DAVIS, Calif. — Housing debates in Davis have often revolved around familiar questions: Do we need more housing? Will new housing lower prices? Should the city continue to grow?
But those questions may miss a deeper problem increasingly identified by economists, historians and housing researchers. The central issue is not simply housing affordability. It is whether ordinary Americans can still move to places where opportunity exists.
It does people little good to have available and affordable housing in places where jobs and opportunities are inaccessible.
For Davis, the implications are significant as the city is anchored by UC Davis, one of the region’s largest employers and economic engines, yet many workers, students and young families increasingly find themselves priced out of the community.
Housing debates often become consumed by arguments over whether new housing is affordable enough or whether growth should occur elsewhere.
But the larger issue is whether people can continue to live near the opportunities that Davis itself generates.
Yet mounting evidence suggests the greatest harm comes not from growth itself but from restricting access to communities with strong schools, robust labor markets and high quality of life.
Historian Yoni Appelbaum argues that the United States historically distinguished itself through extraordinary geographic mobility. Americans moved frequently in pursuit of better jobs, better communities and better futures.
“Mobility has been the great engine of American prosperity, the essential mechanism of social equality, and the ballast of our diverse democracy,” Appelbaum writes in Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity.
According to Appelbaum, mobility was not merely an economic phenomenon, it shaped American culture and democratic institutions.
“When the mobility of population was always so great,” historian Carl Becker observed, “the strange face, the odd speech, the curious custom of dress, and the unaccustomed religious faith ceased to be a matter of comment or concern.”
Appelbaum argues that Americans gradually embraced a revolutionary principle: individuals should choose their communities rather than communities choosing their members.
“Instead of allowing communities to choose their own members, Americans decided to allow most individuals to choose their communities,” he writes.
For much of American history, that system worked remarkably well. People moved toward opportunity. Communities grew. Housing expanded to accommodate newcomers.
“As Americans moved around, they also moved up,” Appelbaum writes.
But he argues that this system has steadily broken down.
“But for the last fifty years, the engine of American opportunity has been grinding to a halt, throwing society into crisis,” he writes.
The consequences extend well beyond housing prices.
Appelbaum notes that in the late nineteenth century roughly one-third of Americans changed addresses each year. In the 1940s and 1950s, about one-fifth moved annually. By 2021, only about one in 12 Americans moved.
“The drastic decline in geographic mobility is the single most important social change of the past half century, and perhaps the least remarked,” he writes.
That decline has coincided with a range of troubling trends.
“So Americans aren’t starting new businesses, switching to better jobs, or climbing the social ladder the way they used to. They’re not joining groups, gathering in prayer, having kids, or hanging out the way they used to. They don’t even trust each other anymore. They are, in a word, stuck.”
The argument has particular relevance for Davis, where discussions about housing often focus narrowly on whether new housing will immediately reduce prices. Appelbaum suggests that framing misunderstands the problem.
One of the book’s most powerful observations is that the crisis manifests itself in multiple ways.
“Every year, fewer Americans can afford to live where they want to be,” he writes.
The effects appear in increasing commute times, rising home prices, growing rent burdens and homelessness.
Appelbaum notes that the average commuter now spends nearly 30 minutes each way traveling to work and that housing costs continue to consume larger shares of household income.
“The crisis shows up in lengthening commutes,” he writes. “It shows up in soaring home prices.”
Those observations mirror concerns frequently raised in Davis. Teachers increasingly commute from surrounding communities. Service workers often cannot afford to live where they work. Young families report being priced out of the city altogether. Meanwhile, declining school enrollment has become one of the most pressing issues facing the Davis Joint Unified School District.
For years, district officials and community members have pointed to housing costs as a central driver of enrollment decline. When young families cannot afford to move into a community, schools eventually feel the consequences.
Appelbaum argues that many housing skeptics make a fundamental analytical mistake. They assume the crisis is primarily about affordability.
“Today, the problem I’m describing is generally referred to as our affordable housing crisis,” he writes. “But that’s not quite right.”
He points to Flint, Michigan, as a counterexample.
“If affordability were the underlying problem, then moving to places like Flint, Michigan—where housing is so cheap it can’t be given away—would be the solution.”
Yet Americans are not flocking to Flint.
The reason is straightforward. Housing alone does not create opportunity.
“What we actually face is a mobility crisis,” Appelbaum writes.
“The distinction matters. Americans used to be able to choose where to live, but moving toward opportunity is now, largely, a privilege of the economic elite.”
That observation strikes at the heart of many contemporary housing debates.
The issue is not whether housing exists somewhere. The issue is whether housing exists where people want and need to live—near jobs, schools, transit, services and economic opportunity.
For Davis, that distinction is critical. Opponents of housing growth frequently argue that new housing is expensive and therefore fails to address affordability concerns. But Appelbaum’s analysis suggests the more important question is whether communities are allowing enough housing to accommodate future residents at all.
The book argues that decades of land-use restrictions have increasingly limited access to opportunity-rich communities.
“American mobility has been slowly strangled by generations of reformers, seeking to reassert control over their neighborhoods and their neighbors,” Appelbaum writes.
According to Appelbaum, the tools varied over time but produced similar outcomes.
“Their chosen tools were building codes and restrictive covenants and zoning ordinances, designed to segregate land by use and class and race,” he writes.
The cumulative effect has been profound.
“Almost all new construction in the United States now requires government approval, and anyone with sufficient time and resources and education can effectively veto that approval, or at least impose great expense and delay,” Appelbaum writes.
“The result is that in the very places that need it most desperately, housing has become prohibitively difficult to build.”
That critique echoes debates surrounding California’s housing crisis, where lawmakers have increasingly concluded that local restrictions have contributed to statewide housing shortages.
Appelbaum is especially critical of affluent progressive communities that support social inclusion in theory while resisting housing growth in practice.
“Progressive communities like Cambridge and Shepherd Park, which pride themselves on their openness and tolerance and diversity and commitment to social justice, are the worst offenders,” he writes.
He argues that progressive politics have sometimes evolved into exclusionary land-use policies.
“In practice, though, progressivism has produced a potent strain of NIMBYism, a defense of communities in their current form against those who might wish to join them.”
That tension has emerged repeatedly in housing debates throughout California and increasingly in Davis, where residents often express support for affordability, diversity and inclusion while opposing specific housing developments.
The consequences, Appelbaum argues, extend beyond economics.
“The problem isn’t that we’re sorting ourselves out; it’s that we’ve ceased to mix ourselves together.”
Historically, mobility exposed Americans to people from different backgrounds, occupations and beliefs. As mobility declined, communities became more economically and socially homogeneous.
“Geographic mobility long served as a counterweight within American politics against the more virulent strains of racism, nativism, and populism,” he writes.
Ultimately, Appelbaum argues that the solution is neither radical nor complicated.
“A nation built around the idea that people should be able to choose their communities functions properly only so long as those communities are prepared to let them in.”
The goal is not forcing people to move or dramatically altering existing neighborhoods. Instead, he argues, communities must once again make room for newcomers.
“The good news is that addressing this crisis of mobility doesn’t depend on your moving anywhere, if you’d rather stay where you are,” Appelbaum writes. “All you have to do is make room for some new friends and neighbors to join you.”
For communities like Davis, the implications are significant. The debate is not simply about growth, density or housing prices. It is about whether future teachers, nurses, students, workers and young families will have the opportunity to live in the community at all.
The question facing Davis is not whether housing exists somewhere else. The question is whether Davis remains a place people can choose—or increasingly becomes a place accessible only to those who already own property there.
If Appelbaum is correct, the stakes extend well beyond housing policy.
“The fact that it is now endangered is not just a problem for housing markets,” he writes. “It’s a lethal threat to the entire American project.”
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“Progressive communities like Cambridge and Shepherd Park, which pride themselves on their openness and tolerance and diversity and commitment to social justice, are the worst offenders,” he writes.
And Davis which touts lawn signs claiming it is for everyone. Everyone, who can afford a million dollar home, that is.
The distinction matters. Americans used to be able to choose where to live, but moving toward opportunity is now, largely, a privilege of the economic elite.”
And that quote sums up very well the fatal flaw of (A) the visionless history of the past 25 years in Davis, and (B) the fatal flaw of the Village Farms proposal as brought forward by our City Council and City staff and the developer.
The heart and soul of (A) is the total absence of a vision for where Davis is going and/or what Davis wants to be. As a result, over the past 25 years the vast majority of new residential housing had been purposely built to cater to the economic elite. SFRs with large square footage and upscale amenities were close to 100% of the new SFRs built. A similar pattern existed in the multi-family units built both in the city limits and on the UCD campus, which catered to students whose parents are part of the economic elite.
Which gets us to (B) where the City Council ripped all of the accountability provisions out of Measure V and therefore there was no way for Davis voters to accountably know that the housing to be built would not be just more of (A).
I met on Friday evening with a young mother who lives very happily here in Davis in a 2-bedroom 825 square foot home with her child sleeping in the second bedroom and she and her partner in the first bedroom. The house cost her just over $400,000 when she bought it a year and a half ago. That is a “mobility” house that is the antithesis of (A) and what we need in Davis.
Matt, I see your argument as essentially: Davis built the wrong kind of housing for 25 years, therefore Village Farms is the wrong solution.
Yoni Appelbaum’s response would likely be: Davis built too little housing and too much of the wrong kind of housing for 25 years, therefore it needs substantially more housing and a greater variety of housing types.
In other words, he would see Village Farms not as the cause of the problem but as a response—perhaps an imperfect response—to decades of underproduction.
I agree with Matt, and I think David’s modificaion would be fair… especially the “imperfect” part.
A few years ago at one of the first DCAN events, Judy Ennis put it something like this when talking about missing middle: “Its not that we dont need single family housing, but we do need a city where the majority of the housing is missing middle”
You dont make a housing-type imbalance better by building only the type of housing we already have too much of.
Those of us asking for something better have been accused of “letting the perfect be the enemy of the good” but that simply isnt true. I know a lot of people (myself included) who plan on voting for willowgrove because THAT proposal actually has read the room and has a significant amount of missing middle housing in it.
Does it have the dedicated transitway that we want? No.
It is totally autocentric? Yes.
Does it ignore an opportunity to integrate much better into the existing bike network into the south?
is the park in a stupid irresponsible place? yes
Willowgrove leaves a LOT to be desired in a lot of ways, But I have met with the team there, (just as I met with the team at village farms) and its clear to me… the realities of our measure J process dicate that this plan, with ALL of its flaws… is just about as good as they CAN do under our existing process…
So I am taking the large amount of multifamily being offered as a win and voting yes, – even though there are parts of the project that are objectivley bad we should try to changed once the property is entitled ( especially the location of the park and its connectivity to existing bike infrastructure)
Tim Keller said … is the park in a stupid irresponsible place? yes
When I met with Greg Rowe and Breann Moebius to discuss Willowgrove recently, the location of the park was one of my first questions. Bre had already met with both you and Richard so her answer to my question was well considered. Specifically she pointed out how the durfsce water runoff system is designed to extend North/South along the length of the eastern boundary of the property, connecting to Channel A where it crosses the property on the north end. Bre explained that relocating the park would disrupt that surface water runoff handling.
Given that, what are yours and Richard’s thoughts about the trade offs of transit-ready housing vs. park in that southeast corner of the parcel adjacent to Covell?
Mr Rowe remarked to me that the argument / justification given for the park at the bottom was that “if you put it further north, people would have to drive into the neighborhood to access the park.
That, by itself is an entirely automobile-centric way of thinking and that logic automatically clarifies the priorities of the thinker: “Better for nobody to be able to walk to transit, than for car users to drive and extra 1/4 mile”
Its really sick when you think it through.
But lets look at it from another lens, because both projects do the same thing for the same reason, and its something that wouldnt be done in any other situation: The park is conceived of as a REGIONAL resource… not a park to serve the development in question.
ALL new projects need park space, thats a requirment. Famously the DiSC campaign tried to focus on and celebrate the parks in that project… even though it was an industrial district and really only needed the park by statute
The requirement is there for the purpose of giving people living in new developments have a park down the street for their kids to play at.
BOTH developments however, created parks that are NOT for the development they are building ( and thus located internally to that development) but are instead BRIBES to the nearby voters who might like having a park there. When I talked to willowgrove they cited regional demand and serving a city-wide desire for playfield… nothing about drainage.
They VERY easily could have that park up along the wildhorse ag buffer or located more centrally… I dont buy the hydraulic justification for a second.
The result in a plan like village farms was a HUGE amount of uninterupted housing…. rows after rows, with one small park up at the top and the bulk of the park space more than half a mile away ( way further than you would want to walk)
As a result, in both of these developments, the residents living in the northern part of the development will likely DRIVE to their “local park”. Thats completely backwards with regard to why these parks are required.
A more sane planning concept, when you are trying to create human-scale nice neighborhoods for humans to live in, is to have lots of smaller public spaces all within walking distance. The little “parklets” you find in greenbelts are useless, and huge regional parks that you have to drive to are too much. The better distribution is more like slide hill… a park that serves that community and is in the middle of the neighborhood it serves so you can primarily walk / bike there.
“but are instead BRIBES to the nearby voters who might like having a park there.”
A rather crude but accurate way to put it. :-)
After all, who wants to look at apartment buildings right across the street from the Nugget (in regard to Village Farms)?
Same thing with Willowgrove or any other development.
It’s not always about “using” the park, as much as it is about “seeing” it (aesthetics) from outside of the development.
One of the reasons I like both sites the way they are.
In any case, I don’t know where/how this idea is arising that Willowgrove would house people working at UCD. I look at that site (and any proposed beyond it, in the future) as freeway-oriented developments, where a significant portion of the residents would have nothing else to do with Davis – REGARDLESS of the type of housing built there.
In fact, I can’t think of a place that would be more appealing to “local workers” who work in Sacramento. It is an exceedingly easy commute from that location to Sacramento – much more so than say Roseville. And without having to deal with the riff-raff by living in Sacramento itself, West Sacramento, Natomas, Rancho Cordova, etc. Plus, a Davis address has much more “panache” than living in most of those other locales while working in Sacramento.
I think one of the biggest obstacles to the Willowgrove park where it is will be the residents in Alhambra Estates across Covell who won’t want the lights from the playfields shining in their yards and windows. Tim is dead on that this “regional” park makes little sense and just emphasizes the need for a car to get anywhere in town. Look at how little Nugget Field is used by neighborhood residents. (It’s always empty except on Saturday morning when I go by.) Rethink the park and I can get behind Willowgrove full throttle. It’s 50% more dense than Village Farms, belying any claim that VF can’t be built profitably with more missing middle housing.
As for Ron O’s statement about visual preferences along Covell, he lives in Woodland and chose to leave Davis. His preferences are of no matter for policy discussions in Davis.
One of my responses to Richard is apparently not being posted. In any case, I would also add that as an “outsider” (according to Richard), someone like me is in a far-better position than anyone else on here to speak on behalf of the people whom some in Davis are trying to house in Davis.
They’re not going to move to an overpriced shoebox built on what is currently farmland, outside of the city’s boundaries.
Frankly, it’s easier to commute from Spring Lake to UCD, than it is to commute from the eastern reaches of an expanded Davis.
Rich McCann: “I think one of the biggest obstacles to the Willowgrove park where it is will be the residents in Alhambra Estates across Covell who won’t want the lights from the playfields shining in their yards and windows. Tim is dead on that this “regional” park makes little sense and just emphasizes the need for a car to get anywhere in town. ”
I followed the May 5 City Council meeting that approved Willowgrove for the Nov. ballot. There were several public comment speakers who actually praised the playfields component as a reason for them to get behind the project. I don’t think anyone spoke against it. Seems like another example of the perfect being the enemy of the good. You never make everyone happy.
Hiram, what you are describing is planning to affect a political outcome. Shouldn’t we be planning in order to optimize neighborhood cohesion and benefit?
Matt Williams: “Hiram, what you are describing is planning to affect a political outcome. Shouldn’t we be planning in order to optimize neighborhood cohesion and benefit?”
You may have noticed that any discussion of housing and development in Davis is political. “Planning in order to optimize neighborhood cohesion and benefit” may seem ‘common sense’ to you, but is as subjective and political to a certain segment of people in Davis as is planning for a playfield park at the location given.
Hiram
The Alhambra residents may not have focused on the project yet. Most people ignore land use planning and election campaigns until the decision date is much closer. That’s why I make this point–we haven’t arrived at that point yet and probably won’t until September when people are back from vacation.
David, I believe you are putting words in Yoni’s mouth. From January 1, 2004 through December 31, 2024. Davis added 1,261 detached Single Family Homes for Owner Occupancy to the 10,234 Owner-Occupied units Davis had in the 2000 US Census. All of those were large square footage, high amenities, high priced units. That is a 12.3% growth in that period. I suspect Yoni would consider that as significant catering to the housing needs of the economic elite.
At the same time, Davis built zero (or close to zero) owner-occupied homes for its citizens of modest economic/financial resources
So you highly biased assessment of Yoni’s hypothetical reply insults his intelligence. He would clearly understand market segmentation, and his reply would be more like “Davis built more than enough housing for the economic elite, but systematically excluded those of modest economic/financial resources from the opportunity for home ownership by only building the “wrong” kind of housing.
It is worth noting that in addition to the 1,261 detached Single Family units,. 107 townhouses/condos, plus 285 ADUs, Plus 1,956 Multi Family Rental Units were built, which was a 18.5% addition to the 12,714 Renter-Occupied units in the 2000 Census.
When I get the City reports to the State for 2000, 2001, and 2002 I will update those numbers.
Here is the fallacy of your argument, it’s not either or, and your argument of what the market should do only serves to restrict supply. The unintended consequences of all this market interference is less supply, that in turn, creates its’ own unintended consequences. That is the point of the article.
Ron G, if the developers took the time to assess the market need and the market surplus, then they could have (dare one say would have) come forward with a proposal that would have made Yoni smile … and the current Davis workforce smile.
Our City Council had no problem being proactive and arbitrary in excluding 2005’s “environmentally superior” alternative from EIR consideration. Or proactively and arbitrarily excluding any accountability for market rate units in the Baseline Features of Measure V. Why couldn’t they be similarly proactive and tell the developer up front what Davis needs (and wants according to the results in the two community surveys/polls the City conducted) in housing … market-rate affordability?
Ron G
The “market” is what got us into this mess in the first place. Developers sprawled across cheap agricultural land and relied on government subsidies for building infrastructure to maximize their profits. It turns out individual maximization does not lead to a social preferred outcome.
Instead the community must give a clear set of guidance to developers of large neighborhoods. Davis has failed to do so for more than a quarter century and maybe all the way back to 1987. Instead Davis came up with a veto system that doesn’t really tell developers anything about what the community wants and has been used by City Councils and planning staff to absolve them of any responsibility for creating a vision. We as citizens need to take direct control of this General Plan Update to deliver that vision and guidance.
UC Davis is not increasing the number of its employees at its main campus.
On a related note, “opportunity” moves, as well. Sometimes out of communities, sometimes into communities.
There’s evidence that so-called “housing shortages” CAUSE opportunity to move.
That’s what you call a potential win-win.
UCD used to have 6,000 of its 11,000 employees living in town according to the 2007 UCD ITS survey. Now only 4,500 out of 11,000 live here. We’ve lost 1,500 in town employees, most of whom now drive into work increasing the traffic in Davis. The pattern appears to be similar for the rest of the Davis workforce. We’ve priced these employees out of town with our housing policies (or lack thereof) consistent with Appelbaum’s thesis.
People move to where the better jobs are–opportunities do not move to where people are. That’s why the coastal economies have consistently grown faster than those in the middle of country and why housing prices are higher on the coasts. Moving away from these high economic opportunity zones are usually done reluctantly and with little gained.
“People move to where the better jobs are–opportunities do not move to where people are.”
This is a demonstrably false statement, as demonstrated by the California Exodus (among other examples) – to places like Austin.
In fact, there’s direct evidence that “high housing prices” CAUSE opportunities (e.g., businesses) to move to cheaper locales. (The basis of global trade, for that matter.) Would you like for me to find some examples of businesses EXPLICITING citing that as a reason for their move?
Opportunity expands and contracts in ALL communities across the entire country.
“We’ve lost 1,500 in town employees, most of whom now drive into work increasing the traffic in Davis.”
Some of them drove to UCD when they were living and working in Davis. Probably even more so, as the distance that the home is from campus increases (e.g., far east Davis).
But if those statistics are true (e.g., due to homeowners remaining in place for a period of time after they retire), let me know when you can force Woodland housing to be the same price as Davis housing (or vice-versa).
Spring Lake is a very easy/direct commute to UCD, and bypasses much of Davis in the first place.
By the way, is UCD still planning to build more worker housing on campus (similar to what they did behind the Davis Commons shopping mall, downtown)? That’s certainly a shorter commute to campus than ANY other location.
Ron O
False. People are moving to where there are jobs, e.g., Texas, but as always they are weighing tradeoffs in housing costs vs. salaries. You give a great example of Austin which is one of those key job generation centers. Not all jobs are in California. On the other hand, California is creating more jobs than other states. See today: https://davisvanguard.org/2026/06/california-leads-us-job-growth/ Yes, businesses respond to high housing prices, but they do NOT move to a location simply because people already moved there. There’s always a business-related reason why they move to a location, e.g., similar businesses there already (agglomeration) or transportation hubs or resource availability. You are trying to come up with a simplistic story based on anecdotes. I’ve provided many sources over the years supporting my analysis. You’ve provided none.
The UCD ITS surveys consistently show that only 30% of UCD employees living in Davis drive to work. I don’t know why you continue to focus on this minority of employees as though it implies ALL UCD employees drive.
And you focus on the AVERAGE prices of Woodland and Davis as though everyone pays those same prices. Of course the fact is that there is a range of prices in both and those prices overlap. Also buyers have different valuations. You, for example, no longer value schools so you moved to Woodland, but there are 1,000 families who would be willing to pay a much higher price to buy a house in Davis but instead are forced to bring their children into Davis each day. Those workers drive through Davis, increasing traffic here.
I’ve posted this article from the February 2025 Atlantic several times here. His point is that the areas with the high economic opportunities lack in housing and those communities have been reluctant to open up their housing markets. He lists the various social ills that arise from the inhibition of mobility.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/03/american-geographic-social-mobility/681439/
That said, the type of housing built affects mobility as well. It’s young households that move most often, but if all they see are million dollar McMansions they won’t come here. Thinking that the only thing that matters is quantitative supply obscures the more subtle requirements to encourage the mobility and vitality we need.
Let’s face it – there’s no “crisis” to be solved regarding this article, or any other Vanguard crisis article.
There isn’t even a “problem” to be solved.
The only problem that could arise is if Village Farms is approved tomorrow. THAT’s when Davis would suddenly have quite a few problems that could have been avoided in the first place.
:-)