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Per Capita Davis: Is this a great town, or what?
Is this a great town, or what? Even after living here for 30-plus years I keep finding new reasons to be impressed. We may not live near the ocean, or enjoy the clear mountain air, but this is a special place.
A NON-TAXABLE BIKE RIDE: On May 5, Davis Waste Removal held a free shredding event at its facility on Second Street, which is, in and of itself, a great service. While waiting for my turn in a long line of cars, each with boxes filled with old tax returns and other documents, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the guy in front of me — on a bike, with his box of documents in his front basket. I wish I’d have thought of that.
MORE ABOUT WASTE: It’s very sad; neighbors of 25-plus years on either side of our house are moving. One couple is headed for Tahoe. The others are moving to another part of town and needed to dispose of a huge television set their son had obtained years ago before moving into his own home in the Bay Area.
It turns out thrift stores won’t take TVs over a certain size as a donation and this one was so big my neighbor asked my help to load it into a pickup truck and take it to the electronic recycling bins at the dump (another service that is, in and of itself, very special).
Maybe everyone else knows this, but I did not. In conjunction with the household hazardous waste drop-off events every Friday and Saturday from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., the landfill offers reusable products for free.
Bottles, jars, and cans that contain common household products and are at least half full are taken out of the waste stream and set aside on shelves in a separate building where they are available for free to anyone who wants them.
The shelves are organized according to the type of material in the container, so one shelf unit has paint (interior, exterior, primer) and paint products, another garden materials (fertilizer, snail bait, etc.), and a couple have stuff you might use in the house (lots of cleaners, floor polish, rug cleaner, water softeners, etc.).
The staff member said nothing stays on the shelf very long: “If you see something you want, you’d better grab it, because everything goes very quickly.”
HOW DENSE ARE WE? The Enterprise recently published census data (organized and analyzed by the estimable Jeff Hudson) that included some very interesting information about our community, some of which is pertinent to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.
First, the Davis area (the city, UC Davis, El Macero, Willowbank and Binning tract) contains nearly 75,000 people. It wasn’t too long ago (1980s) that the city was talking about trying to cap its population at 50,000 to maintain the “small town” atmosphere and preserve agricultural land.
The “slow growth” movement did have an effect on population, and there is a target (low) for desired rate of growth, but some forces (e.g. university admissions) are beyond the policy control of city officials.
Second, and most startling to me, the city of Davis, with 5,156 people per square mile, is No. 6 on the list of urbanized areas in the United States with the greatest population density, behind major metropolitan areas such as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Jose. And the city of Woodland, with 4,451, is No. 9.
The Yolo County policy of protecting agriculture and directing growth to urban areas has been very successful. One good thing about this level of density is that Davis doesn’t feel crowded. Another good thing is that density offers opportunities to improve the quality of life through mixed-use development and the potential for every housing unit to be located within easy walking or cycling distance of basic daily needs.
Over the years, planners and community leaders have built an infrastructure that favors energy efficiency and provides a foundational infrastructure for energy-efficient community development to reach the greenhouse gas reduction targets in our Climate Action Plan.
TOWN AND GOWN: In 1976, Amory Lovins coined the term “soft energy paths” to point us to a future where power is provided by solar and other renewable energy sources. He’s been advocating this ever since, and he recently gave a talk at UC Davis about his new book “Reinventing Fire.”
Suffice it to say his “think and do” tank, the Rocky Mountain Institute, has had an enormous effect on energy use; working with the military, large corporations and governments around the world to promote energy efficiency and renewables. He’s optimistic that market forces alone, without the need for government action, will bring about a rapid transformation to a non-fossil fuel-dependent world.
He points out that we live in a time of rapid change, and asks us to consider the examples of the typewriter (replaced by a computer) and the land line phone (replaced by mobile phones) when we get gloomy about resistance to change by the fossil fuel industry.
— John Mott-Smith is a resident of Davis; his column is published on the first and third Thursdays of each month. Send comments to johnmottsmith@comcast.net
Discussion | 14 comments
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AnticommunistJune 07, 2012 - 2:35 am
Davis is NOT the sixth densist city in the United States. The notion that the author actually entertained this notion indicates an astounding lack of sense. Davis is probably not in the top 500 densist places. Is this more zero growther propoganda, or a clueless writer? And by the way, Davis is about the lamest community on the face of the Earth, and people like this writer are half the reason. LOL
Reply |...June 07, 2012 - 7:34 am
"Davis is NOT the sixth densist city in the United States. The notion that the author actually entertained this notion indicates an astounding lack of sense. Davis is probably not in the top 500 densist places." And what is wrong with the reported census data that indicates that we should disbelieve it? It seems solid to me.
Reply |AlJune 07, 2012 - 1:47 pm
I assume this op-ed is referring to the chart found on http://www.census.gov/geo/www/ua/uafacts.html. The writer misinterprets this chart badly. It covers "urban areas", not cities. "Urban areas" include some areas that cover large swathes of under-developed/semi-rural land. Based on this population, the Davis urban area only contains Davis, El Macero, and the university - and does not include the rural/semi-rural land in-between Davis and Woodland and Dixon and West Sac. A better comparison would be the population density of the actual city of Davis with other cities. Using census figures found in the Quick Facts on the Census Bureau website, http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/index.html I quickly located a bunch of cities with higher population density than Davis. These provide more accurate comparisons. I only spent a couple of minutes on this. I would assume there are hundreds more. (Persons per square mile): Davis - 6637.2 Anaheim - 6747.6 Torrance - 7102.2 Culver City - 7607.7 Los Angeles - 8092.3 Long Beach - 9191.3 Berkeley - 10,752.6 Daly City - 13,194.5 East Palo Alto - 11,239.5 San Bruno - 7505.3 Brookline, MA - 8701.0 Boston - 12,792.7 Cambridge - 16,470.2 Chicago - 11,841.8 Evanston, IL - 9575.3 Philadelphia - 11,379.5 Washington DC - 9856.5 Seattle - 7250.9 Minneapolis - 7088.3
Reply |Statistics are fickleJune 07, 2012 - 11:12 am
I am not sure where Jeff originally got his information but since I work with numbers every day I had some issue with the idea that Davis is the sixth densest urban area in the country. I looked up the numbers as well and for one thing Census data is a numbers heaven or hell depending on your position. They have come up with their own definition of "urbanized area" which is way too long to discuss here but considering there is no building on our periphery only our city limits are included. Even then I see us as 22 on that list with Richgrove, CA (pop. 2867) being the most densely populated “urban area”. His placing us as number five is by only including areas over 50,000. Statistics are fun, right? If you were to look at incorporated places we don’t even come in to the top 200. Incorporated New York City has 27,012 people per square mile for example. Be careful with your numbers, they are fickle partners. By the way did you know that the City of Davis is three times more dense than Atlanta, GA? They are based on the way Jeff Hudson ran the numbers. They were 309th of areas with a population over 50,000. I'll bet Atlanta really feels like a small town.
Reply |Statistics are fickleJune 07, 2012 - 11:16 am
Ironic that I say be careful with your numbers and make a mistake in my post. Guess I shouldn't have been hurrying. He placed us at number six, of course, not number five. :-)
Reply |Rich RifkinJune 07, 2012 - 1:53 pm
If you are interested in the source which found Davis the No. 6 most densely populated urbanized area, here is the URL: http://www.census.gov/geo/www/ua/uafacts.html These are the numbers reported by the Census. The number on the right is the number of people per square mile: 1. Los Angeles--Long Beach--Anaheim, CA 6,999.3 2. San Francisco--Oakland, CA 6,266.4 3. San Jose, CA 5,820.3 4. Delano, CA 5,482.7 5. New York--Newark, NY--NJ--CT 5,318.9 6. Davis, CA 5,156.6 7. Lompoc, CA 4,815.7 8. Urban Honolulu, HI 4,715.6 9. Woodland, CA 4,550.8 10. Las Vegas--Henderson, NV 4,524.5 My guess is that the Census may have made a mistake with regard to Davis. It lists the Davis area population being 72,794. I am sure that is right. However, for the land area, it lists that as being 14.1 square miles. I question the square miles. It probably does not include all of UC Davis, but does include the parts which have student dorms. It likely does not include the unpopulated area between Davis and the Binning Tract, while counting the population of the BT. Etc.
Reply |wdf1June 07, 2012 - 3:40 pm
Where & what is the "Binning Tract"?
Reply |The World's Gone CrazyJune 07, 2012 - 4:12 pm
East of Hwy 113 a little north of Covell. I was there before I made my appearance in Davis in 1954 and still is there today. Two streets running east and west and at least one running north and south, off what’s now the frontage road.
Reply |The World's Gone CrazyJune 07, 2012 - 4:14 pm
The other EAST, Binning tract is WEST of Hwy 113!
Reply |Rich RifkinJune 07, 2012 - 6:44 pm
Another way of saying this is: the Binning Tract is Sharon Road and Barry Road --- Mrs. Binning: "Honey, let's name the streets for our two kids, okay?" -- and that is between Sutter Davis Hospital and the Davis Municipal Golf Course. There are a couple of streets full of super large houses out by the golf course, which also are in the Davis urban area. But, again, I suspect that the land between those houses and the rest of Davis is not counted in the total square miles.
Reply |Rich RifkinJune 07, 2012 - 6:48 pm
A minor tidbit on the Binnings: Old-time Davis people will recall that before Sutter Davis Hospital was built, we had Davis Community Hospital out on County Road 99 (which becomes Lake Blvd south of Covell). The site of Davis Community Hospital was (I was told by someone more old-timey than I am) originally gifted to the hospital by the Binning family, and that the Binnings gave a lot of money for the construction of the old hospital. As such, before it was called the Davis Community Hospital, it was called the Binning Community Hospital. (If anyone knows I have this wrong, please correct me.)
Reply |Statistics are fickleJune 07, 2012 - 5:30 pm
Yes Rich, I have the same data but this is areas over 50,000 people and not all urbanized areas as I was briefly trying to explain. Urbanized areas are basically designated as contiguous Census tracts where the population exceeds 2500 per square mile. This is not the full definition but just a part of the story. That is why areas that are surrounded by farm land are more compact (eg. Richgrove and Davis) while big urban areas get "diluted" by their surrounding suburbs. The Census is not mistaken it is giving us data that is based on a set of arbitrary and very confusing rules. Anyway, it is hard to explain but that is the case with so many statistical "facts".
Reply |AlJune 07, 2012 - 3:36 pm
If the New York Urbanized Area includes areas in NY, NJ, and CT, then Davis and Woodland surely should belong in the Sacramento Urbanized Area, not on their own. The Yolo Bypass separating Davis and Woodand from Sac/West Sac might be responsible for this anomaly. There are no permananent occupied structures, so perhaps the existence of a large flood plain messed with the definitions the Census Bureau was using. I have huge problems with this list of most densely populated urban areas. Anyone who has spent any time in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, DC, or countless other eastern cities knows that Davis, Woodland, San Jose, and Las Vegas are nowhere near as dense.
Reply |BobJune 07, 2012 - 7:29 pm
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, if you want to keep usable things out of the dump entirely, google Davis Freecycle. After registering you post either OFFERs or WANTed notices. I've gotten rid of numbers of still-useful items that the SPCA didn't want.
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