This is going to be a short article, because the data speaks for itself.
The sources for this data are the US Census and publicly published media from the university regarding the size of its student body. (not available all years)
The trends are quite easy to spot. UC Davis enrollment has more than doubled in the past 40 years, growing at an annualized 1.96% per year, and the city’s growth has been much more volatile.
In the 80’s our growth rate was 2.5%. In the 90’s it was 2.7% (these are compound annual growth rates, CAGR). Both of these represent growth that was significantly greater than the accordant growth of the university.
It is understandable that the citizens at that time were concerned about this growth out-pacing the growth of the University.
Growth in Davis has been a hot topic in the city, going back to the 60’s when a regional planning body predicted that Davis would become the second largest population center in the region after Sacramento (predicting a population of 85,000 people by 1990 and 240,000 by 2010. link)
This prediction was horrifying to citizens who did not want Davis to be anything other than a “college town” —and indeed this sentiment persists among many of us to this day.
In this political context citizens of Davis enacted Measure J in 2000 to rein in growth, and the effects are visible on this graph quite clearly: The trend line after its passage between 2000 and 2010 reflects an 0.8% CAGR and between 2010 and 2020, dropping to a scant 0.15% CAGR, likely due to a near exhaustion of available infill sites.
For simplicity let’s overlay those growth rates onto this data:
This makes the real effect of measure J almost undeniable: Before Measure J the city was growing half a percent faster than the university, and after it was passed it has grown 1.5% slower than the university.
In this town, there really isn’t anyone rooting for the predictions of the late 1960’s to come true. None of us want Davis to become a major population center rivaling Sacramento, but a sentiment that Davis should grow in proportion to the university is not at all uncommon.
Thanks to Measure J, we are currently failing in that duty. This data makes that abundantly clear.
In the 1980s there was talk of perhaps limiting the city’s growth to 2%, a “slow growth” rate designed to match the university. Had we grown at that rate starting in 1987 when that proposal was made, Davis would have a population of 97k today. Instead we have 68k which brings our actual compound rate averaged over the past 40 years to 1.5%.
Measure J was effective at curbing the runaway growth that we feared in the 80’s and 90’s. Given this data and the historical context, that decision was understandable. But it has proven TOO effective. This data leaves little room for doubt in that.
The Davis Planning Group
Alex Achimore
Richard McCann
Anthony Palmere
David Thompson
Tim Keller
No comments on this one?
Guess you cant’ argue with Data. :)
Data itself has no “opinion”, though there can be arguments regarding accuracy, etc. But perhaps more frequently, the problem occurs when folks make conclusions about its meaning/relevance.
Regardless, it’s kind of surprising that the city’s population has reportedly/slightly declined since 2020. It sounds like some housing needs to be torn down to reflect the apparent decline in demand. :-)
“Regardless, it’s kind of surprising that the city’s population has reportedly/slightly declined since 2020. ”
Yes Ron, I thought a rising vacancy rate was supposed to be a good thing.