want to live, work and play in metro Boston. And that first one is a big problem.

Local and state governments are eager to capitalize on businesses’ desire to relocate to the region. Boston’s burgeoning economy is a boon in the short term and, if diverse enough, a hedge against future downturns. But the problem is that those companies come with workers – and there’s nowhere to put them.

For now the new denizens of Boston want to live in the city proper, or at least in one of the neighboring cities. In part that’s due to a generational desire for urban environments. But commuting times are another huge factor in residents’ decisions about where to live.

Getting into Boston – by any mode of transportation, but particularly on the rails – is so challenging and frustrating that commuters have actually formed support groups. On a good day it can take two hours to travel 25 miles. On a bad day, it can take four or more. It is faster to walk from an apartment in Southie to a Seaport office building than it is take a bus. That is frankly pathetic.

If officials can’t get their acts together enough to build enough housing to support the residents who were already here, let alone all the new ones, there is little hope that they can effectively improve the area’s infrastructure woes.

That is a pity and a shame. Millennials will eventually age out of their urban love affair and look to the suburbs. The region should be preparing now to accommodate that mass migration, but it can’t even accommodate today’s typical Tuesday rush hour.

Without housing and transportation to support it, the city’s economic growth is unsustainable. And that is very bad news indeed.