California is in the midst of a deep and persistent housing crisis, and Davis is no exception. For years, home prices and rents have surged far faster than wages, pushing out longtime residents, deterring new workers and families, and worsening inequality.
As we noted yesterday, you cannot raise incomes fast enough or high enough to chase prices that keep sprinting upward. When $100,000 is considered low income in some jurisdictions—the problem is not just wages and income, it’s housing.
In Davis, the signs are unmistakable: college students crowding into outdated rentals, workers commuting from far distances, and young families unable to afford to buy in the community they grew up in.
To address this crisis, we need more housing—yes, more supply—but not just any supply. We need affordable housing, missing middle housing, and homes that serve the full spectrum of community needs. We also need to move beyond the myths that distort public understanding and block progress.
As we have argued previously, California’s housing shortage is well-documented. According to the California Department of Housing and Community Development, the state needs to build 2.5 million new homes by 2030, with one million of those affordable to low- and very low-income households. The Legislative Analyst’s Office, the UC Berkeley Terner Center, and nonpartisan economists agree: chronic underbuilding—particularly in coastal and high-opportunity areas—has left the state with a severe supply-demand imbalance.
This isn’t just an academic debate. In Davis, median home prices exceed $900,000, while median household income hovers near $80,000. Renters face average rents of over $2,300 per month, and vacancy rates remain below a healthy 5%. This isn’t normal. It’s a structural failure.
Some claim that we don’t need to build more—that prices will fall on their own if demand weakens. While it’s true that markets fluctuate, this perspective misses the broader picture. California has been underproducing housing for decades. Minor price corrections caused by interest rates or market jitters don’t solve the fundamental scarcity. Waiting for prices to fall on their own is like hoping a drought will end if we just stop watering our gardens.
Moreover, when new homes are scarce, those who can afford to pay more outbid others for the same limited supply. This drives gentrification, displacement, and longer commutes. It also forces lower-income households into overcrowded units or into distant, car-dependent communities. The solution isn’t to accept this as inevitable. The solution is to build more housing, especially where jobs, transit, and schools are located.
A frequent misconception is that all new housing is luxury housing. In reality, even market-rate housing can ease pressure on older, more affordable units by filtering demand. Economists call this the “filtering effect”—new homes draw higher-income buyers, relieving demand for older units, which gradually become more affordable over time.
At the same time, California’s housing solution must include robust investments in affordable housing: subsidized homes for low-income families, working-class renters, and those with special needs. State and federal programs help, but local action is essential. Davis needs to commit to both zoning and funding for more affordable units—not in isolation, but integrated into vibrant, mixed-income communities.
One of the most overlooked tools in the housing toolkit is “missing middle” housing—duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, bungalow courts, and small apartment buildings. These housing types, common in pre-1950s neighborhoods, are often banned under modern zoning codes that prioritize large single-family lots. But they offer a natural bridge between single-family homes and high-rise apartments.
Missing middle housing can be more affordable to build and maintain, and it’s ideal for young professionals, seniors, and working families. It supports walkable neighborhoods, reduces infrastructure costs, and helps communities grow more sustainably. Davis, with its high quality of life and progressive values, should be leading the way in making room for this type of gentle density.
Davis has long protected farmland and open space through voter-approved urban growth boundaries, a commitment rooted in values of sustainability and environmental stewardship. But protecting open space doesn’t require blocking all growth. It requires thoughtful, compact, and community-oriented planning.
Preserving Measure J in a modified form while also planning for smart growth is not contradictory. In fact, it’s essential. If we fail to meet our housing needs internally, pressures will mount to build on the periphery. If we do nothing, housing pressures will only increase displacement, exacerbate inequality, and threaten the very values Davis claims to uphold.
Some argue that efforts to address the housing crisis will ruin community character, attract people who “don’t belong,” or lead to overpopulation. These arguments are not new—and they are often cloaked in misleading economic language. But they ultimately boil down to fear: fear of change, fear of new neighbors, fear of diversity.
Davis is not immune to these sentiments, but it can rise above them. The community can be inclusive, sustainable, and prosperous—all at once. That starts with recognizing that housing is not just a commodity; it is a foundation for opportunity, family stability, and community well-being.
We must stop treating housing as a zero-sum battle. Yes, there are trade-offs. But the current trajectory—of exclusion, scarcity, and rising costs—is neither sustainable nor just. California cannot thrive if its residents cannot afford to live where they work, learn, or raise families.
We need to embrace housing policies rooted in data, equity, and compassion. That means:
- Building more homes, especially near jobs and transit.
- Preserving and expanding affordable housing options.
- Legalizing missing middle housing in appropriate areas.
- Ending exclusionary zoning and red tape that blocks new housing.
- Investing in tenant protections and anti-displacement programs.
Davis has a chance to be a model for how to respond—not with fear, but with foresight. Not with obstruction, but with opportunity. Let’s stop pretending the housing crisis isn’t real and start working together to solve it.
From article: “One of the most overlooked tools in the housing toolkit is “missing middle” housing—duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, bungalow courts, and small apartment buildings.”
If you ask most people to define “missing middle” housing, the first thing they’ll say is, “what are you referring to”? Either that, or they’ll have their own definition, and assume that you’re referring to the same thing.
Sort of like “housing crisis” has no meaning.
The second thing they’ll probably say is that it looks a lot like 90% of the housing that already exists in Davis (with the exception of existing/new student housing), the new housing in The Cannery, the planned 96-unit single family development at Chiles Ranch, etc.
They’ll also say it looks a lot like the single-family sprawl in Woodland and in every other community throughout the region.
What they WON’T say is that it looks like “duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, bungalow courts, and small apartment buildings. ”
In any case, let us know when housing prices are the same everywhere. Until such time, additional “middle housing” will continue to be built in places like Woodland, in a state that isn’t growing in the first place.
Missing middle actually has a very specific meaning as the term refers to a very specific range of housing types that have been systematically excluded from zoning codes in cities like Davis for decades: duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, cottage courts, and small apartment buildings—modest-scale, walkable, often more affordable homes that fall between single-family homes and large multifamily complexes.
Saying this housing “looks like 90% of Davis” is factually inaccurate. The vast majority of Davis is zoned for detached single-family homes, and that zoning has been religiously preserved, often by political design.
Well, I guess “someone” (or some group) came up with a specific meaning (which again, likely differs from how the public at large would define it).
Historically (post World War II), middle-income families, for example, have sought-out the type of sprawl that dominates this region (and beyond). In other words, suburbia. And there’s practical reasons for that (more for your money, decent school systems, places to park multiple cars, houses that have enough room to accommodate children, etc.). Kind of ironic that houses are much larger than they used to be, even though young people are having much fewer children – not even at replacement levels, at this point.
But unless, for example, Davis can control what Woodland (in particular) does, that’s where traditional “missing middle” local housing will continue to be built.
Again, in a state that essentially isn’t growing in the first place.
So it returned to pre-pandemic levels, which means it hasn’t grown since prior to the pandemic.
But more importantly, the growth is due to this “demographic” (which Trump is likely “reversing”):
“California’s population is finally increasing — thanks to this demographic”
“Declines in fertility had also been dragging down natural population growth. Only international migration kept growth chugging.”
“Immigrants matter disproportionately to California, which is home to one-10th of the nation’s population but nearly a quarter of its immigrants.”
“This year’s figures could temper projections of those declines, but the growth wasn’t distributed evenly throughout the state. The fastest growth was in the relatively affordable Central Valley and Inland Empire regions, with slower growth in coastal Southern California and continued stagnation in the Bay Area. Meanwhile, rural parts of the Sierra Nevada and the state’s far north continued to contract.”
https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/population-growth-immigration-19994083.php
But it is interesting, in that you previously claimed that immigration (much of it illegal) isn’t having an impact on your “housing crisis”. And yet, that’s where your growth is coming from that you cite.
(The article itself “avoids” breaking down who is in the state legally vs. illegally – probably because it’s from The S.F. Chronicle).
As a side note, young people NATIONWIDE aren’t having kids at anywhere near replacement levels.
There’s a research paper from the Federal Reserve/UC professors mentioned in The Chronicle, today, which apparently claims that “supply constraints” have essentially no relationship to housing prices.
I’d suggest sending this paper to HCD.
Of course, the housing activists are jumping on this.
(For what it’s worth, I personally don’t support building lots of housing in order to lower prices in the first place, since the population isn’t growing – and businesses and their workers have lots of options, other than trying to move to an expensive locale.)
In any case, here’s a link to the paper – which I haven’t read yet.)
https://www.frbsf.org/wp-content/uploads/wp2025-06.pdf