By Rob White
I was sent an article today by one of our local business people that is also a booster of the tech sector here in Davis. The article was authored by Enrico Moretti and published in the Wall Street Journal on September 17, 2013. Mr. Moretti is currently a professor of labor economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of “The New Geography of Jobs” (Houghton Mifflin, 2012).
The title of the article struck me since we have been discussing on this blog the merits of the economic benefits of technology companies in Davis… the title is Where the Good Jobs Are – and Why: When a high-tech company hires one person, five other new jobs follow.
Mr. Moretti states “The American labor market is recovering from a painful recession. But the recovery is geographically uneven. While some parts of the country are booming, others are still stuck in a deep recession. Two groups of localities have been doing particularly well over the past two years. Both are supported by fast-paced technological progress, but one has by far the bigger jobs-multiplier effect.”
He goes on to say that “the first group includes cities endowed with a large number of highly educated workers and innovative employers-places like San Jose, Calif.; Seattle; Austin, Texas; Raleigh, N.C.; Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis. The recession had less impact on these areas, and job growth has been brisk since the recovery began, thanks to sectors like the Internet, software, digital entertainment and biotech.”
Further explanation of his points about the first group include discussion that “the most striking example is San Francisco, where the labor market for tech workers is the most dynamic it has been in a decade, average salaries are above their 2006 level, and housing prices have surpassed their pre-recession peak. In the past six months, Twitter and Yelp had to raise salaries to keep employees from moving to a fast-growing number of increasingly aggressive startups.”
The second group is described as a “booming-economy group (that) includes areas endowed with oil and gas-Oklahoma, parts of Texas, New Mexico and Colorado.” I won’t go much in to the second group since we are much more aligned with the first group, but I will point out that the author states that this group is “like San Francisco… (and) this area is becoming a magnet for workers attracted by raising wages and seemingly insatiable labor demand.”
But what really struck me was this statement… “It is a tipping-point dynamic: Once a city spawns some innovative companies, its ecosystem changes in ways that make it even more attractive to others. For instance, the existence of Salesforce, Twitter and Yelp in downtown San Francisco increases the city’s appeal to other high-tech entrepreneurs, and makes them more likely to locate their companies there, along with tech workers from all over the world. Nationwide, high-tech employment has grown 25 times faster than the rest of the economy.”
He goes on to explain that “cities with a high density of innovative employers and highly educated workers have also experienced ups and downs, most notably the 2001-03 dot-com bust. But the trend in employment, wages and skills over the past 30 years clearly has been positive. The rise of America’s innovation hubs reflects a structural change in the American economy. Since 1980, data show that the economic success of a city has been increasingly defined by its number of highly educated workers. Cities with many college-educated workers and innovative employers started attracting more of the same, and cities with a less educated workforce and less innovative employers-such as traditional manufacturing-started losing ground.”
But here was the real clincher… The author states that his “research shows that scientists and software engineers are not the only ones who thrive as a result. Using data on nine million workers in 320 U.S. metropolitan areas, I found that for each new innovation-job in a city, five additional jobs are created-not only in professional occupations (lawyers, teachers, nurses) but also nonprofessional occupations (waiters, hairdressers, carpenters). For each new software designer hired at Twitter in San Francisco, there are five new job openings for baristas, personal trainers, therapists and taxi drivers. The most important effect of high-tech companies on the local economy is outside high-tech.”
I hope that many of you are saying out loud, ‘that is the point that Rob has been making for some months now’. When I first arrived in Davis I discussed the need to focus on retaining and recruiting the top CEOs and executives and researchers because of the workforce infrastructure that comes with each of those positions. So you can imagine how good it made me feel to have specific research that backed the ideas that my colleagues and I have been discussing for over a decade. Research conducted by a UC Berkeley professor of labor economics. And as we have all often said on this blog, make all the points you want, but the facts and the research should bear that out. Now we know that at least one set of researchers have done exactly that.
I invite you to read the entire article and see what you think. I for one plan to get the book by Mr. Moretti and see what else might be buried between the pages.
Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. And you can email me at rwhite@cityofdavis.org if you want to provide more directed comments.
I want to see Davis get more tech jobs, but when Moretti writes:
“the existence of Salesforce, Twitter and Yelp in downtown San Francisco increases the city’s appeal to other high-tech entrepreneurs”
He seems to forget that there are a lot of other things that make a tech firm pick San Francisco or Boston than the fact that Yelp or DataXu is down the street. The list is VERY long why companies have been moving to both SF and Boston for over 200 years.
This article was passed around earlier this week with people laughing at this quote:
“I found that for each new innovation-job in a city, five additional jobs are created—not only in professional occupations (lawyers, teachers, nurses) but also nonprofessional occupations (waiters, hairdressers, carpenters). For each new software designer hired at Twitter in San Francisco, there are five new job openings for baristas, personal trainers, therapists and taxi drivers. The most important effect of high-tech companies on the local economy is outside high-tech.”
Does anyone (but Moretti) really think that if Twitter hires one new “software designer” that the local Starbucks will get a new barista, Twitters law firm will get a new attorney, the local shrink will bring on a partner, the local cab company will hire another guy and the local gym will hire a personal trainer (hoping that someday the number of software engineers that have personal trainers will increase from 1% to 2%).
I know there is a “job multiplier” but anyone that says that one new job creates five others is either smoking crack (or has spent too much time outside of the “real world”)…
Rob
I appreciate the article and recognize that you may not have been here long enough to have formed an opinion on this question. I am going to ask it anyway since three posters here have told me that they either don’t care or believe it to be a nonsense question. I do care, and to me, it is not nonsense. What would you see as the optimal increase both in population and in businesses for our town and over what amount of time ? Why ?
medwoman wrote (asking Rob):
> What would you see as the optimal increase both
> in population and in businesses for our town and
> over what amount of time ? Why ?
I don’t want to speak for Rob, but I don’t think anyone can (or should) answer the question unless they get more details.
The “number” I would give if I was told we can’t add a tech park or more more homes and apartments to the city will be very different if I’m told that we will have a million sf tech park at 80 and Mace located below the new “Mace Ranch East” with 2,000 new SFHs and 1,000 apartment units (and new schools and parks).
My “number” would be even higher if (as Don has advocated) we build space for business in the NW corner of town near Sutter Davis and also add more homes and apartments in a new “North” West Davis neighborhood.
Many (might even be most) people that live in South Davis and West Davis rarely ever set foot in Downtown Davis (and almost never set foot in Old East Davis) so it is important for medwoman to remember that her life will probably not change if we add an office/tech. park and/or more housing on the edge of the city off I80 or 113 (people are not going to get off at Richards and drive under the tracks, through Downtown and past her house in East Davis to get to a new neighborhood east of Mace).
“medwoman to remember that her life will probably not change”
i don’t get the sense that medwoman is about “her life” so much as the overall community. i think that is the problem with the discourse that there is an assumption by some that advocates for slower growth are doing it out of a sense of greed rather than a sense of community purpose.
now that doesn’t extend to everyone – but nothing ever does.
[quote]i think that is the problem with the discourse that there is an assumption by some that advocates for slower growth are doing it out of a sense of greed[/quote]
The same could be said for the pro growthers. This all seems to be a big push and an agenda to villianize those who are for slow growth.
[i]This article was passed around earlier this week with people laughing at this quote[/i]
I’m laughing at the people laughing since they seem to lack the ability to read… or maybe they just lack common business sense.
[i]I know there is a “job multiplier” but anyone that says that one new job creates five others is either smoking crack (or has spent too much time outside of the “real world”)…[/i]
My little company of 20 employees hires contractors, buys food for employees, buys supplies for the office, etc., etc., etc… Does all of this business translate to a 1-5 ratio? Probably not. But take a larger tech company, I think there is a very strong likelihood that a 1-5 ratio derives. Generally, the higher compensated employee requires a lot of support services. A well-run business does not want high-cost employees spending time doing things that other lower-cost labor can and should provide. So, it makes perfect sense that the data for high-tech business would support a 1-5 ratio. It also makes perfect sense that the wages for service workers would naturally increase because of the laws of supply and demand.
This causes me to consider that Don Shor’s rejection of certain business growth might be related to his concern about the cost of labor increasing for his business. Better to tax existing residents to cover budget shortfalls since the over-supply of labor would remain and existing Davis businesses continue their trends of paying labor rates well below that which should be required to support Davis’s higher cost of living.
once again the assumption is that greed rather than other considerations are behind a slower growth policy.
[quote]This causes me to consider that Don Shor’s rejection of certain business growth might be related to his concern about the cost of labor increasing for his business.[/quote]
No.
[i]once again the assumption is that greed rather than other considerations are behind a slower growth policy[/i]
Go for it. List those considerations. And please don’t put out a bunch of abstract and nebulous claims.
[i]i don’t get the sense that medwoman is about “her life” so much as the overall community[/i]
Nebulous.
Vague.
Useless.
What specifically are we talking about here? Obviously this indicates that medwoman is assigning negative impacts to the overall community if we allow a business park on the Mace 391 property. What are these negative impacts?
Frankly wrote:
> My little company of 20 employees hires contractors,
> buys food for employees, buys supplies for the office,
> etc., etc., etc… Does all of this business translate
> to a 1-5 ratio? Probably not. But take a larger tech
> company, I think there is a very strong likelihood
> that a 1-5 ratio derives.
I’ll ask Frankly to guess his companies multiplier. Is it 1-2.5 (50 people would not be working in Davis if his company was not here and would be out of work if he moves to West Sac)?
If a tech firm moves to Davis with three high paid workers will any restaurants in town need to staff up? Will Office Max need to hire more workers will the movie theatre need to hire more ushers?
If the guys make a ton of money and hire gardeners, cleaning ladies, car detailers and eat almost every meal out I can see how the multiplier may get over 1.0 for each guy but there is no way that three guys moving to town are going to create the equivalent of 15 FTE jobs.
“It is a tipping-point dynamic: Once a city spawns some innovative companies, its ecosystem changes in ways that make it even more attractive to others.”
Rob, why would you be putting out such scare-tactic information?
This kind of propaganda will be the death knell for economic development in Davis. Another one of these expose’ articles and we’ll never get a technology park here.
SOD, You are thinking too narrowly about this. Visualize an upside-down tree where the business sits at the trunk. The branches represent all the external economic activity derived from that business. That economic activity adds and retains jobs that would otherwise not exist.
You have to factor the primary, secondary, tertiary, etc., etc., etc… economic benefits. Add them all up and you can get to 1-5 in overall employment benefit for many high-tech businesses. Now the question is local verses overall. I don’t think we get a 1-5 local benefit. And I don’t think the author of that study actually wrote that ALL of that external jobs derived are local.
My business is unique in that its primary mission is job creation. It is tracked. We have created and retained over 7,000 jobs in California since the company started 25 years ago. So our ratio is much higher.
[quote]Obviously this indicates that medwoman is assigning negative impacts to the overall community if we allow a business park on the Mace 391 property. What are these negative impacts?[/quote]
Wow ! Today I seem to be heavily referenced for something I never said. Please indicate to me where I have assigned anything at all to the impact of a business park on the Mace 391 property. I know virtually nothing about the likely effects of a business park and so have been doing what I do when I lack information…..ask questions. I am unaware that an attempt to generate discussion and get people’s ideas constitutes “assigning
negative impacts “.
[quote]medwoman to remember that her life will probably not change[/quote]
I agree with this statement. My individual life will not change very much if at all by the presence or absence of a business park or more housing or any other change that is likely to occur in my lifetime. What I think is being missed here is that, perhaps because of my career and interest in public as well as individual health, I am very much motivated by conditions that I perceive as affecting the entire community.
Frankly said I was being too vague with the list that I posted earlier. He does not consider his frequent use of the word “vibrant” when describing changes he would like to see in our downtown as vague. He does refuse to be specific about the changes he would like to see. I will try to be more specific and see if it flies for Frankly.
What I value:
1) Small city with surrounding open space – less noise, less traffic, less emissions, less crime all contributing
to a healthier community
2) Parks and greenbelts – great for raising families and engendering a sense of community
3) Small shops and restaurants run by locals who one gets to know personally – sense of community
4) Ready availability of healthy food grown locally – currently being used for approximately half of the food
offerings in the public schools
5) Community involvement – many people contributing to organizations, commissions, committees
6) Recreational opportunities and parental involvement in activities
Compared to any other place I have lived with a larger population including Albuquerque, Long Beach, Anaheim,
Santa Barbara, Tucson, Santa Clara,and Claremont, Davis is far, far ahead in the attributes that matter to me.
I like the less impersonal nature of this small city better than the ambience of any of the other larger communities in which I have lived and would like to preserve as much of this ambience as possible since it is unique in this area.
medwoman said . . .
[i]”What would you see as the optimal increase both in population and in businesses for our town and over what amount of time ? Why ?”[/i]
medwoman, I see your question as emblematic of everything that created the Dot Com Crash. By that I mean that you are starting from a preconceived solution and then reverse engineering the process to work your way back to a problem that may or may not exist. Said another way, the Dot Com Crash happened because there were a whole lot of companies who had created technological solutions and then spent their time looking for problems that their solutions could solve. Once the irrational investment of capital dollars in these companies reached a point where rationality finally prevailed, the fact that there were no problems for the solutions to solve meant that there was no one willing to pay money for the proffered solution and the company that created the solution went belly up.
We simply don’t know enough to be able to say what the “optimal increase in population for our town” is. We simply don’t know enough to be able to say what the “optimal increase in businesses for our town” is. We need to start not with a definition of the solution but rather with an analysis of the problem. Then once we have established the parameters of the problem we can begin scoping out the components of possible solutions for that problem.
That brings me back to the statement that Frankly fathered a bit over a week ago.
[b]– The City of Davis municipal budget is currently running at a significant deficit, and that deficit is expected to increase.
— Significant cuts to costs such as the “3 on an engine” cuts to the Fire Department and the outsourcing of tree trimming have been implemented and/or proposed, and said cuts have produced significant pushback from substantial portions of the Davis community.
— Therefore, in order to balance its budget, it is apparent that Davis needs the tax revenue that derives from increased local business growth.
— As a community, we have a responsibility to work with the university and other regional economic development entities to grow the regional economy.
— If UCD’s core competencies are collaboratively leveraged, then Davis could end up growing business at a rate of growth per year that will mean that the municipal budget deficit will become a relic of the past.
— If that kind of economic growth and budget stabilization is achieved, then aggregate housing units across all classes (multi-family and single family) could possibly grow by as much as 1% per year, which is the upward bound of the One Percent Housing Growth Cap reaffirmed by the Davis City Council in September 2007
— Said housing growth should be predominately in the multi-family (apartment) class and the City should take proactive steps to incentivize the conversion of single family residences that are currently rented to groups of students back into either single family rental occupancy or single family owner-occupancy.[/b]
So the goal is not a specific population target as an outcome, but rather the achievement of a consistently balance municipal budget that supports the high quality of life that makes Davis such an attractive city to live in.
medwoman said . . .
[i]”I agree with this statement. My individual life will not change very much, if at all, by the presence or absence of a business park or more housing or any other change that is likely to occur in my lifetime. What I think is being missed here is that, perhaps because of my career and interest in public as well as individual health, I am very much motivated by conditions that I perceive as affecting the entire community.
Frankly said I was being too vague with the list that I posted earlier. He does not consider his frequent use of the word “vibrant” when describing changes he would like to see in our downtown as vague. He does refuse to be specific about the changes he would like to see. I will try to be more specific and see if it flies for Frankly.
What I value:
1) Small city with surrounding open space – less noise, less traffic, less emissions, less crime all contributing to a healthier community
2) Parks and greenbelts – great for raising families and engendering a sense of community
3) Small shops and restaurants run by locals who one gets to know personally – sense of community
4) Ready availability of healthy food grown locally – currently being used for approximately half of the food offerings in the public schools
5) Community involvement – many people contributing to organizations, commissions, committees
6) Recreational opportunities and parental involvement in activities
Compared to any other place I have lived with a larger population including Albuquerque, Long Beach, Anaheim, Santa Barbara, Tucson, Santa Clara, and Claremont, Davis is far, far ahead in the attributes that matter to me. I like the less impersonal nature of this small city better than the ambience of any of the other larger communities in which I have lived and would like to preserve as much of this ambience as possible since it is unique in this area.”[/i]
It will come as no surprise to you that I both identify with and like your list. The problem for me with your list is not what is on it, but what is not on it. Most glaringly missing is [i][b]”A city that can consistently both pay its bills and pay to proactively maintain its infrastructure.”[/b][/i] Perhaps that omission is due to the fact that as a doctor, your income holds that kind of practical fiscal reality at bay.
One other item that many parents and grandparents who live in Davis repeat to me often is [i][b]”A city where the children who grow up as residents of the city and go to the city’s schools can come home to a robust job market and work and raise their own children in the city they call their hometown.”[/b][/i] I came to Davis long after my son was grown and out of school, so I don’t have a personal identification with that sentiment, but nonetheless it does resonate for me.
Are you comfortable adding those two “values” to your list?
I see Matt beat me to some of my punch…
Frankly says “vibrant”. Definition related to economic development and growth = Pulsing with energy or activity, vigorous, lively, and vital. Seems clear to me.
Medwoman says “Small city”. Definition = ? Dixon and Woodland are smaller cities; why not go there?
Medwoman says “with surrounding open space”. Still too vague. How much? Why? What are you going to do with it? What is the description of value this provides you? Note: I have family in the Midwest surrounded by more open space than you could ever imagine. If you like open space so much, why not live in the country at least? You just like the “feeling” of being surrounded by open space? Well a larger Davis would still be surrounded by open space.
Medwoman says “less noise, less traffic, less emissions, less crime all contributing
to a healthier community”. Okay then, why are you living here if you want less of these things? You will get fewer emissions over time as alternative fuel vehicles get more popular and come down in price. That does not have anything to do with growth. In fact we could open businesses in Davis that would help expedite the technology and products to make it happen quicker. What in your opposition or proposal would lead to anything less of these things.
Medwoman says “Parks and greenbelts”. Perfect. You can get more of these with smart development.
Medwoman says “Small shops and restaurants run by locals who one gets to know personally – sense of community”. Great! Have you ever been to some of the great neighbourhoods of big cities where there are a lot of restaurants and stores that provide a sense of community? You don’t have to be small to get this. In fact, with a larger population that includes more affluent people, you would tend to have more of this since the population would support it.
Medwoman says: “Ready availability of healthy food grown locally – currently being used for approximately half of the food offerings in the public schools.” Okay, I confess… I don’t know what this has to do with growth and economic development. But I like it too. By the way, I do all the cooking for my family and had dreams of opening a restaurant in Davis with my sons. My father is also a gourmet cook, and he paid all of his grandkids $5 per month until they graduated high school to not eat fast food. Only In-and-Out was permitted. I hate processed food and sugary drinks, and would like to see a lot more effort put into teaching kids healthy eating habits. Get a few big companies in town, and you and I can go talk to them about funding a program for Davis to do just that.
Medwoman says: “Community involvement – many people contributing to organizations, commissions, committees.” Again, why is this even included in opposition to growth and economic development? Can you explain? Note, big companies tend to be quite involved in their communities. Their employees tend to be quite involved in their communities.
Medwoman says: “Recreational opportunities and parental involvement in activities.” See the previous.
Medwoman says: “I like the less impersonal nature of this small city.” Please, what does this mean? You mean the “personal nature”? The larger the city the more impersonal I think.
Medwoman says: “better than the ambience of any of the other larger communities in which I have lived and would like to preserve as much of this ambience as possible since it is unique in this area.”
Now we are getting somewhere… kind of… You use the word “ambience”. Can you describe where in Davis you are attributing it has having a certain ambience, and what values this represents? Ambience is still a nebulous term because it can mean many different things to many different people.
I think the problem here is that you have not really given much thought to what are the real values you desire, and what of those would be at risk with a growth and economic development. You seem to jump to a very abstract position of your life being negatively impacted, but you cannot really explain those negative impacts in measurable and actionable terms. That is why I see it as fear-based.
Here is the list I have derived so far from all the posters in general opposition to growth:
-Loss of farmland
-More traffic
-Reduction of property values
Let me add some of my own for you:
-Risk of increased crime
-Risk of industrial impacts (noise, light, smells ) to adjacent neighbourhoods
-Risk of industrial impacts to the environment
Then there are the project design concerns:
-Poor bike/pedestrian connectivity
-Not enough high density housing
-Not enough open space
Then there are the abstract fear concerns:
-General fear of change
-Fear of demographic impacts to local politics
-Fear of demographic impacts to Davis’s 1960s liberal hippy vibe
-Fear out of control growth
-Fear of sprawl (even though most afraid cannot even explain what sprawl is)
This is the type of list I would like to see. Of course there is the positive impact list too. And it will be a long one.
[i]So the goal is not a specific population target as an outcome, but rather the achievement of a consistently balance municipal budget that supports the high quality of life that makes Davis such an attractive city to live in.[/i]
Bingo!
I had a related thought. In competitive business there is a principle “either grow or die.”
Are we aware of any comparable cities that are growing as slow as Davis having a balanced municipal budget? I honestly think that is impossible. I think growth is inevitable unless we want the town to die (albeit slowly because UCD would keep it on life-support.)
Frankly said . . .
[i]”Medwoman says: “better than the ambience of any of the other larger communities in which I have lived and would like to preserve as much of this ambience as possible since it is unique in this area.”
Now we are getting somewhere… kind of… You use the word “ambience”. Can you describe where in Davis you are attributing it has having a certain ambience, and what values this represents? Ambience is still a nebulous term because it can mean many different things to many different people.”[/i]
Come on Frankly, you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. You discount medwoman’s challenging you on the word “vibrant” and you turn around and question her on the word “ambience.” In doing so you are practicing a double standard, and I know you are right wing, but the double standard went out when the pill came in.
Frankly said . . .
[i]”I had a related thought. In competitive business there is a principle “either grow or die.” [/i]
I wondered when the Viagra slogan would make its appearance. That slogan may be relevant for publicly traded companies, but there are a plethora of companies and services that are sounding their company’s death knell if they grow. They have a capacity to deliver a product or service (supply) and a ready market of customers who are willing to purchase the product or service (demand). They are at full capacity. Why grow?
[i]”Come on Frankly, you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. You discount medwoman’s challenging you on the word “vibrant” and you turn around and question her on the word “ambience.” In doing so you are practicing a double standard, and I know you are right wing, but the double standard went out when the pill came in. “[/i]
Ok Matt, I get your point here. Maybe it is just my lack of vocabulary. Here is my problem. I am looking for concrete, measurable city attributes/values that I can test against two alternatives: with and without a business park at 391 Mace.
Vibrancy is measurable in that I can count the people in Davis moving around, walking, shopping, eating, drinking, talking, laughing, smiling, etc. I can measure the number of profitable businesses having enough paying customers. I can talk to realtors about the supply and movement of real estate.
How do you measure ambience?
Ambience is another way of describing certain attributes of community identity. From a long-ago discussion we had:
Community identity is not as easily defined as economic development, but when urban planners use the term they mean the
•demographic
•cultural
•aesthetic
•geographic
•architectural
•historical
•and ecological aspects that make a place unique.
So comparing Davis to Woodland: Woodland has a much larger inventory of historical buildings that give the city character, and probably most residents there would mention them as they describe the things that make Woodland unique. Much more so than Davis. When I ask visitors what they like about Davis, they mention things like the trees, the arboretum, the quaint downtown, the vibrancy that results from all the young adults and bicycles, and how easy it is to get around. Agriculture is part of the identity of both cities. The university is part of ours. Public art is often used to reinforce community identity.
I think if you asked 100 Davisites to list the top ten things they think define Davis in a positive way, you’d get considerable overlap on those 100 lists. People tend to feel that large development projects threaten one or more of the things they value in the community. That isn’t a fear to be dismissed or denigrated. You work with it, make change incremental and respectful, and don’t try to graft things onto a community that it doesn’t want.
[i]They are at full capacity. Why grow?[/i]
Because they will otherwise risk sliding down that slippery slope of growing irrelevancy and obsolescence.
My business is at full capacity. I am working to increase capacity. We are growing after seeing our market share and revenue head south as a result of my predecessor having a similar perspective as yours on the subject of growth.
Read Andy Grove’s book “Only the Paranoid Survive” to understand this other perspective.
Now I don’t know if this principle translates to a city. I suspect it does. I suspect that without UCD’s growth and success, Davis would shrivel and die given our propensity to reject most growth… especially the economic development kind.
[quote]places like San Jose, Calif.; Seattle; Austin, Texas; Raleigh, N.C.; Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis[/quote]
Populations:
Austin TX — 820,000
Minneapolis — 388,000
Raleigh NC — 420,000
San Jose — 967,000
Seattle — 621,000
Even smaller cities getting ‘tech’ reputations such as Boulder and Fort Collins have 100,000 to 150,000 populations. People attracted to work in the tech industry seem to want urban ambience. It would be hard to see how the Davis/West Sacramento/Dixon/Woodland region is going to achieve the lifestyle characteristics that make up that urban ambience without major population growth and loss of urban boundaries. The region would have to turn into a metroplex.
[i]”I think if you asked 100 Davisites to list the top ten things they think define Davis in a positive way, you’d get considerable overlap on those 100 lists. People tend to feel that large development projects threaten one or more of the things they value in the community. That isn’t a fear to be dismissed or denigrated. You work with it, make change incremental and respectful, and don’t try to graft things onto a community that it doesn’t want. “[/i]
Arg…
So tell me please, someone, how the Cannery project or a business park at Mace 391 results in all these yet undefined things that the community does not want.
What demographic impacts are you talking about?
What cultural impacts are you talking about?
What aesthetic impacts are you talking about?
I do understand the geographic impacts of developing on yet undeveloped land. Yet, I don’t see how that connects to any lifestyle impacts. Can you explain that?
Architectural impacts? I don’t understand how new peripheral development impacts existing architecture. Don’t you support densification and some redevelopment of the downtown? That would definitely impact existing architecture.
Historical? I don’t even know where to go with that attribute. Can you explain it more succinctly?
Ecological aspects? I think new business in Davis will be ecologically sound, and will likely be participants in the business of helping the environment. So, again, I don’t get the connection. Maybe you can help define that too?
These things seem all vague shadow concerns to me. If I am being dismissive or denigrating, it is because there is insufficient explanation of what these actual impacts are. I honestly think people are making up scary stories in their heads… repeating them enough that they seem real and tangible… but they are only made up stories.
If I am wrong it seems someone can put it in rational terms.
Ok Don, so you have basically laid out the slippery slope argument for population growth. Now we are getting some where.
Sounds like fear to me, but let me look at some data and see if I agree with you that there is a correlation.
I do have a related question. If you and medwoman and Mike Harrington win to prevent the type of economic development that you all think puts us on some slippery slope of unwanted population growth, how do you suggest we fix our city budget problems?
As Matt points out, it seems that ALL the people in opposition of a large business park are fine perpetually kicking the can down the road hoping from some miracle solution to our budget problems. What is your solution given your vision of a Davis that only grows in population for what the university needs?
[quote]If you and medwoman and Mike Harrington win [/quote]
We don’t share the same views about economic development.
[quote] how do you suggest we fix our city budget problems? [/quote]
I’ve already described that many times, and don’t feel like rehashing old arguments.
Rob: [quote]Once a city spawns some innovative companies, its ecosystem changes in ways that make it even more attractive to others.[/quote]
Frankly: [quote]So tell me please, someone, how the Cannery project or a business park at Mace 391 results in all these yet undefined things[/quote]
Maybe you should ask Rob to define how the ‘ecosystem changes’.
But remember: I support putting a business park at the Cannery site, or near the hospital. Just not on Mace.
“People tend to feel that large development projects threaten one or more of the things they value in the community. That isn’t a fear to be dismissed or denigrated.”
At some point, fear reduces the ability to rationally evaluate the potential impacts of proposed actions. Then, stirring up irrational fears becomes a fairly easy task for a few individuals whose objectives are selfish or extreme.
Casting aspersions towards the beliefs of community member who may differ from ours is not a good approach here – it does not get us to community consensus, in fact it polarizes the discussion. I think we need to look at a different approach here.
Frankly said . . .
[i]”Question: They are at full capacity. Why grow?
Answer: Because they will otherwise risk sliding down that slippery slope of growing irrelevancy and obsolescence.
My business is at full capacity. I am working to increase capacity. We are growing after seeing our market share and revenue head south as a result of my predecessor having a similar perspective as yours on the subject of growth.
Read Andy Grove’s book “Only the Paranoid Survive” to understand this other perspective.
Now I don’t know if this principle translates to a city. I suspect it does. I suspect that without UCD’s growth and success, Davis would shrivel and die given our propensity to reject most growth… especially the economic development kind.”[/i]
I understand the other perspective very well, and there is absolutely no doubt that it has its place with virtually every single company whose ownership is either publicly traded or venture capital financed.
But if you let your fingers do the walking through the Davis Yellow Pages how many such publicly traded, venture capital financed companies will you find?
I believe you are painting with too broad a brush. Do you think Biba Caggiano has suffered from the fact that her business is in the same location today as it was when I moved to Davis 15 years ago. The lawyer my wife and I used here in Davis until he died last year was a sole practitioner. He knew that if he took on too many clients, the quality of his work would suffer, his reputation would then diminish and the future of his practice would be jeopardized by growth. One of the first dictums we were taught was “Cash Is King” and that one of the biggest enemies to solid cash flow management is unsustainable growth. Needless to say Wharton was not teaching its students that all growth was bad, but rather that growth can lead to some very unfortunate consequences. One need go no further than Boston Chicken to see a company that was killed by its growth.
So again I say you are painting with too broad a brush. Growth is very important to both the health and mission of a huge section of the businesses in America today, but not to all of them. Just as importantly growth needs to be done in a sustainable way, and I believe Davis can grow jobs in just such a sustainable fashion, building on the core competencies of both the davis community and UCD.
Don Shor said . . .
[i]”Even smaller cities getting ‘tech’ reputations such as Boulder and Fort Collins have 100,000 to 150,000 populations. People attracted to work in the tech industry seem to want urban ambience. It would be hard to see how the Davis/West Sacramento/Dixon/Woodland region is going to achieve the lifestyle characteristics that make up that urban ambience without major population growth and loss of urban boundaries. The region would have to turn into a metroplex.”[/i]
When I describe Davis to someone the phrase my wife and I often use is “It is nowhere, but close to everywhere.” That phrase is followed by a series of examples such as “San Francisco is only an hour and fifteen minutes away. Napa is an hour away. Point Reyes is an hour and a half away. Mendocino is a spectacular weekend retreat. Apple Hill and the Amador Wine Country is an hour away. Murphys. The Delta. Just driving through the infinite miles of crop lands. The Yolo Bypass and Central Flyway is just over 5 minutes from our house. A bit farther afield we have Tahoe, Yosemite, Carmel, Big Sur, Lassen, Shasta.
We have the most abundant mix of lifestyle characteristics of any place in the United States.
[i]So again I say you are painting with too broad a brush.[/i]
I get your point Matt, but I think you are missing mine to some degree.
And my unmet challenge still exists there for you or any other poster to provide some examples of any other comparable city growing as slow as Davis and appearing vital and having a balanced budget.
Note that UCD has been working hard to grow. Why? Why not just kick back and enjoy that hard earned success of yesterday?
[i]We have the most abundant mix of lifestyle characteristics of any place in the United States.[/i]
So, what you are describing is a sleepy little academic, and growing retirement, bedroom community that is located close to the amenities of our larger geographic area; and that up to the point that our politicians committed FAR too much compensation to our city workers, was able to maintain that identity by living off the soft money of the university.
So we have been that. Can it continue?
Here is what I think. We have been living a financial lie for several decades… leveraging the futures of our children so that we extract that next, and next, and next bit of what we demand in definition of a good life. It was only a selfish pursuit before… as we delayed the day of reckoning gouging on home equity and counting on the trickle economics of our captive UCD retail customers. Now we are far over the line into the red, and the financial grim reaper has arrived to collect his due. And what do we do? We stomp down hard and cross our arms in defiance like a child throwing a tantrum over the requirement that he take his medicine. That behavior looks real bad from my perspective.
[i]”Casting aspersions towards the beliefs of community member who may differ from ours is not a good approach here.”[/i]
Using hypersensitivity to deflect and reject responsibility for making any logical sense is also not a good approach. You have to separate feeling from fact in the debate because feelings are personal and, unless surveyed and tabulated to provide a basis of objectivity, they cannot be the basis of policy decision unless we want to keep making stupid mistakes. Conversely, facts are universal and actionable and lead to productive debate about real solutions.
Go back and read. Medwoman took a stab at explaining her values in succinct terms. Few others have. The problem I am having with medwoman’s list of values is understanding where she thinks (or feels) a business park development at Mace 391 would cause her impacts. I am not denigrating her comments, I am eager to understand specifically what she believes to be so potentially damaging to her lifestyle, or the lifestyle of others, to warrant he staunch opposition.
And what happens when the bubble bursts? The author of this article seems to forget what happened in SF when the last tech bubble burst in early 2000s. In the meantime, rents, both for office and living space, had skyrocketed and many ‘real’ people were permanently forced out. The latter is happening again. SF can survive it, as there are many incentives for people to want to live there, incentives that Davis does not have. What does make Davis unique and attractive, and which has almost been lost in the past 10-15 years, is the beauty of the surrounding area, including small(ish) farms and orchards, including many organic producers, the Yolo Bypass and the Vaca mountains. What we’ve lost: many artists, writers, musicians and craftspeople who could not longer afford to live here. What we’ve gotten in exchange: growth that from the Freeway makes Davis indistinguishable from Fairfield, Vacaville, etc., and a lot of self-absorbed people who wanted Davis to offer all the amenities of their previous Bay Area communities. The proposed tech park is just another brick in the wall.
Sorry all, I was at an event on Thursday in SF and then on a long weekend with my wife for our anniversary. I apologize for not keeping up. But it appears the discussion has addressed some of the questions asked of me.
Specifically, let me answer these:
Medwoman – I don’t have an answer to size. I think this is the communities decision and can be answered many different ways. I am working to take my direction from current Council action on creating my position, the city manager, and documents that the Council/community have vetted (like the Innovation Park Task Force recommendations). This is definitely something the community is wrestling with and I look forward to assisting that community discussion in whatever way the Council and city manager decide is best.
Don – I did not make the comment “Once a city spawns some innovative companies, its ecosystem changes in ways that make it even more attractive to others.” It is excerpted from the article by Mr. Moretti. Though, upon further reflection, we can see this happening in Davis already with the attraction of the many seed and AgTech companies to Davis due to success in ag by UCD and companies like Agraquest, etc.