By Jeff Boone
I love science written at the eighth-grade reading level (so I can understand it). I don’t like it when my science is politicized, but that is a topic for another day. I love history too. Were I not perpetually curious, business-minded and action-oriented (thanks to my maternal-side genetics), I would likely degrade into an amoeba-like creature glued to the TV watching only the Science Channel and the History Channel… maybe with a bit of NPR.
I also like to read. The problem with reading is my mind starts to pop with my own ideas and I run to the computer to start writing my next business plan.
If only I had more time…
“Time,” as it happens, is one of my favorite science topics only second to astrophysics (“space-time”); and all of it really gets me thinking about the length, purpose and meaning of life. How long are we here? Why are we here? How are we here? Are we just lucky, or is there some deeper metaphysical explanation of our existence? For example, are we the product of the miracle of God’s creation, or are we the product of the miracle of some elements happening to coalesce within a primordial goop and then fantastically springs into a life that would grow opposable thumbs and start asking questions about the meaning of life? And related to those questions, what are we supposed to do while we are here?
Growing up I did a lot of “meaning of life” ruminating. As a little tyke living in southern Florida, on those hot and humid summer nights, my friends and I used to lay on the cool hood of our family station wagon (back when the hoods were not made out of tin-foil-thin material), and stare out into the star-filled night sky. We would exchange thoughts about what we were seeing, but mostly we would silently watch the slow-moving show and try to grasp the relative meaning of it all. We also wondered about those other “people” living on Mars and Venus… what did they look like and were they too laying on the hood of their vehicles looking into the cosmos thinking the same about us?
Of course we have progressed in space exploration and have confirmed no human-like higher life forms exist on Mars or Venus; however, I still like watching the night-sky show… and I still wonder about it and my relationship with it and my relationship with space-time.
Thankfully, in my advanced years I have at least decided what I will do with my own time. That is a good thing too, because I concluded at a very young age is that a human life does not really last that long. I like to say that God (or Darwin) gives us four twenties and bit of change. So how much have you already spent and what do you have to show for it?
The scientific “Big Bang” theory explains that every element, and the stuff that holds it all together, was formed within the first fractions of a second about 13.5 or so billion years ago. That stuff (mainly particles) doubled in size every 10-34 seconds. Then all of this super-hot mess of quickly-expanding particles started to cool down and form into heavenly bodies. About 4.5 billion years ago our planet came into being. Earth won the lottery for supporting life… everything was just right… except it was still too hot. It took about a billion years to cool down enough to show signs of life… and soon after the miracle of life sprung in the form of wiggly bugs. About 250 million years ago the wiggly bugs had evolved into dinosaurs. The best we can tell at this point from the fossils we dig up, human-like creatures didn’t show up until about 2.5 million years ago. Our high-functioning language capability did not show up until around 5000 years ago.
Get the picture here? In the scale of space-time and the age of the universe, we are less than a flicker. So really, why do we feel so entitled and important?
Bill Byrson – one my favorite authors next to our very own New York Times best-selling novelist John Lescroart (note: shameless pitch for my friend), does a very good eighth-grade-reading-comprehension job summing up the science of time and human life in his book “A Short History of Nearly Everything.”
Mr. Bryson writes:
Survival on Earth is a surprisingly tricky business. Of the billions and billions of species of living things that have existed since the dawn of time, most-99.99 percent-are no longer around. Life on Earth, you see, is not only brief but dismayingly tenuous. It is a curious feature of our existence that we come from a planet that is very good at promoting life but even better at extinguishing it.
Not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since time immemorial to a favored evolutionary line, but you have also been extremely – make that miraculously – fortunate in your personal ancestry. Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth’s mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life’s quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result-eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly-in you.
So it is understandable from a scientific perspective in this astrophysical-related-atom-width-short span of a lottery-winning human life that we humans pursue our own self-interest. We are so damn lucky to get to enjoy this brief and fantastic experience that we don’t want to waste a minute doing anything we don’t want to do.
The problem though is that our own self-interest can be in conflict with someone else’s self-interest. In fact, it is this tendency for humans to give weight to their own self-interest that causes a need for various systems of governance. Anarchy is terrible and the people contained within it are generally miserable in their much shorter life expectancy. The tendency for people to pursue their own self-interest is also why a system of direct democracy fails and fails miserably. Tyranny of the majority can occur when enough people team together to promote their self-interest at the expense of others. That tendency needs to be checked and balanced. Conversely, governance by central control also fails and fails miserably as the powerful pursue their self-interest at the expense of the many. This is why our country’s founders settled on a representative form of democracy with executive, legislative and judicial branches. They sought a system that provided checks and balances. It was and still is an imperfect system; but it is arguably the best ever devised.
Because communities would otherwise devolve into destructive anarchy, they also need good systems of governance. However, even with a community system of governance, communities generally don’t have a chance to survive unless they bring something else to the table to help manage and moderate the battles over competing self-interests.
We have systems of governance designed to help mitigate and balance conflicts. We have laws, law enforcement and a judicial system to help prevent and resolve conflicts.
But lastly, and arguably most importantly, we have a community moral code to live by. This is that final ingredient to help a community survive and thrive.
Morality is the ying to our pursuit of self-interest yang. Ideally they both live together in relative harmony. For example, it is in our self-interest to take our neighbor’s property. Laws and law enforcement help prevent this; but laws and law enforcement is only needed if we fail to adopt a community moral code that says it is wrong to steal and then we conform to that code. Because perfection in rules and enforcement is impossible, morality is the real controlling mechanism that keeps each of us reasonably satisfied in life, but in a way that is least harmful to the lives of others.
Some will argue this point and oppose the idea of community moral code and instead demand more central control. But these people would fail to identify a working system of a strong central control model either historical or present.
This brings me to my final point: balance. More specifically I am talking about the balance of pursuit of self-interest over a principled moral consideration for the same for others… especially those younger others.
Life is a fast-burning, lottery-winning, miracle and blessing. But to extract the most value out of this short stint, we need to have a good launch. We need copious opportunity of experience to answer our own questions about meaning and purpose, and then pursue our self-interests. Given affordable rents and a good enough job, we will have time to experience and time to read. And then ideas will pop and we will write our life plan and our business plan. And we will seek out collaborative love, talent, financing and space to fulfill our passions and to do great things before we are done living.
It would seem it is our community’s moral responsibility to support this proviso of youthful opportunity. Without it we would be unbalanced. Without it we would be… immoral.
I am always thinking about that balance. I ask myself what can I do to help myself have a good life while also supporting the same for others? What is the right thing to do? What is the right position to take?
I had opportunity growing up. I found myself. I was allowed to try a lot of things… to find out what I liked to do, what I wanted to do, and what I was good at (and not so good at… like being a scientist).
We will all have a vote on Measure A this June. From my perspective even though city growth is not in my best interest as an older resident desiring less traffic congestion and more peace and quiet, in seeking that community moral code balance I am absolutely supportive of the Nishi project. Nishi will bring needed housing and needed jobs to the community. It will bring in needed tax revenue and help prevent a need for tax increases that, although I can afford, many cannot afford… especially the younger residents. The local jobs will help others in our community pursue their self-interest and have a better opportunity to launch a good life.
I wish I had more time in this life. But with the little I do have, I want to be successful always hitting the sweet spot in balance for the right things. When I am lucky, I get to choose what is good for me at the same time I get to support what is good for my neighbor. The hardest choices are those where I see some loss in my own interests in concession to help others. But, I see my choice as being largely governed by my understanding of what a good community moral code should be… and when it comes to our younger neighbors, I am willing to give up the most.
Vote YES on Measure A this June in honor of a community moral code that seeks balance for what is good for the younger members of our community. They deserve opportunity like we older residents have been blessed with… to find and pursue their interests and to achieve a good life.
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I am sure that you will have generated many more thoughts for me, but one of your comments really caught my eye.
“I wish I had more time in this life.”
When I read this, I was struck by how very basic is our difference in world view. What could possibly be more basic than the way we view the time we have available to us ? I do not wish for more time. I believe that the amount of time allotted to me, however much that may be, was exactly the right amount of time for me to accomplish whatever it is that I am to do to fulfill my infinitesimal role in the universe. While I love life dearly, I have no desire for what seems to be that compelling American societal interest, the desire for “more”.
I apply this equally to material possessions. I do not desire more. I have been attempting to do with gradually less and less. This has not come to me just with aging. I was told in my twenties and thirties that I was a minimalist. The first time was before I appreciated what the word meant. That does not mean that I cannot appreciate the concept of more. So what do I want more of ? A more clean environment. A more healthy population. More fresh air and blue skies. More stars visible in your so beautifully described sky. More safety in our community. More food for those who are hungry. More teachers for those who want to learn and medical providers for those who are ill. These I do not believe will be provided by more competition, but rather by more generosity and willingness to share our accumulated wealth.
From a very different perspective on the benefits of “more”, I join you in planning to support Measure A.
Hmmm… just how much are you willing to share? It is a philosophical question to be sure, but taken to its extreme, are you advocating communal living? That is the epitome of “sharing”. I personally would not care for communal living. In my experience there are too many folks who do not pull their weight in a work environment, and would gladly sponge off others. Saw this in the work place, and in daily living with neighbors.
Nameless
i agree that this is ultimately a philosophic discussion. The simple answer to your question is that I do not argue for, nor personally desire”communal living’. However, I do believe that there are an infinite number of intermediate positions between “every man for himself” and possession less ” communal” living. I believe that in an extremely wealthy society in which many live at or below the poverty line, in which many children remain homeless or live in dangerous conditions ( think Flint) or some would say “think Nishi”,I believe that we are extremely out of balance in favor of “every man for himself” with the balance tipped very far in favor of the already affluent.
Different paths to the same conclusion are certainly possible and certainly acceptable in my opinion.
I understand what you want in a community. And I value many of the same things. I think the difference is one of feasibility. I don’t have a problem with your ideas even as I might label them as fanciful. Ironically we are talking about supporting innovative business that may be based on fanciful ideas… and in fact might actually develop things that support your progressive ideas for a more progressive community.
You keep bringing up this point about not desiring more. I have to call you on that. You are absolutely one that keeps opinion for more… more of what you personally want. It is all about your self interest (that was the point of the article… we all have self-interest). There is nothing wrong with that, except for the fact you don’t seem to register it as your self-interest as much as you register it as righteous. You have a self-interest to see Davis be a certain way. You want more of that, and less of the things that do not fit in your ideas for what you prefer.
The problem is that your self-interests can conflict with those of others that need a place to live and need a job. And also a conflict of interest for the community that needs more organic tax revenue.
There needs to be a balance between all of our self-interests. That is where the community moral code comes in.
True giving. True altruism. These are when we give up things we value for the benefit of others. You make the case that you don’t value money. You don’t value material possessions. So giving those up (higher taxes) are not really things you are “giving.” What you value is a smaller, quieter and more car-less community. It seems that you have come to the conclusion that you are willing to give up some of that self-interest pursuit for the benefit of others. I say bravo.
Jeff
“There is nothing wrong with that, except for the fact you don’t seem to register it as your self-interest as much as you register it as righteous. “
And I see this statement as no more than you, like your Doppelgänger, deciding that you know more about me than I know. Please show me in what statement I have implied self righteousness. I know that you have made that claim repeatedly. I would challenge you to show me a single quote where I have claimed righteousness.
If not righteous, then please explain to me the benefits to the human condition derived from your opinions about what Davis should be like, including your positions on all the recent significant development projects. That is the piece missing for me and why I say righteous.
For example, I can calculate the benefit to the human condition building more housing.
I can calculate the benefit to the human condition from the additional jobs and career opportunities from building more commercial property.
I can calculate the benefit to the human condition growing the size of our local economy in that more tax revenue will flow to the city to pay for much needed road and infrastructure repair and to help us fund programs for children, seniors and needy.
I think your positions against these things would have to be defined as righteous since they would otherwise lack any basis for justification other than just being purely selfish.
But I am open to being educated by you for how your support or opposition of all these proposed projects benefits the human condition.
“We will all have a vote on Measure A this June. From my perspective even though city growth is not in my best interest as an older resident desiring less traffic congestion and more peace and quiet, in seeking that community moral code balance I am absolutely supportive of the Nishi project. Nishi will bring needed housing and needed jobs to the community. It will bring in needed tax revenue and help prevent a need for tax increases that, although I can afford, many cannot afford… especially the younger residents. The local jobs will help others in our community pursue their self-interest and have a better opportunity to launch a good life.”
Well said! I have to say though, I never sat around as a kid thinking about how I fit in the universe. I was too busy climbing trees, sledding, doing outdoor house chores, wandering the neighborhood with my dog – basically figuring out ways to stay out of the house! LOL
Ha! Well, I did all of those things too.
I question the morality of a project that potentially poisons the people living there. And since when is development somehow some sort of moral venture, especially when it caters to wealthier students and leaves out the rest? Where is the moral fortitude in creating a traffic mess. Also, some of us see more morality in open spaces than in developed ones, so I don’t get any of this.
Odin – aside from the hyperbolic “poison” claim, I think you need to do some accounting. I would argue that there is not any morality in hording more open-space when we already have a lot and we are clearly short of housing and jobs. That is an unbalanced situation. Davis already has more than 5000 acres of open space preserved. We have a 2:1 ag mitigation ordinance. We have Measure O that is still accumulating funds that the city can use to buy more land for that farmland moat. We are more than sufficiently covered in that self-interest for open space. That isn’t a need at this point, it is only a want. What we need is more housing for students, and more jobs for young adults, and more tax revenue for the community. Pursuing more open space at the expense of these things would be immoral in my opinion.
But we can certainly agree to disagree.
My problem is, when does it stop? Our system is built on a giant ponzi scheme: Need growth to provide housing and revenue….time passes….need more growth and housing to sustain revenue….time passes…..
I prefer Davis to Elk Grove because we haven’t allowed rampant unsustainable growth and because we appreciate open space. When we give in to developers, we sell our souls. What has made Davis special is it’s small town feel. Now we have The Cannery, Lincoln 40, Trackside, Sterling, MERC, a hotel conference facility, whatever huge thing they’re building on B Street, and Nishi and people are STILL saying there is not enough. Screw the university, we’re about to lose that small town feel and I feel no shame in wanting to maintain it.
Odin…many feel that Davis lost its “small town feel” about 1968-70. When did you become part of the community?
I still often find that I’m approximately ‘2 degrees of separation’ from ~ 25% of the citizenry. In my opinion, if you’re within 3 or 4 degrees of separation from 75% of the population, it is still feeling like a small town…
50 years from now, I really doubt that by population or areal extent we’ll be the size of say, Fairfield today.
Our first house was built in 1968… our current one in 1994.
We came here in 1972. I see more amenities than then, but don’t feel at all like I’m not living in a “town”, as opposed to a “City”… I’m fully comfortable with the changes from 1972 to 2016.
The “sky is NOT falling” as to a sense of community… unless, perhaps, that the attitude that the prevails is one that sees all development as the “big, bad wolf”…
There was an interesting concept briefly espoused by some, in the early 80’s’… prevent growth in existing cities, by creating “satellite” towns/cities … out on the prime ag land.
Odin – I hear you.
But let’s dial it back a bit. Davis isn’t going to be Elk Grove.
I have lived here for 40 years. My wife for 50. I tell you this so you know that we also chose to live here and stay here in consideration of that “small town feel.”
But Davis isn’t Davis just because it is small. Otherwise why not live in Dixon or Winters? You don’t and I suspect the reasons have more to do with the people living here than the size of the town.
Davis is Davis because of the university. In 1978 when I graduated high school about 15% of the kids went on to earn a 4-year degree. Today it is around 55% and climbing.
So there is pressure on all communities that host colleges to absorb greater numbers of students.
So what are we going to do about that?
Odin wrote:
> I prefer Davis to Elk Grove because we haven’t allowed
> rampant unsustainable growth and because we appreciate
> open space.
Did you prefer Elk Grove 15 years ago (when it had less people and more open space than Davis)?
I also prefer Davis to Elk Grove but it has more to do with the “kind” of people that live here than the “number” of people that live here.
Frankly: In 1978 when I graduated high school about 15% of the kids went on to earn a 4-year degree. Today it is around 55% and climbing.
Nationwide it is more like 66%. At the end of the recession, it reached 70%.
wdf1 wrote:
> Nationwide it is more like 66%. At the
> end of the recession, it reached 70%.
I think it is important for the people who work in education to explain to kids today that just because more people get college degrees does not mean that there will be more jobs that require college degrees and/or pay more if you have a college degree.
When you go and talk to a stock broker they are forced to tell you that “past performance is no guarantee of future success”. I have never heard anyone selling student loans say this and more often than not a kid that borrows $100K to get a UC degree today thinks his life will be just like his Dad’s.
It is sad to say but the kid who graduates from UCD today with ~$100K debt will probably have a MUCH different life than his parents who would have graduated with ~$20K in debt if they borrowed 100% of the cost of tuition and room and board (many homes in Davis cost 10x what they did 30 years ago, but few recent UCD grads are making 10x what they made 30 years ago).
SoD: One antidote to that level of college debt is community college. Also, individuals with college education tend to be more resilient in an economic downturn than those without. Statistics from the last recession bear this out. A more recent source.
Huge difference, in my opinion, is between a “job” and a “career”… you don’t need a degree for a job… you better have one for a career… unless you career is flipping burgers…
My recollection of that concept was that the new towns were to be created along transportation corridors on non-prime ag land. The Dunnigan area was the first site I remember being proposed. I think the absence of a safe and reliable water supply tripped up that idea.
That’s probably true for the majority, and good rule of thumb. But some of us managed to circumvent the rule, if not always by design.
Manzanita, the 1980’s planned development that would have gone in next to Winters but in Solano County, was rejected by the voters and ultimately was the catalyst for Solano Measure A which restricts housing growth to the existing cities. Mike Corbett had some involvement in the Manzanita proposal.
Here’s a 1990 article on the subject: http://articles.latimes.com/1990-02-11/business/fi-1089_1_lake-elsinore/2
Footnote: after we voted down Manzanita and passed Measure A, the local leaders pressed hard for the superconducting supercollider to be built in an area between Dixon and Winters.
http://www.dailyrepublic.com/opinion/localopinioncolumnists/remembering-areas-supercollider-bid/
Don – thanks for that. I had no idea.
You lost me at “I”.
Thanks for contributing so much value to the conversation Alan Miller.
Jeff: Not sure how this all links together for you. FOr me I’m a slow growther. I don’t like big cities. I may work in Sac at times, but I prefer the suburban life style. But Davis is not viable without some additions in my view.
I am someone that obviously likes living in a small town. I commuted to Sacramento for my career for 25 years while living in Davis. I was actually closer to Folsom for 6 of those years, and yet I stayed in Davis. I don’t see myself as a slow grower or fast grower. I see myself as a just-right grower.
I love big cities… to visit… not to live in. Although I like having more good restaurants and more good entertainment choices.
I was just thinking something that might bring this together. Who really owns the town?… is it the bedroom community residents (those that commute to other places to work), the retirees and soon to be retired residents, the families that live here because the public schools are good, the UCD employees and city employee that live here because they work here, is it the other business owners that live here… or is it the students?
I’m sure you would agree that it is all of the above.
And if it is all of the above, then we should seek to strike a balance in attempting to accommodate and meet the needs of all of these groups.
I wrote the article thinking about my response to a failed Measure A. I realized that I would be disgusted with my fellow residents. But then I was driving home from work and had what I would consider the worst traffic day ever in Davis… I was grumpy when I got home almost 20 minutes after I left. And then thinking that through I started seeing the entire thing as a moral challenge. It is in my own self-interest to oppose Nishi and any other large development because I hate traffic and congestion and don’t want to start experiencing longer commutes. But, I believe it is the right decision in consideration of life, time, balance and a sense of community morality.
Should we always only vote for our own self-interest, or is there something bigger we should consider?
Jeff
“I don’t see myself as a slow grower or fast grower. I see myself as a just-right grower.”
Thanks for the first Vanguard induced smile of my day. Of course you do. And what you may not realize is that this is probably how all of us see ourselves, from Michael Harrington to Mark West, from you to …..well, me. I imagine that we all see ourselves as favoring and advocating just the right amount of growth. It’s just that those pesky others with their different viewpoints that keep getting in the way !
I was just responding to The Pugalist… he/she said he/she was a slow-grower. I think there are many that would agree to that label.
I don’t think you can make the case that you favor just the right about of growth while opposing new rental housing when the vacancy rate is less than 1% and the university if growing. I don’t think you can make the case that you favor just the right amount of growth when Davis has less than half the commercial property than any other comparable city.
But these are just my opinions.
I agree though that there is a lot of subjectivity in the word “slow” and in the word “fast”.
Mr, Boone, I read your article with interest, because your Morality depends on whether people agree with you or not. People in many places, try to reach a consensus and vote accordingly.
But not Davis. They want their way or spend their influence and sabotage every other idea through character assassination and disinformation. The people I have talked to who live here have little perspective of any other life, and do not strive for any.
What was also funny is the percentage of students who get a degree. There are more college degrees but the level of education has dwindled to the status of high school 40 years ago. Professors at the UC tell me it takes a couple years to get students up to college level, something they should have attained before they arrived.
I think a lot of what these kids are missing is real work experience. They are book-smart and not life-smart. It would be a much better education if they worked at a challenging job while attending school.
Jeff wrote:
> They (younger people) deserve opportunity like we
> older residents have been blessed with…
The only way younger people will get cheaper college tuition, cheaper rents and cheaper homes to buy (like we had) is if the people that work for UC decide to take pay cuts (and fire their many friends and relatives who don’t do much) and the residents of Davis vote for more development to lower that rental value and resale value of the homes they own. I don’t expect either to happen any time soon…
http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2014/university-of-california/
I have a question (for anyone who wants to answer). (I also realize that I’ll be corrected, if my assumptions are wrong.)
I understand that SACOG requirements essentially force all cities to absorb their “fair share” of growth/development, over time. And, that we’re currently meeting SACOG requirements, due to other developments in various stages of construction/planning.
If Nishi is a good location to accommodate housing, is it a good idea to “use up” that location before we need to? (I assume that we would not get “credit” from SACOG, for exceeding requirements.) If Nishi is built now, where would the “next” housing development be (when we’re no longer meeting SACOG requirements, and are forced to find another location)?
Ron… as I understand it, SACOG uses a time-weighted standard… if you accommodate growth now, you get a ‘credit’ against future ‘needs’.
Also, the only “hammer” SACOG, has is to make SACOG recommendations of transportation/other funding more difficult for entities that don’t accommodate the regional growth.
This is not a matter of expertise of mine…
Seems to me that those that don’t want Davis to grow should be making their case at the state level to open more campuses.
Maybe Davis needs a wall around it to prevent too many students from coming here.
And, get the University to pay for it… heard of a similar concept elsewhere…
Hehe… me too. You win the prize for picking up on that.
Jeff,
Surprised you would miss an opportunity to suggest a new revenue opportunity: Why not just charge admission?
Doby – you mean pay a fine and move to the back of the line?
Jeff,
Sorry, I wasn’t more clear. Several years ago a friend observed “Why don’t we just put up a gate and charge admission to Club Davis?”
LOL! Thanks for the clarification.
I think we do have a gate of sorts in our high housing costs and limited employment opportunities. It is pretty effective at keeping out those undesirable lower income people.
Now all we need is a farmland moat with a few alligators.
what a bunch of nonsense, excuse my french….. Read my posts on the other threads….
Just because MORE people with MONEY<,,,aka DEVELOPERS think THIS is a good idea, all the rest of the stuff is truly just warm and fuzzy and FLUFFY pleasantries which are NOT based in FACT>..
We NEED light industrial but the NISHI property is NOT the place…. it SHOULD be in WOODLAND>>>where the many people who work in DAvis live because DAVIS is too expensive…
Woodland is like NORTH< NORTH Davis NOW…..even the prices are jumping due to what is happening in Davis… And, THERE is TONS Of truly useable LIGHT industrial space….
With all the people now clogging the roads in Davis and 80, it is faster to get to the industrial areas of Woodland from campus than to MY house in South Davis….
On land that is already paved and has ALL the infrastructure one could ever want…
And, Woodland will WELCOME these companies…
The same could ALSO be said about WEST SAC>….that also is less than 10 minutes from MY house in South Davis…
Right now we are accepting WAY more than OUR fair share….in the very poor AND the very rich…
The Cannery is NOT for the folks who graduate HS and want to live and buy a house in DAVIS….
NISHI will be NO better and more housing NEXT to campus is NOT the concern right now….and light industrial clogging UP the roads around it is NOT the right thing either…
One of the real issues in our WHOLE region is that 80 was built when Davis and other towns were small… THEN as things get built up on the periphery, there is NO where to expand the freeway…
I wish MORE would take the train but that is not tenable for all but the ones with the MOST flexible or part time work schedules… and it does not run often enough to make it feasible for too many…
Frankly
“I don’t think you can make the case that you favor just the right about of growth while opposing new rental housing when the vacancy rate is less than 1% and the university if growing.”
And I don’t see how one can accuse someone of “opposing new rental housing” when they have stated repeatedly that they favor Nishi. Not all proposals are equal in meeting the needs of all the groups that you have correctly identified as “owning” Davis. I believe in assessing the pros and cons of each proposal separately instead of blindly saying either “yes” or “no” to each proposal.
I also have stated repeatedly that I favor affordable housing and would not oppose projects that have this as a major component of the project. Again, I believe that I have been very consistent in not objecting to providing additional housing, and additional work spaces for those who are in need of help obtaining them. I do not favor the city infringing on the values of others so that those who are either politically, economically or socially connected can enhance their already substantial portfolios.
I would include myself in that latter group of those with substantial portfolios. But then, I am not asking our city leadership to make any special exceptions for me that cause “material harm” to others.
Dear Jeff and other kinder and gentler friends.
I am sorry if my tone last night was NOT of a kind and gentle nature.
I had just gotten woken from a deep sleep because I forgot to put my cell phone off for the night.
I am a true bear in the RUSSIAN BEAR rather than a BERKELEY BEAR kinda mood when woken from a VERY rare deep sleep.
Affordable housing in DAVIS is a sham, my friends and after I get some REAL work done this morning, I will do my best to expose THAT also…
OR< one can see my posts on the other threads in the last few days ON this topic and some others.
I am SHORT when I am trying to help my friends battle cancer which is TRULY life or death…
AND too many are now sick and or dying at a WAY too young age due to big food, big med, big pharma and so forth…..
Enjoy the day as I will NOT be online much more today…