Can Davis grow its way to affordable housing?

Can Davis grow its way to affordable housing?

In short, no. And you should be highly suspicious of anyone who is claiming that it can. They are either wishful thinkers, misinformed, or being deliberately misleading.

As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, the quarterly UCLA Anderson Forecast (a leading source of economic analysis for business, government and the academic community) determined that "it could take decades and cost billions to build enough housing to make even a modest dent in home prices in the Bay Area and across the state" and "that investments far beyond what is contemplated would be needed to stop folks from paying exorbitant prices for wallpapered shoeboxes within a scooter’s distance of San Francisco Bay."

To be crystal clear, although the SF Chronicle article was focused on the Bay Area, the Forecast found this to be a statewide problem. Not only that, but the Bay Area's problems are our problems, too. A recent Sacramento Bee article reported that more than 17,000 Sacramento-area residents commute to the Bay Area every day. What's true of Sacramento is going to be true of Davis as well, and for the same reasons; as expensive as it is to live in Davis, it's far more expensive to live in the Bay Area. These days, even highly paid high tech workers are having trouble affording housing in the Bay Area.

So what's the answer to the problem of affordable housing? Or is there no answer?

There is probably no perfect answer. There seldom are simple answers to complicated problems (again, be highly suspicious of anyone who offers them). But here is what the Forecast recommends:

"…cities will have to target construction for certain segments of society, as San Francisco did recently when it committed a plot of land and $44 million in public funds toward building affordable housing for teachers."

"Another way to lower prices would be to expand the area in which people can live and still reasonably commute to work. One way to do that, he said, would be to hurry and build the long-planned bullet train between San Francisco and Los Angeles."

In short, what Davis needs is out-of-the-box creative thinking about housing, not just a build-build-build-hope-for-the-best mentality.