The debate over housing in Davis often gets pulled into the immediacy of the moment—what was approved, what was rejected, what might come next. But the more important story is not found in any single year or decision. It emerges over time.
Seventeen years of housing data tell a clear story. Davis has added 2,818 housing units since 2009, an average of roughly 165 per year—well below the roughly 260 units per year that would correspond to the city’s longstanding one percent growth benchmark.
That gap—nearly 100 units per year—has accumulated over time into a substantial shortfall. Housing markets are cumulative. When supply persistently lags behind demand over long periods, the effects compound—and those effects are now visible across the community.
The raw shortfall alone would place sustained pressure on the housing market, but the composition of that housing makes the imbalance even more pronounced.
Because most new units have been multi-family rentals serving students, the supply of homes for working households and families has not kept pace, leaving the most constrained parts of the market largely unaffected.
Home prices rise, entry becomes more difficult, and gradually—almost imperceptibly at first—the composition of the community begins to change.
That broader pattern is exactly what Hiram Jackson captured in his piece on Sunday, where he warned that the local housing crisis is “almost invisible to older, long-settled residents, but very real to younger generations.”
That observation goes to the heart of the issue: housing scarcity does not affect everyone equally, as those who already own homes are largely insulated while young professionals, families, and even local graduates face a very different reality trying to enter the market.
Over time, that imbalance reshapes who can live in Davis.
The data shows that clearly.
While the city has grown modestly overall, it has not grown in a balanced way. The population of residents aged 30 to 49—the group most likely to be raising children—has declined, even as the number of older residents has increased significantly.
This is not a random demographic shift, but rather reflects the structure of the housing system.
Over the same 17-year period, Davis has produced just 805 single-family homes, including both detached and attached units. That is less than one-third of total housing production—about 50 units per year.
In a high-demand market, that level of production is insufficient to sustain a steady flow of families into the community, who instead relocate to nearby cities where housing is more attainable, often at the cost of longer commutes and weaker ties to Davis itself.
Jackson put it bluntly: “We are rejecting many of our own local high school and UCD graduates who would like to continue to call Davis home.”
That loss is not just personal—it is structural. It shows up in the institutions that depend on those families.
Nowhere is that more evident than in the school system.
Declining enrollment in Davis schools is often framed as a demographic or administrative issue, but the connection to housing is direct: when stable, attainable housing for families is scarce, fewer families live in the community and enrollment declines.
Jackson connects those dots clearly, noting that communities with stable school enrollment are those that “provide secure housing for younger families.”
Davis is moving in the opposite direction.
The effects are cumulative, as fewer families mean fewer students, leading to difficult decisions about school closures, program reductions, and resource allocation.
Over time, those changes can alter the character of the community itself, making it less attractive to the very families it needs to sustain its schools.
At the same time, the housing that has been built has not fully addressed these pressures.
A majority of new housing in Davis has taken the form of multi-family rental units, much of it serving students.
This housing is essential, particularly given the growth of UC Davis, but it does not function as a solution for the current housing crisis.
There has long been an assumption that building student housing will free up homes for families, but while that makes sense in theory, in practice demand continues to outpace supply and single-family homes remain out of reach for many households even when they become available.
Meanwhile, the data also show that progress on affordable housing has lagged significantly.
The city remains more than 1,100 units short of its state-identified housing needs, with the largest gaps in lower-income categories.
A housing system that produces limited family-oriented housing, insufficient affordable housing, and a heavy concentration of rental units will produce predictable outcomes: fewer families, fewer children, and a community that skews older over time.
Jackson framed that trajectory with a warning that Davis is “on a trajectory of transitioning to a retirement community with a large public university.”
The key point is not that any one type of housing is problematic—student housing and rental housing are both necessary, and even slower growth reflects values that many residents hold deeply.
The issue is that, taken together over time, these patterns have produced a system that is out of balance.
Housing is not just about accommodating population growth—it is about sustaining a community across generations.
When younger households cannot find a foothold, the community loses more than just numbers—it loses continuity and the families who enroll children in schools, participate in civic life, and carry institutions forward.
The lesson of the past 17 years is not that Davis has failed to build sufficient housing housing overall, and not enough of the kinds of housing that sustain long-term community stability.
We need to move the conversation away from short-term debates and toward long-term alignment, asking not whether housing should be built but whether the system is producing outcomes consistent with the community’s goals.
For many, strong public schools are central to Davis’s identity—one of the primary reasons families choose to live here, invest in the community, and remain over time, and a key pillar supporting property values, civic engagement, and the city’s broader sense of continuity and stability.
If the goal is strong schools, the city must consider whether it is producing enough housing for families.
If the goal is economic diversity, it must address the shortfall in affordable housing.
If the goal is sustainability, it must consider how housing constraints push growth outward into surrounding communities.
These are not competing priorities—they are deeply interconnected.
Seventeen years of data make one thing clear: housing decisions made 25 years ago are at the core of our challenges now.
Their impacts extend beyond the housing market into the schools, the workforce, and the broader social fabric of the city.
If the past is any guide, the cost of inaction will not be measured in a single year but in the shape of the community a decade from now.
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I am one of the older generation you speak about, living in a home built in 1966. I arrived here in September of 1969 as an undergrad, still calling Davis my home. That apparently is not what you feel Davis should be since our older generation is just taking up space.
Of the four homes in our neighborhood that have sold in the last few years, three are student rentals. Our neighborhood has changed dramatically and no longer reflects what it was just a few years ago. One recent home was on the market for 3 days before being sold and am waiting to see if it too is a rental.
If you have ventured Downtown lately, you might notice that many of the businesses are filled with students because many of these businesses cater to them. I rarely go Downtown due to the crowds and traffic. Davis is not as user friendly as it once was if you are 60+ years old..
Davis is the University, it brings in the majority of the population and that is the direction Davis is taking, More students at UCD means more pressure on housing provided for students not families.
Slow growth is not a bad idea and does not always limit who can buy homes. Rental properties in Davis have rents based on demand and whatever the market will bear. Investors see that as a readily available means for gaining lots of income without the worry of taking homes from families. That’s what the housing market in Davis needs to address, not pointing out the we older generation are causing the problem.
John
The problem is that Davis has not grown commensurately with the university enrollment. Our university towns have grown in a more balanced manner. Eugene and Ann Arbor are two examples of proportionate growth.
And unfortunately slow growth always limits affordable housing for younger households if the community is desirable as Davis is today. Demand will outstrip supply and increase prices. What the older generation (of which I’m one) in Davis is doing is impeding the addition of housing needed to meet this increasing demand for what Davis offers.
Exactly how “desirable” do you think Davis is?
Have you even been to Marin county, Sonoma County, Truckee, Jackson Hole, just about all of Oregon (not just Eugene), Washington, Hawaii, etc.? Not to mention Montana (good enough for multi-million dollar celebrities, apparently), Idaho, etc.?
Uh, huh – Davis is apparently heaven on earth compared to those type of places. Must be the crumbling bike paths that convinced you. Or maybe the controversy regarding the Gandhi statue.
Or perhaps it’s the state income and sales tax in California, which can’t be found in some other states.
David said … “ That gap—nearly 100 units per year—has accumulated over time into a substantial shortfall. Housing markets are cumulative. When supply persistently lags behind demand over long periods, the effects compound—and those effects are now visible across the community.”
That argument is classic cherry picking. The argument ignores Housing/Jobs Balance. Local housing exists to support local jobs. In Davis the number of local jobs is (and historically has been) less than the number of local jobs, even if you add the jobs in the City Limits together with the jobs on the UCD campus, and the growth rate of local jobs over those same 17 years has been less than the growth rate of housing units. In fact, I’m reasonably sure that there are less full time employees on the UCD campus now than there were in 2009. Some research on that is necessary to confirm or correct.
Further cherry picking by the article happens when it ignores the bursting of the 2008 Housing Bubble, with the resultant Great Recession.
The provisions of the 1% Ordinance very specifically stated that there would be no “catch up” in the years following any year where the housing growth was less than 1%. So the first two years of the 17 are essentially zero volume years with no subsequent catchup.
The article also conveniently ignores Nishi, where the 2,200 units added to the 2,818 puts the number of units legally added at over 5,000.
The article was labeled as an Opinion piece, so convenient omissions are fair game.
For the record, this response is also Opinion.
Matt
The number of jobs on the UCD campus has been stable since 2007, the first year of the Travel Survey for which there is public data.
But what has happened is that for 1,500 job positions at UCD, the employee now commutes from out of town where they lived in town in 2007. Extrapolating to the rest of Davis, 4,500 workers have been forced to live out of town instead, thus increasing the traffic here. So we are losing our jobs/housing balance with too little housing of the right type to match the jobs we have. Now either commuters to Sac and Vacaville or students reside in those houses.
Richard said … “So we are losing our jobs/housing balance with too little housing of the right type to match the jobs we have.”
Or rather we are losing our jobs/housing balance with too few high paying jobs of the right type to match the unaffordable (for the bulk of our current workforce) housing that we have … and continue to build.
Actually, your statement and mine are simultaneously true.
Our elected leaders are very good at Virtue Signaling when it comes to social justice in housing … and incredibly bad at fostering a jobs creation culture.
Paul Ehrlich, Stanford Professor and author of several popular doomsday books, whose influence can still be heard echoing through Davis among no growth advocates today, has passed away at 93.
I didn’t know that – thanks for the update. Since he passed-away a few days ago, it apparently didn’t make the news that much.
In any case, I’d argue that climate change (and the young’uns concerns about that, as well as their 1.6 kids) is actually directly related to Erlich’s message. But the younger generation (and the school/political system) is only focused on the result; not the actual cause. (Apparently, they think we can “hybrid/electrify” our way out of this, or something.)
In any case, Erlich just didn’t get the dates right, or the exact result(s) of population combined with modern society. Patience, grasshopper – there’s a long way to go still.
In any case, enjoy whatever the “winter” temperature is today, I guess. (I am, overall.)
Here he is from about 4 years ago, on 60 minutes. The first link is a brief clip – which I believe is part of the larger one I saw regarding species extinction, etc. (second clip).
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1618158379525201
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H9rJm5ePKA
It’s not just Erlich – it’s people like David Attenborough, as well. (The hands-down all-time best narrator/producer of nature shows – still alive at age 99.) His message is essentially the same as Erlich’s.
Ron O said: “In any case, I’d argue that climate change (and the young’uns concerns about that, as well as their 1.6 kids) is actually directly related to Erlich’s message.”
Erhlich had little to do with it. Access to family planning is why the birthrate has declined. Margaret Sanger is much more responsible than Ehrlich.
Margaret Sanger – maybe (about halfway through this well-done video). Apparently, Hitler was a fan (I think in real life, as well.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly1cPYSqgR4
In any case, not the main point of this video. Seems more related to “no one” liking the Jews, for some reason. With Hitler on the same side as progressives regarding that.
It’s a fine line between limits to growth and eugenics.
All I can tell you is that I’m not coming back unless I’m offered a better deal next time. Pretty sure I was born in the wrong body, but that it has nothing to do with gender.
I’m not sure how I was talked into it, last time. My guess is that some salesperson influenced wore me down (though I’m still not sure what their motivation was). In any case, I believe they’re now employed as AT&T salesmen at Costco.
Then again, I guess Captain Kirk proved that Eugenics isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Kaaaaaaahhn!
Neither of you is correct. First, the global birthrate decline is tied to the education level of women. But more relevant, the recent decline in the US is tied to the expense of housing for younger households. They can’t find affordable places near well paying jobs in which to raise families. We need to build the right type of housing to meet this market need.
Expanding on what Richard has said, the nation’s birthrate — the number of live births per 1,000 people in a given year — is down by more than 25 percent since 2007, when the decline began. A falling birthrate is a serious matter of concern (as Ron Oertel has said numerous times). As our population ages, we need workers (and the taxes they pay) to replace and support the folks who are retiring.
Since 2007, and the 20 years prior to that, immigrants have filled lots of jobs, but the policies of Trump II have stopped/reversed that.
In response to the birth rate decline, a paper last month from the conservative think tank,Heritage Foundation, argued that “when a nation fails to preserve the family, the state soon fails to preserve itself.” But the Heritage Foundation doesn’t point out the good news that the teenage birthrate is down by 70 percent since 2007. And the unmarried birthrate is down by 30 percent. Those would appear to be good “family” stories. One person commenting on the Heritage Foundation’s selective silence, said, “We spent decades shaming women for having kids under the wrong circumstances, for not having their ducks in a row. Now they are holding up their end of the bargain.”
More and more women have said (both in words and actions) that they want to establish themselves — to secure a degree or a stable job — before having a child.
That “want” is producing some very interesting statistical results. (1) Women in their early 30s now have the highest birthrate of any group. (2) A woman in her early 40s is more likely to give birth than a teenager. And (3) most surprising of all, the number of children born to women by the time they turn 44 hasn’t dropped at all.
It is interesting food for thought.
That puts pressure on American women. Some conservatives say the steep decline in our birthrate is the triumph of their selfishness over their sacrifice,
A falling birthrate is a serious matter of concern (as Ron Oertel has said numerous times.
I said no such thing. I essentially said it’s a cause for celebration, an end to fake housing crises, and hope for humanity.
I’m apparently the Pied Piper of millennials (and whatever generation came after that). By the way, whatever happened to Generation Y (before Z)? And do we now return to Model A, like Henry Ford somehow did right after the Model T?
“Neither of you is correct. First, the global birthrate decline is tied to the education level of women.”
Sure I skipped a step. As the incomes of women rise birth rates decline because they gain access to family planning and birth control.