Barry Broome, the CEO from Greater Sacramento came to Davis City Council on Tuesday night and delivered a presentation on the possibilities that Davis possesses for economic development and becoming a leader in high tech development in the region.
A key point he made is that Sacramento has an overreliance on Government jobs which both provides stability but also limits the growth potential of the region.
“When you lay out Davis to a venture capitalist, you get a much different reaction than if you were to say Sacramento,” Mr. Broome explained. “Sacramento is viewed as a government town in Silicon Valley, but Davis and UC Davis is viewed as an untapped resource.”
“I like to refer to Davis as the front door to the Silicon Valley for the region,” he said. Davis, he explained, helps to pull other communities along in the minds of Silicon Valley investors.
The Davis workforce is regional.
“29 percent of Davis residents work in Davis,” he explained. While we have pointed to the high number of people commuting in and out of Davis, as it turns out, that number is the highest in the region.
He noted only 17 percent of Roseville resident work in Roseville. Even with that number, Davis is still getting 71 percent of our jobs in other communities – pointing to the interdependence and inconnectivity of the region.
The numbers show ten percent of Davis residents work in Sacramento, 8 percent in Woodland, 3 percent in West Sacramento, and 2.8 percent in Vacaville.
“When communities get parochial over jobs and investment,” he said. “It’s really an inertia. It throws sand in the wheels when in fact, they’re all sharing the same success story.”
“It’s really important to have that cooperation, because no one community can host its economy,” he said.
Economic development, he explained, “if you do it right, it’s a profitable proposition.”
2050 is a key year. By 2050, the world’s population is expected to be 9.1 billion. Food production, therefore needs to increase by 70 percent between 2005 and 2050 to keep up. He said, changes in temperature and precipitation threaten agricultural productivity and the capacity to feed the world’s population.
Davis has the ability to help solve the world’s food security, farming and climate change problems.
Mr. Broome noted that UC Davis has been planning a research park since 1994. There are 174 universities that have research parks and UC Davis is still not one of them.
“It’s a bit of a frustration that we haven’t been able to figure out how to take this research park forward between the city and between the university,” he said. He noted that even though Woodland is doing their own park, “they’re not going to really capture innovation – that’s eight miles away.”
“Innovation has to be within 200 yards,” he said. “If you look at these successful research parks… the exchange between industry, commercial technology and important solutions like how do we feed the world in 2050, that is a point blank range relationship between the industries that are trying to solve the problems, the faculty that are developing contemporary research and the students that are being trained to go into the industry and solve that problem.”
He explained that you need to have a triangle between the industry, the students, and the researchers building the technology models.
“If you don’t set the stage for them to interface closely together, it basically thwarts innovation and it hurts the ability to achieve this,” he said. “UC Davis has the opportunity to be among the most impactful universities on climate change, farming, food security.”
Davis is a community that doesn’t want to be impacted by growth and development. Barry Brown said that we need to do, “is empower ideas that match the values of the residents of Davis.”
He suggested that we look toward proven models of success and points to the University of Wisconsin Madison as a key comparison point.
He noted that both UC Davis and Wisconsin have Ag, Engineering, Vet and Med on the same campuses, they are the only two west of the Mississippi with all four. The faculty is resistant to this comparison because academically and scholarly, UC Davis has a much higher standing.
But Mr. Broome suggested that we look at economic impact instead.
Wisconsin has a $1.16 billion R&D budget (6th in the US) compared to $742 million, 27th in the US for UC Davis. Wisconsin has created nearly 200,000 private sector jobs compared to just 72,000 for UC Davis. They have a $2.7 billion endowment compared to $1.1 billion for UC Davis and a $15 billion annual economic impact, compared to $8.1 billion for UC Davis.
“Not nearly as attractive as California and not nearly as attractive as our region,” he said. He sees this an “incredible missed opportunity.”
The Research Triangle Park is another comparison point. Here he compares Duke, UNC and NC State to UC Davis, Sac State and UC Berkeley.
“I think we need to think more about capturing Berkeley, they’re 60 minutes away, there’s Berkeley graduates all over this community,” he said.
Barry Broome noted that “the number one goal of a UC Davis graduate is to stay in this community. That used to be like ten percent nine years ago. That’s now in the high 40s. If you ask a UC Davis graduate where you want, they say, I want to be here.”
“When we don’t produce economic outcomes, we lose our college graduates,” he said. “We’re actually last in capturing our college graduates, which goes back to that economic model. Tradable sectors suffer. Innovation suffers. Inclusion suffers.”
Research Triangle Park is famous across the world from an asset standpoint. “If we capture Berkeley, not even in our league.” The numbers show $296 million in R&D investment compared to $134 million for UC Davis- Berkeley. $12.9 billion combined endowment compared to $5.45 billion.
The question is how do you take Davis 2050. He noted, “There’s a lot of talk about Aggie Square.” He sees Aggie Square more about biomedical research and novel therapies.
“This is the community that’s going to host the technology and ideas that are going to help us with climate change, food and agriculture, new energy policies and things like that,” Mr. Broome said calling them “very complementary developments.”
Later in responding to a question about the importance of Davis hosting an innovation center. He said, “You can always manage economic prosperity if you do it right.”
Barry Broome explained, “I would love to see the city of Davis have a global reputation as a city and a community. We have a great reputation inside California, but I would like to see that resonate nationally.”
He added, “It’s always good to build a tax base” and he said you don’t need to build a Wal-Mart to build a tax base. “What people don’t realize is that two-thirds of the tax base is the disposable income of the people in your community.”
“Even if you took 500,000 square feet, which would not change the whole eco-system here or one million square feet of really sophisticated innovation labs which we could get done. We could put 2000 or 3000 really elite jobs there, collect the income, not impact your bikes, not impact your greenspace, not impact your housing…”
“In my opinion these companies will succeed more successfully in their mission if they have better infrastructure in the city of Davis.” He said, “I don’t think they can do that by hopscotching into Woodland.”
He explained that the first step out the door, the 500,000 to 1 million square feet, “you have to create this experience within a stone’s throw of the university research labs.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Alexandria, VA may be a better analogy. Tech and government contractors across the moat from the swamp.
Kudos to our City Council for recognizing the significance of this conversation and its untapped potential to further goals of both the community and the university.
Special thanks to Mr. Broome and the leaders of GSEC for the candor of his presentation and the clarity and optimism of the underlying message.
Keep that number in mind for all future Davis business parks. That’s 600′ feet, one city block.
The site of University Mall comes to mind.
What he suggested – and I didn’t put it in there – was the location of the initial 500K to 1 million park was located near Mondavi ideally and then the secondary ones being URP and MRIC.
“Near Mondavi” means it would have to be on campus.
1,000,000 square feet = 23 acres.
Probably more, as the 200 acre site is envisioned as about 2.4 million square feet. He acknowledged it wasn’t realistic (which is why I didn’t print it), but that illustrates the concept that in his view, the mesh point is close in – Davis not Woodland.
Who suggested that this guy speak at the council? (The “CEO from Greater Sacramento”.)
By the way, is there a CEO from “Lesser” Sacramento?
Greater Sacramento refers to the Greater Sacramento Region.
Who invited him to speak?
It was an agendized item. The city manager makes the agenda along with the Mayor. I don’t know the specific answer.
How to kill a good joke.
Except for this, apparently:
29 is bigger than 17
What that means is that Roseville has a significantly higher percentage of outbound commuters. (83%, to be precise.)
Yes, I see that this is what was meant. (The wording confused me, initially. Especially given the tone of the article.)
Everywhere in the region has considerably more outbound commuters – probably because of the university’s presence in Davis. Even so, 71 percent is still very high and not environmentally ideal.
Davis already has a net inflow of commuters, due to UCD. Adding more commercial development will increase this imbalance, whether or not housing is included.
Adding housing would also increase the number of outbound commuters.
I commuted to Sacramento from Davis for years, using fully-subsidized public transportation. So did many of my neighbors.
Compared to my co-workers, I had one of the easiest and most environmentally-friendly commutes.
I would suggest that Davis has a higher number of home based workers, like me. We also have a high number of students who are not employed at all so that would skew the results if not accounted for.
Maybe it’s because people don’t want to ruin their weekend by running into someone from the office.
Let’s be honest, here. Davis doesn’t need more jobs, nor does it need to enhance its reputation.
As usual, this is all about money. And, if housing is included, then service costs increase as well.
Ron – you’re entitled to your opinion.
Thanks. So are you, and everyone else.
So I shouldn’t have reported on a 40 minute presentation by Barry Broome at the council meeting last night?
My question still stands
As a straight-out reporting of what was said, I see no problem with it. It certainly coincides with your views (as well as past and future articles that you’ll write).
If I was reporting on it, I’d probably try to find out how he was invited (or otherwise chose to appear), along with more background regarding exactly what his function is.
Ultimately, I don’t see this as a particularly important article. It is not an analysis.
I don’t know exactly who invited him, but he is a big deal. Greater Sacramento is the regional economic development agency, you can google Barry Broome and find him very prominent in regional circles. To me it suggests along with a host of other factors that Economic Development is going to be a much more prominent issue than it was the previous two years following the demise of the innovation center proposals.
Here is a list of the officers and the board of directors. The board has representation from nearly every local government in the region. https://www.selectsacramento.com/invest-with-us/board-of-directors/
Actually, how does one get 40 minutes to speak? (Other than on the Vanguard.) 😉
I hope that any economic development is objectively analyzed (and isn’t simply assumed to be positive, for the city). There seems to be a blind mantra developing, regarding this topic.
Ultimately, the only way that economic development directly contributes to city coffers is through property taxes (which are hopefully greater than the increased costs to the city). And, the city only gets a portion of those taxes, to begin with.
People in the innovation fields are attractive neighbors IMO and create an interesting and dynamic community.
David Greenwald said “Greater Sacramento is the regional economic development agency,”.
No they aren’t. The Greater Sacramento Economic Council is just a private business funded by other private businesses. They’re a mouthpiece for large company CEOs.
It’s no surprise that big money supports big money. Look at what Broome said about Katehi three years ago (from the Bee):
“In a statement issued Friday Broome said, “Chancellor Katehi has been and continues to be a dedicated leader and a valuable partner within the Greater Sacramento community. It’s common practice for university presidents to serve on corporate boards. I’m surprised that something so prevalent among university leadership has generated this reaction.”
Well, that sinks their ship for me.
Several reactions and feelings pop up after reading this column. Perhaps the most notable is this Barry Broome fellow sure has his act together. Personally, being only casually engaged in talk of economic growth for our community, Mr. Broome brought forth points I’ve never heard said before. He gave a strategic long-range blueprint for the Davis economy that is very intriguing. And Broome implied that Woodland is stealing our lunch money.
If anybody is aware of the motivation for Mr. Broome’s appearance before the Council, please share. Broome is at least somewhat motivated by personal and professional self-interest–and that’s fine. He correctly said economic growth for the region benefits everybody in that region.
The last observation to note is that there is an embarrassing question some folks will ask. Among the numerous economic interests in Davis, the Council, the County and City Chamber, the DDBA, how come we have to hear this from Sacramento instead of you?
His motivation is that his organization is an economic development organization, Davis is part of it, and Rochelle Swanson serves on their board (not sure if that should be present or past tense).
On your last point – it’s a message that’s been delivered at various times locally too. Rob White probably most prolifically. Rochelle Swanson as well. The new Chamber CEO introduced herself last night, she has a background in economic development. To me this was a reminder that economic development is still on the table and Davis still has a prominent role to play.
First a disclosure that his predecessor sits on my board of directors. She is a Davis resident and has been for years. Her kids attended Davis schools. She retired to other endeavors. She was a board member when she previously headed SACTO.
…and she and I asked this question over and over and over again.
The answer is a lack of qualified leadership in Davis combined with the elite science resistance.
Davis is under-represented in business leadership, and over-represented in non-business science and government-policy/worker brains that lack understanding and sophistication for these topics… yet for some reason they have convinced themselves that they got it, and also, I think, they think the business stuff is sophomoric, chaotic, and subordinate to their marvelousness. They dabble in the subject matter… but I think in their dinosaur brains they recognize their insecurity in knowledge and hence resist growth in the thing that causes them this discomfort. Think about it… we would have had commercial space at NISHI #1 that would have satisfied this 200 yards recommendation and yet the science resistance came at it with an absurd toxic air claim. The other blocking mechanism is the scientific theories of man-made global warming, and also the intellectually dishonest meme of disappearing farm land… and perpetually granular alarms about destruction of natural habitat.
It is science against the economy.
Unfortunately these science people lack the complete understanding of where the funds come from to pay for their salaries, pensions and research. Maybe they know of a type of tree that grows money and have been hording the knowledge and cash.
Jeff M,
Whoa, I didn’t realize that you were so anti-science! I assume that you are a creationist who doesn’t believe in evolution and you think that cell phones run on magic, because that’s the only way that you can be so dismissive of the scientific work that underlies all of those findings and projections. Even if you don’t accept that climate change is human-caused and inertially inevitable, you have to be foolish to bet against Pascal’s Wager and deny that there is any risk. If on the other hand you are rational and you accept that there is risk, the potential catastrophic consequences must lead you to taking the same actions as you would if you were certain of the outcome.
As usual, your broad characterizations are off base (and you got the opposition to Nishi 1.0 and 2.0 mixed up–air quality came up the second time–Nishi 1.0 lost on fiscal impacts and traffic–not exactly “scientific” issues). Again, you’re not John Galt ready to step in and save Davis with your singular business acumen.
I have been disappointed in the inability to bring a functional research park to Davis, but I see the problem more from the lack of support from UCD. There needs to be a strong “town and gown” coalition that highlights the strengths of such a facility rather than having just the city carry the promotional burdens.
Nope. I am anti politicization of science. I am any science playing outside their scientific lane. I am anti anti business. I am anti NIMBY. I am anti hypocrisy. I am also anti intellectual dishonesty… especially that demonstrated in the name of science. I am anti folks like you that come across as all knowing about all things they clearly don’t understand. You should ask more questions… you are clearly still in development mode.
Jeff M, your proclamations were anti-science, not anti politicization. Each of those items you listed are backed by significant scientific research. Not all of them are necessarily correct (and as part of science, findings are often reviewed and altered) but the preponderance of the evidence weighs in favor of those general findings as of now. Now, you may have a problem with proposed policy responses to those scientific findings, but you have provided NO evidence (and cannot) to refute those findings, as inconvenient as they are to your general position that no one should be held responsible for harming someone else unless that other person hold clear individual property rights.
For those unfamiliar with Broome – here’s an early article in the Bee when he was hired in 2015: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article9248447.html
Strange, how there’s so little concern about the conversion of existing commercial sites for residential usage. (“Wrong” location, size, shape, whatever.)
Like Goldilocks, the only one that’s “just right” happens to be on prime farmland, outside of city limits. And, will include housing, because the theoretical workers are demanding it – according to the developers.
Ron, my personal opinion is that the issue with the current sites in the City is critical mass. None of those sites (with the exception of the dream of the PGE yard) have sufficient size to leap over the “critical mass” threshold. Some of the existing sites are along Second Street, and as such are part of an existing critical mass, but the majority of the sites are not. That was the drawback to the Families First site, and is the drawback to the Chiles Road site. Even along Second Street you need look no further than the challenge FMC-Schilling faces in its long-term plans. There simply isn’t any room for expansion of their existing facility.
Matt: Some of those sites were pretty large (6-7 acres). I’m not sure that there’s many that need 200 acres. And, if there are, they’d likely leave Davis, regardless. Other locations are going to be cheaper, and easier to deal with. Other cities (which don’t have a UC) “salivate” over this kind of thing. (Reminds me of the race-to-the-bottom, with Amazon.)
I understand that (from a developer’s point of view) potential commercial markets and locations are examined regionally, not necessarily by city.
You saw what happened when the Chiles site attempted to do what you seem to be suggesting – it didn’t work. They even brought Barry in to help them, it wasn’t for lack of effort.
David: If true, I’d say that this speaks to lack of market demand for commercial development space. (Ultimately, the same reason that the innovation center proposals failed – combined with the greater profitability of housing development, for developers at least.)
I think that suggests a lack of understanding for how the market works.
Vacancies are a pretty good sign, regarding how the market works.
Now, if you want to talk housing developments, have I got a deal for you . . .
Ron, for a single company 6-7 acres is more often than not a sufficient parcel size. For example the current DMG Mori footprint is probably that size. FMC Schilling is also pretty close that size. Recology is a bit smaller. But there is very little room, if any, for those companies to expand their businesses. FMC Schilling was clear that its preference was for 40 acres for their new footprint.
But those parcels only work if the company’s business operations are concise. The building/labs footprint for HM.Clause on South Mace Blvd is pretty close to that size, but it is immediately contiguous to their research fields. PG&E’s operations on Second Street cover 25 acres. FMC Schilling was very clear in the MRIC discussions that it was looking to occupy 40 acres of the MRIC campus. When Monsanto consolidated its disparate Yolo County facilities (including its Fifth Street facility in Davis) at the centralized location in Woodland, the facility footprint became more than 6-7 acres, and like HM.Clause, Monsanto has additional research fields that expand the 6-7 acres substantially.
Each of the above examples do not accommodate the “synergy” desire that many companies prefer to have … as described by other posters in this thread.
Bottom-line, it isn’t just the quantity of supply, but also the quality of supply with respect to commercially zoned parcels in Davis.
Matt: If existing companies are looking for more space, than it seems that their existing space may go unoccupied. It defies logic that there’s no demand for mid-sized parcels, and that the only demand is for larger ones.
Regarding “synergy”, I’m skeptical. There is no location within Davis that’s truly isolated from any other. There’s large amounts of undeveloped commercial property in Davis (projected to satisfy market demand for the next 40-65 years, according to EPS – as discussed in the historical analysis for 3820 Chiles Road).
If there was truly a market demand for innovation centers (which are really just business parks), they would have popped up all over the region, by now. If anything, the MRIC site is more isolated from existing businesses (and UCD, itself) than anything else near Davis.
All innovation center sites/proposals have failed, with 2-3 converted entirely to housing. (Nishi, WDAAC, and the Cannery). Some try to blame Measure R for that, even though housing is supposedly more difficult to win approval for.
And again, I understand that commercial markets are looked at from a regional point of view, not necessarily by city. And, those other cities are likely more desperate for jobs, and willing to “make a deal”. (For one thing, I don’t believe they have the same mitigation requirements.)
There is another aspect that is missing in this discussion…the inventory of commercial land in town is not just sitting there waiting to be ‘homesteaded,’ it is currently owned by some private entity. Companies looking to develop must first find a willing seller (or potential partner). Many of the parcels in town are undeveloped simply because their owners are unwilling to sell at a price that is feasible for the proposed project. Measure R exacerbates this issue as it restricts the available inventory of land, thus driving up the price further.
Last year, I wrote an article here that summarized a journal article that the cost of assembling a number of small parcels into a larger one sufficient for a research park would add 15% to 40% to land cost of development. That would wipe out most of the expected returns to an investor. So those commercial sites are more viable as smaller residential parcels.
Yes, Richard. We all know that the only businesses that are viable are the ones located in a sprawling, peripheral development (which will also include housing).
I sure hope that there will be an objective analysis which compares the portion of property taxes that the city would receive, vs. the extra costs for serving such a development.
Let’s see a proposal arise that wouldn’t include housing – just to test the theory that there’s actual demand.
Ron
I didn’t say that, so don’t be so sarcastic at trying to put words in my mouth with a gross generalization that I didn’t say or imply.
I said that it is much more expensive to collect the parcels closer to the core of the city needed to build a larger innovation center of 200 acres than it is to build a series of smaller residential developments across the same acreage of disparate parcels. Smaller commercial developments may go on those parcels as well, but they won’t be part of a viable innovation park.
As for the economic contribution of such a park to the city’s fiscal health, it goes well beyond just property tax revenues. There are also other direct revenue sources, as well as the other taxes generated from the new ancillary economic activity.
Under your operating premise in your comments, EVERY business in town is a fiscal money loser, so we should close ALL of them down. And since residential also is a money loser, we should force EVERYONE to move out of town. It’s just damn surprising that ANY city can function in your view of the fiscal world!
“29 percent of Davis residents work in Davis,” he explained. While we have pointed to the high number of people commuting in and out of Davis, as it turns out, that number is the highest in the region.
The numbers show ten percent of Davis residents work in Sacramento, 8 percent in Woodland, 3 percent in West Sacramento, and 2.8 percent in Vacaville.
———
The really interesting thing about the jobs numbers Mr. Broome shared is what he didn’t discuss. He was only talking about half of the jobs. Why was that? What does the other half tell us?
Jobs in Davis = 29%
Jobs in Sacramento = 10%
Jobs in Woodland = 8%
Jobs in West Sacramento = 3%
Jobs in Vacaville = 2.8%
When you add those five numbers up you get 52.8%, which means
Jobs not in Davis, Sac, Woodland, West Sac or Vacaville = 47.2%
Plainfield Station – 47.1%
Allendale – 0.1%
Many are likely students and retired.
Jim, where are those students working?
For the most part, people who are “retired” do not have a job, and would not be in Broome’s statistics.
Source? I am working from the quote which says “29 percent of Davis residents work in Davis,” Therefore the universe is adult residents. Do you have something different?
I wouldn’t assume that’s the case. He didn’t define it, but I took it to mean of those working, not of all residents.
Good point. It would probably be useful if Mr. Broome clarified whether he is referring to all residents, adult residents or working residents. it would be meaningful to know whether Broome’s stats include residents who are DJUSD-age or younger.
All of which bring me full circle back to my original comment, “The really interesting thing about the jobs numbers Mr. Broome shared is what he didn’t discuss.”
Matt,
A detailed demographic employment profile – similar to those produced annually by Metro Portland and other model cities referenced in the Davis Visioning seminars that lead up to the DPAC – was requested prior to DPAC’s launch and again during its early stages.
To date, I don’t believe any statistics have been compiled.
There is a lot of new data from the work done by BAE and Joe Minnicozzi’s firm – all of which is illuminating for anyone interested in taking the time to review. But the city – as an entity – remains in the dark concerning its current status as a well-paying, technology employment hub. Seems there is very little curiosity or appreciation as to why this information might be relevant to the conversation at hand.
Thread cleanup:
47 comments removed.Interestingly the “cleanup” involved deleting Greenwald’s giant blunder that the Greater Sacramento Economic Council is “the economic development agency” for the region, when in reality it is a private company that gets 80% of its funding from a collection of about 40 large companies in the region (the remaining 20% from about 20 city and county jurisdictions) . It is a marketing mouthpiece for these companies; really, just a regional Chamber of Commerce-type entity.
It is also interesting that the Davis City Council is perfectly comfortable providing this CEO 40 minutes to talk, but does not do the same for representatives to discuss the needs of the 50% of Davis workers who make under $40,000 annually (old stats in the City’s General Plan).
[Moderator: the comment went because it was in reply to another comment and gets deleted automatically.]
And I don’t consider my comment in error. It’s a partnership between public and private interests whose mission is economic development in the region.
David: you called them the economic development agency for the region. There is no sense of that that is remotely accurate. A small portion of their budget is from marketing funds from local governments, while the vast majority are from a small number of giant money interests. They are they mouthpiece for giant corporate interests.
Perhaps Mr. Broome’s most thought provoking comment:
I would posit this as the sentiment most lacking in discussion of this critically important issue.
Fundamentally, the community has lost its confidence and capacity to discuss this proposition.
The notion that such a proposition might be problematic is the biggest hurdle facing the community.
You can always manage climate and weather, and results of a poker game… if you do it right…
Whose economic prosperity? All? Select few? Any suggestions from the person quoted as to how we can reach “utopia”? The quote is a throw-away bromide… “a trite and unoriginal idea or remark, typically intended to soothe or placate. “feel-good bromides create the illusion of problem solving””
John, while I agree with Mr. Broome’s comment, I believe the issue here is Davis is even more fundamental . . . specifically that there is no clear agreement within the community about whether economic prosperity is desirable.
That goes back to a comment I made in the week before Thanksgiving. Davis as a community has long seen its identity as “a University town” and its economic prosperity was driven by the prosperity (economic and otherwise) of UCD. For a substantial proportion of the community, that was all the economic prosperity that was needed. It was somewhat like a Ponzi Scheme, in that as long as UCD and the community continued to grow at the same proportional rate, the economic prosperity was sufficient to “pay the bills.”
But times change, and for many in the community, UCD’s prosperity grew to be unwieldy/detrimental. As a result, the community growth rate dropped off and the Ponzi Scheme no longer was self-sustaining.
As Sharla C said on 11/17 “no one seems to have a clear vision of how Davis should grow.” I would take her comment a step further. I personally don’t believe that there is a clear vision of either what Davis is, or what it will be. Some want to hold on to the illusion that nothing has changed. Others are willing to hold onto the University Town identity and deal with the collapse of the Ponzi Scheme by paying the additional taxes needed to cover the costs of the City’s services to which they have become accustomed. The trajectory of that second alternative is (A) a community that is more and more expensive to live in, and (B) an ever-shrinking number of students in the local school system.
The challenge for Davis is to (in the words of James and Deborah Fallows) give its citizens “a sense of how today’s efforts are connected to what happened yesterday and what they hope for tomorrow.”
“there is no clear agreement within the community about whether economic prosperity is desirable.”
That is largely correct. Look no further than Ron’s comment questioning whether we need to add jobs.
Matt Williams stated: “But times change, and for many in the community, UCD’s prosperity grew to be unwieldy/detrimental. As a result, the community growth rate dropped off and the Ponzi Scheme no longer was self-sustaining.”
I disagree partly. What happened is that Davis has continued to grow at about the same rate as the surrounding greater Sacramento region and California as a whole (about 0.5% housing growth annually in recent years), while UC Davis has had a massive acceleration in enrollment growth. This has increased UC Davis’ prosperity greatly while they have not taken responsibility for meeting their fair-share obligations for this growth by, for example, providing adequate housing on campus.
Rik Keller said . . . “What happened is that Davis has continued to grow at about the same rate as the surrounding greater Sacramento region and California as a whole (about 0.5% housing growth annually in recent years), while UC Davis has had a massive acceleration in enrollment growth”
Rik, as shown in the table below, from 1970 through 2000 Davis consistently grew at a rate that was higher than both the State of California and the Nation as a whole, with population change over that 30-year period of 257%, 170% and 138% respectively.
During the same 30-year period UCD enrollment grew pretty much in lock step with the City for the first 20 years, with a dip in the final 10 years. The overall UCD enrollment change for the 30-year period was 194%. That calculates to a compound annual growth rate of 2.23%. From 2000 thru 2017 UCD’s compound annual enrollment growth rate was 2.45% … essentially a continuation of the historical trend.
Looking at City of Davis over the same period, the compound annual population growth rate from 1970 through 2000 was 3.20%. From 2000 through 2017 the City’s compound annual population growth rate dropped to 0.80%.
During those same two periods the State of California grew at compound annual population growth rates of 1.78% and 0.92% respectively, and the Nation grew at compound annual population growth rates of 1.09% and 0.87% respectively.
Bottom-line, Davis grew substantially faster than the State and the Nation from 1970 through 2000, and grew at a slightly faster rate than UCD from 1970 through 2000. Then from 2000 to 2017 Davis growth plunged, while UCD growth continued at its historical levels.
https://davisvanguard.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Screen-Shot-2018-06-11-at-4.25.26-PM.png
Matt: I believe I produced that table you posted, so I am familiar with the data. You aren’t interpreting it entirely accurately.
For example in the last (almost) 40 years, Davis had a population growth rate almost identical to California for 3 out of the 4 decades. Davis growing faster than California is an anomaly that only happened during one decade out of the 4 (1990-2000).
On the other hand, UC Davis enrollment has skyrocketed past the city and the state’s growth rates in the past two decades, just as I described earlier.
Rik, you are absolutely correct, the data table was created by you.
With that said, both the 2000-2010 period and the 2010-2017 period show California growing more than Davis, which is wholly consistent with the point I was making. Also the 1970-2000 period shows Davis growing substantially more than California … at almost double (179% to be exact) the compound annual growth rate (3.20% for Davis and 1.78% for the State).
Two things happened in the 2000 to 2010 decade (1) the collapse of the housing bubble, and (2) the passage of Measure J. Compared to California-statewide, factor (1) affected housing prices, housing availability and proportion of foreclosures in Davis very little, but the overall lending atmosphere certainly suppressed new residential construction (both SFRs and Multi-Family). Factor (2) did not affect California, only Davis, but the combination of both those factors produced the four-fold drop in Davis (3.2% to 0.8%), while factor (1) produced a two-fold drop at the state level (1.78% to 0.92%).
UCD enrollment was not affected by either factor (1) or factor (2), and as a result its historical annual growth rate of 2.23% continued on its historical trajectory, rising a modest 10% to 2.45%. There simply has not been any “skyrocketing” of UCD enrollment growth. To put that change in everyday life terms, would you consider an increase in your car’s speed from 50 MPH to 55 MPH to be “skyrocketing.”
So bottom-line, UCD’s immunity to the effects of factors (1) and (2) meant no change, the State’s vulnerability to factor (1) produced a two-fold drop, and the combined impact of factors (1) and (2) on the City produced a four-fold drop. To put that change in everyday life terms, how would you characterize a decrease in your car’s speed from 50 MPH to 25 MPH? How about 50 MPH to 13 MPH?
In closing, UCD did not change . . . the City did.
Matt: I did the table but did not invent the data. Your interpretation of the data seems willfully myopic: you are treating Davis as existing in a vacuum, when its growth rates have been almost identical to the larger context of California for 3 out of the 4 last decades. You are acting like population growth in the 1970s is the natural order of things.
It is perfectly reasonable to say that UC Davis enrollment rates have skyrocketed compared to statewide population growth in the past two decades, and especially in the last 8 years.