By David GreenwaldApril 15, 202516 comments
Davis is a city with immense resources—world-class institutions, a culture of civic engagement, and enough wealth to do more than tinker around the edges. Yet when it comes to affordable housing, we behave like we’re stuck.
As Drew Warshaw argues in his recent Next City op-ed, “We Need to Completely Rethink Affordable Housing,” the crisis is not a matter of scarcity. We have the money. We have the land. What we lack is imagination—and will.
Nowhere is that more evident than in Davis.
Earlier this month, the Davis City Council advanced the sale of 1021 Olive Drive, a city-owned surplus parcel, to a private developer planning to build 88 apartments. Fourteen of those units will be deed-restricted affordable housing. The rest will be “affordable-by-design,” modest studios and one-bedrooms theoretically accessible to moderate-income renters.
It’s a pragmatic step—one that aligns with our state-mandated housing goals—but it is also a reminder of how constrained our housing ambitions have become. Fourteen affordable units on publicly owned land in a city with thousands of cost-burdened renters is not a solution. It’s a system on autopilot.
As Warshaw writes, solving the housing crisis does not require a scientific breakthrough. It requires a shift in mindset. And Davis is overdue for one.
In Davis, housing scarcity is often treated like a natural condition—an unchangeable fact of local life. We fight over every new development. We parcel out affordability requirements with excruciating caution. We act as though change is something to be resisted, not shaped.
But this isn’t fate. It’s a policy choice. Warshaw reminds us: “History is not inevitable. It’s made by us.” The same is true for exclusionary zoning, low-density land use, and development caps that have restricted supply and pushed housing costs beyond reach.
Davis didn’t get here by accident. It got here because of Measure J/R/D, because of a deeply entrenched culture of homeowner entitlement, and because for decades we’ve measured progress by how little we build, not how many people we welcome in.
California is the fifth largest economy in the world. The City of Davis just brought in $570,000 from a single land sale, and our university hosts billions in research funding. The problem is not money. It’s how we choose to spend it.
As Warshaw notes, less than 1% of most state and federal budgets go toward affordable housing, while far more is spent propping up homeownership through tax deductions and mortgage subsidies. Meanwhile, renters—who now make up 35% of American households—are largely left out of long-term wealth-building strategies.
Here in Davis, the imbalance is even starker. While our city has supported some affordable housing investments, we have not matched that support with deep, structural reforms that would change the game. Public land like 1021 Olive Drive should be leveraged for 100% affordable housing. City resources should support housing co-ops, land trusts, and nonprofit developers—not just for-profit builders with minimal affordability requirements.
The money is there. So is the land. What’s missing is the decision to use both for the public good.
Our housing policies continue to be built around a romanticized vision of homeownership that leaves renters in the margins. As Warshaw points out, this mindset isn’t just outdated—it’s actively harmful.
In Davis, where home prices now top $900,000, buying a house is out of reach for nearly everyone under 40, for university employees, service workers, and young families alike. Yet our political decisions continue to center homeowners—restricting density, blocking new development at the ballot box, and fiercely guarding property values at the expense of access and equity.
It’s time to stop pretending that homeownership is the only valid pathway to stability. Renters deserve policies that protect them, housing that is permanently affordable, and investment that sees them as full members of the community—not temporary occupants.
In 2021, Congress passed the largest infrastructure bill in a generation. It included roads, bridges, transit, water—but not housing. As Warshaw notes, this omission reflects a larger failure of imagination: we still don’t treat housing as the infrastructure of everyday life.
Yet in Davis, housing is infrastructure in the most literal sense. It determines whether we have enough children to keep schools open. It determines whether our university staff can live near campus, whether our essential workers can stay in the community they serve, and whether our small businesses can hire and retain employees.
If we want a functioning, equitable, and sustainable city, then housing has to be treated with the same urgency and long-term investment as any other infrastructure project.
The solutions to our housing crisis won’t come from Sacramento alone. Cities like Davis must be willing to lead—and to rethink their own roles.
That means reimagining what’s possible on public land. It means re-zoning for density not as a concession, but as an opportunity. It means actively courting mission-driven developers, community land trusts, and affordable housing cooperatives. It means funding rental assistance, preserving existing affordability, and regulating speculation.
Above all, it means treating housing not as a commodity, but as a human right.
We already have examples of this new mindset: from cities like Minneapolis and Portland eliminating single-family zoning, to New York’s push for social housing, to California’s own ADU and duplex legislation. These reforms are about more than units—they’re about power. They challenge the assumption that land use decisions belong solely to homeowners and offer a path forward rooted in equity and inclusion.
Davis can be part of that future—but only if we’re willing to think differently.
In his op-ed, Warshaw compares the affordable housing crisis to the climate crisis—not in hopelessness, but in opportunity. Renewable energy scaled because people believed it could. Housing can too, if we make the same leap.
Davis has the resources, the talent, and the policy tools. What we need now is the will—to build, to share, to imagine. Let’s stop managing the crisis. Let’s start solving it.
