[brucelidl]

10 year Davis resident here, with generally quite Yimby tendencies. I would support something like this, as we do absolutely need more (and if possible) cheaper housing in town for students. The university is the whole reason the town exists and it's just not healthy to make it prohibitive for students to live here, while at the same time force university staff to live in cheaper surrounding towns and then commute in and out, in my opinion.

But I do have to be realistic, the Nimby feelings in this town are VERY strong. Everybody who buys a house here seems to feel the town should stay exactly the way it was on the day after they arrived, without any recognition of how blinkered that is. The legal fight against something like this would be intense, to say the least. It would require a developer with great lawyers, very deep pockets and the thickest of skins.

[vinhboy]

I don't live in Davis anymore, but I did live there for 10+ years and used to own a home there. I love Davis. As Sheldon Copper from Big Bang theory puts it, it's my "zero-zero-zero-zero".

While I don't consider myself a NIMBY, because I wouldn't go out of my way to stop a development project, I do appreciate how it has kept Davis a really nice place to live.

I now live in Elk Grove, there are 3 Walmart within 5 minutes of me. Urban sprawl here is ridiculous and can be measured by how many dead skunks, and homeless coyotes you find on the road because farm land and wild spaces are turning into giant air conditioned homes (which I am totally guilty of owning). Folsom, Rancho Cordova, Roseville are the same. If you want to see what happens when Davis grow into a giant city, move to one of these places.

I am not sure what my point is. I guess I am just saying that what Davis is, is not bad, it can be worse.

But for the sake of conversation, if we are going to raze small towns like Davis in the quest of more housing friendly cities, I recommend we model it after Bellevue, WA. They have skyscrapers, and it's beautiful. But then again, that just speaks to the wealth disparity more than anything else... Which is also what keeps Davis so nice.

[kristopolous]

It's either going to go vertical or horizontal.

If people afraid of sprawl say no to vertical, then horizontal is going to happen just outside of wherever they care about.

Many people's politics are wildly irrationally disconnected from their sentiments.

I used to live in Davis. If I was King, I'd steamroll everything between A&B and 1st and Russell and replace it with ~30-40 story apartment buildings with multilevel bike parking like in Amsterdam (ex: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1e/c4/d7/1ec4d7a99c2151699afe...), and rooftop bars and cafes.

The walls would be a mix of vertical gardening (ex: https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/htt...) and photovoltaic windows. The bottom floors would have retail and dedicated community space.

The buildings would further have multi-level skywalks connecting them with small nook like terraces (ex: https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/59f1/27ba/b22e/38e2/a...)

There would intentionally, by design, be zero parking spaces except to accommodate the handicapped.

That's as Davis as you're going to get while actually solving the problem

[kevinburke]

I guess that’s the idea behind trying to add infill housing, is to prevent ugly sprawl.

Davis has one of the highest bicycle mode shares of any city in the state. It’s an ideal place to add denser housing without the additional traffic or parking lots that blight a lot of bigger (and less dense) cities.

[andrewia]

As someone who grew up in Elk Grove since 2001 and still visits every few months, it's an example of both NIMBY and YIMBY policies. It seems Elk Grove's city hall followed NIMBY tendencies and zoned many areas as RD-5 or worse, prohibiting multi-family dwellings. Its sprawl was partially caused by developers doing "hopscotch development" - Delta Shores was empty for over 20 years before that was infilled and the lots behind it are still empty. Same applies to the Costco and Mercy Hospital near Trader Joe's. Moving on, Elk Grove also has redeeming qualities - it is a suburb that is very racially diverse, partially thanks to the newer, relatively affordable houses in the south. I attended Cosumnes Oaks High School when it was still a lottery admissions system and saw this myself (and after it was switched to a zone admissions system that favored low-income neighborhoods, heardabout the subsequent increase in fights). However, an interesting highlight is the concept surrounding Laguna Town Hall (created when Laguna was trying to split off into its own city). There's apartments, restaurants, a large park, and an Apple campus within walking distance of each other. You can also see good ideas like new senior apartments being built right next to the Trader Joe's in Costco shopping centers for walkability. And I'd be remiss if I'd I didn't mention Elk Grove's network of bike trails, which my father says are enjoyable to ride.

So I'd say Elk Grove's sprawl was driven by NIMBY-style regulation that encouraged low density housing and failed to address the effects of hopscotch development. Within those failures, Elk Grove has a few gimpses of higher density and urban planning, as well as anecdotes about the benefits of mixing different socioeconomic classes.

[nappy]

People tend to vote with their feet and their dollars. It's unclear to me how Elk Grove is "worse" than Davis from your description, besides that there are multiple places for lower income to shop closer to metropolitan areas, in this case Sacramento. Skunks aren't unique to Elk Grove, they're n very urban environments too. "Homeless coyotes" might be a unique phenomenon, most are wild.

[ballenf]

As a complete outsider, what I don't understand is why there's so much NIMBYism in CA and such strong (and laudable) support for easy immigration. If not for immigration the US population growth would have slowed to a crawl and there would be much less pressure.

I guess housing prices wouldn't rise as quickly, but I doubt that's a big part of the motivation.

[brendan5555]

I’m surprised there are so many Walmarts as well given the number of NIMBY in EG. my wife went to the med school there and the folks in Stonelake voted against the new hospital.

[TulliusCicero]

> While I don't consider myself a NIMBY, because I wouldn't go out of my way to stop a development project, I do appreciate how it has kept Davis a really nice place to live.

It's possible to develop in a way that doesn't involve giant strip malls and tons more cars, y'know. Most YIMBY's are urbanists, and would be much more in favor of supporting walking, biking and transit, rather than cars cars cars.

[dandellion]

What is "zero-zero-zero-zero"? I tried looking it up and can't see anything relevant in this context.

[SubiculumCode]

16 years resident of Davis who just bought a house in nearby Woodland. Davis homes are impossible to afford without two 100k+ salaries. I loved a lot of things about Davis, but this is not one.

edit: for those curious about Davis, visit the wiki: https://localwiki.org/davis/

[anyfactor]

There is one comment on that article, it perfectly reflects what you are saying.

[wsinks]

Nice response! I only went to Davis, I was definitely curious what someone living there currently thinks.

I was fortunate to always live in Davis while I went there, but it definitely wasn't inexpensive!

[rob74]

Time for my favorite Game of Thrones quote:

> Jon Snow: What did father use to say? Everything before the word "but" is horse sh|t.

"I would support something like this [...] but fortunately it's only theoretical, because there are enough NIMBYs to make sure it has no chance of actually happening"

But I know the feeling, that was me one year ago: "I would love to get a Covid vaccine right away, but (fortunately) there are people with higher priorities who have to get it (and field test it) first". But I have to mention that I did get vaccinated eventually...

[brucelidl]

Yeah, I can see what you are saying here, but there are some of us around here who support more housing. My reaction was based primarily in just how intense and varied the no growth sentiment is in this town. It honestly takes me aback at times. City council meetings can be surreal.