Opinion: The Hidden Crisis of Our Long Commutes and Housing Shortages

Key points:

• Thousands of people commute long distances to Davis due to unaffordable housing.
• The commuting crisis is a systemic failure, not just an individual inconvenience.
• Expanding housing in Davis would reduce commute distances and carbon emissions.

Is it really a crisis if someone works in Davis but lives in Natomas or West Sacramento and has to commute?

That question, posed recently by critics in response to my framing of the housing issue, may sound rhetorical—but it’s worth answering seriously. Because our collective failure to grapple with what it means for large numbers of people to be priced out of the communities where they work lies at the heart of California’s interconnected crises of housing, transportation, and climate.

One person commuting a long distance? That’s life. But when you start multiplying that impact by tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and even millions who are forced into that position not by choice, but because there is nowhere affordable for them to live near their workplace—that’s not an individual inconvenience, it’s a systemic failure. And yes—it’s a crisis.

Travel surveys conducted by UC Davis and the City of Davis indicate that nearly 30,000 people commute into Davis each day, largely because they either cannot afford housing in town or because suitable housing simply isn’t available. At the same time, roughly 20,000 residents of Davis commute out of town for work. The result is a pronounced jobs-housing imbalance—tens of thousands of daily vehicle trips that contribute to traffic congestion, greenhouse gas emissions, and regional strain on both infrastructure and affordability.

Multiply that by thousands and the impacts become hard to ignore: freeway congestion, local traffic bottlenecks, increased vehicle emissions, higher greenhouse gas output, longer commute times, and rising housing costs in surrounding communities. These aren’t abstract concerns—they’re measurable and visible.

A clear example of these impacts is the I-80 expansion project, which is being driven in large part by the daily flood of regional commuters—including those traveling to and from Davis and UC Davis. The project comes with a massive price tag, expected to run into the hundreds of millions, and has already caused significant traffic delays and detours during construction.

These kinds of infrastructure expansions are not solutions—they are symptoms of a deeper problem: the region’s failure to build enough housing near its major job centers. Instead of investing in smarter growth and transit-oriented development, we’re spending taxpayer dollars to widen freeways just to keep up with patterns that should have been planned for decades ago.

A few commenters argued that this scenario isn’t necessarily a crisis. One suggested that since some people still choose to live outside of Davis even when they work here, and some live in Davis but drive to other cities for work, the whole premise falls apart. Others implied that if someone can’t afford to live in Davis, they simply need to accept that reality and commute.

But that’s exactly the problem: this is a “reality” we manufactured. These commuting patterns aren’t inevitable. They’re the predictable result of policy choices that severely limited new housing construction, even as the region grew and job centers like UC Davis expanded.

Let’s not mistake normalization for inevitability. Just because large-scale commuting has become common doesn’t mean it isn’t a policy failure. Just because people endure the burden doesn’t mean they wouldn’t prefer another option.

One critic pointed out that people have been commuting from outlying areas to cities for decades—citing Daly City as an example of a city that absorbed San Francisco’s housing shortfall. Another highlighted the growing number of housing units under construction in nearby Spring Lake, arguing that new subdivisions just outside of Davis are meeting the demand.

Ironically this is just another form of sprawl—except instead of adding housing to the city where people work, we are forcing people to commute further.

Moreover, this sprawling outward isn’t a solution—it’s a deferral of the problem. It increases dependence on cars, pushes development onto farmland, and weakens the connection between housing, jobs, and transit. It’s the antithesis of climate-smart, inclusive planning.

The fundamental question is this: Should people be able to live near where they work? If the answer is yes, then the current situation—where thousands of UC Davis workers are priced out of the city that depends on them—is clearly unacceptable.

Critics also raised a common objection: even if Davis built more housing, they argue, it would still be too expensive for many workers. Some cited price differentials, others pointed to two-earner households with jobs in different cities, suggesting they would continue living in regional suburbs regardless of what Davis builds.

But that critique misses two key points. First, housing prices are shaped by supply and demand. When supply is artificially constrained—as it has been in Davis for decades—prices rise faster than in surrounding markets. Second, not everyone needs to move. Even if just a fraction of commuters could find homes in Davis, the regional impacts would be significant. Reducing commute distances for thousands of people would ease traffic, cut emissions, and relieve pressure on other communities.

This isn’t about “dislodging” people from where they live. It’s about giving people real choices. Right now, the lack of housing near UC Davis limits those choices. And that lack affects not just faculty and researchers, but staff, custodians, food service workers, nurses, and graduate students—many of whom would gladly trade hours in traffic for a shorter commute, more time with family, and a stronger connection to their community.

It’s also not about guaranteeing that everyone will walk or bike to work. Critics were quick to point out that even people who live in Davis drive to campus, and that not every household can be perfectly aligned with their job site. True—but again, this is a strawman. The goal isn’t perfection. The goal is reduction. Reducing the total number of miles driven. Reducing the carbon emissions. Reducing the cost burdens that come with commuting and car dependency.

Living near your job should make it possible to drive less—not guarantee it. And when communities plan for density near jobs and transit, those options become more viable.

It’s also worth addressing a broader concern raised in the discussion: that expanding housing in Davis would fundamentally change the character of the community, or swell the population beyond control. One critic noted that adding 30,000 new residents—if all UC Davis commuters moved to town—would increase the population by nearly 50 percent.

But no serious person is proposing that. The point is not to house every single commuter. It’s to make a dent in the problem. To relieve pressure. To meet some of the unmet demand. To acknowledge that the “do nothing” approach has consequences, too—consequences that we are already experiencing.

We cannot continue to plan as though Davis is an island. The city is deeply interconnected with UC Davis and with the larger Sacramento region. And decisions made here have ripple effects—on affordability, on traffic, on climate, and on equity.

What we need is not a silver bullet, but a shift in mindset.

Yes, there are costs to building more housing. But there are also costs to refusing to build. The impacts of inaction—long commutes, carbon emissions, regional displacement—are not hypothetical. They are happening now.

The people most affected by this crisis are often the ones with the least voice in city politics: renters, service workers, young professionals, students, and others trying to find their footing in an increasingly unaffordable region. For them, this is not a thought experiment. It’s daily life.

So when someone asks, “Is it really a crisis if people have to commute to work?”—the answer is yes.

Not because each individual commute is unbearable. But because the scale of the pattern reveals a deep mismatch between where jobs are and where people can afford to live.

That mismatch has costs. And ignoring it is a luxury we no longer have.

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