<story><title>You can build a skyscraper anywhere in Davis, California</title><url>https://kevin.burke.dev/kevin/skyscrapers-davis-california/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>vinhboy</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t live in Davis anymore, but I did live there for 10+ years and used to own a home there. I love Davis. As Sheldon Copper from Big Bang theory puts it, it&amp;#x27;s my &amp;quot;zero-zero-zero-zero&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;While I don&amp;#x27;t consider myself a NIMBY, because I wouldn&amp;#x27;t go out of my way to stop a development project, I do appreciate how it has kept Davis a really nice place to live.&lt;p&gt;I now live in Elk Grove, there are 3 Walmart within 5 minutes of me. Urban sprawl here is ridiculous and can be measured by how many dead skunks, and homeless coyotes you find on the road because farm land and wild spaces are turning into giant air conditioned homes (which I am totally guilty of owning). Folsom, Rancho Cordova, Roseville are the same. If you want to see what happens when Davis grow into a giant city, move to one of these places.&lt;p&gt;I am not sure what my point is. I guess I am just saying that what Davis is, is not bad, it can be worse.&lt;p&gt;But for the sake of conversation, if we are going to raze small towns like Davis in the quest of more housing friendly cities, I recommend we model it after Bellevue, WA. They have skyscrapers, and it&amp;#x27;s beautiful. But then again, that just speaks to the wealth disparity more than anything else... Which is also what keeps Davis so nice.</text></item><item><author>brucelidl</author><text>10 year Davis resident here, with generally quite Yimby tendencies. I would support something like this, as we do absolutely need more (and if possible) cheaper housing in town for students. The university is the whole reason the town exists and it&amp;#x27;s just not healthy to make it prohibitive for students to live here, while at the same time force university staff to live in cheaper surrounding towns and then commute in and out, in my opinion.&lt;p&gt;But I do have to be realistic, the Nimby feelings in this town are VERY strong. Everybody who buys a house here seems to feel the town should stay exactly the way it was on the day after they arrived, without any recognition of how blinkered that is. The legal fight against something like this would be intense, to say the least. It would require a developer with great lawyers, very deep pockets and the thickest of skins.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kristopolous</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s either going to go vertical or horizontal.&lt;p&gt;If people afraid of sprawl say no to vertical, then horizontal is going to happen just outside of wherever they care about.&lt;p&gt;Many people&amp;#x27;s politics are wildly irrationally disconnected from their sentiments.&lt;p&gt;I used to live in Davis. If I was King, I&amp;#x27;d steamroll everything between A&amp;amp;B and 1st and Russell and replace it with ~30-40 story apartment buildings with multilevel bike parking like in Amsterdam (ex: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.pinimg.com&amp;#x2F;originals&amp;#x2F;1e&amp;#x2F;c4&amp;#x2F;d7&amp;#x2F;1ec4d7a99c2151699afef34e3833c154.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.pinimg.com&amp;#x2F;originals&amp;#x2F;1e&amp;#x2F;c4&amp;#x2F;d7&amp;#x2F;1ec4d7a99c2151699afe...&lt;/a&gt;), and rooftop bars and cafes.&lt;p&gt;The walls would be a mix of vertical gardening (ex: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ft.com&amp;#x2F;__origami&amp;#x2F;service&amp;#x2F;image&amp;#x2F;v2&amp;#x2F;images&amp;#x2F;raw&amp;#x2F;http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.upp-prod-eu.s3.amazonaws.com%2F5f9bb246-b976-11e9-96bd-8e884d3ea203?fit=scale-down&amp;amp;source=next&amp;amp;width=700&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ft.com&amp;#x2F;__origami&amp;#x2F;service&amp;#x2F;image&amp;#x2F;v2&amp;#x2F;images&amp;#x2F;raw&amp;#x2F;htt...&lt;/a&gt;) and photovoltaic windows. The bottom floors would have retail and dedicated community space.&lt;p&gt;The buildings would further have multi-level skywalks connecting them with small nook like terraces (ex: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;images.adsttc.com&amp;#x2F;media&amp;#x2F;images&amp;#x2F;59f1&amp;#x2F;27ba&amp;#x2F;b22e&amp;#x2F;38e2&amp;#x2F;ab00&amp;#x2F;01d6&amp;#x2F;large_jpg&amp;#x2F;204_Skygarden_Seoul_%C2%A9Ossip.jpg?1508976565&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;images.adsttc.com&amp;#x2F;media&amp;#x2F;images&amp;#x2F;59f1&amp;#x2F;27ba&amp;#x2F;b22e&amp;#x2F;38e2&amp;#x2F;a...&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;p&gt;There would intentionally, by design, be zero parking spaces except to accommodate the handicapped.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s as Davis as you&amp;#x27;re going to get while actually solving the problem</text></comment>
<story><title>You can build a skyscraper anywhere in Davis, California</title><url>https://kevin.burke.dev/kevin/skyscrapers-davis-california/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>vinhboy</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t live in Davis anymore, but I did live there for 10+ years and used to own a home there. I love Davis. As Sheldon Copper from Big Bang theory puts it, it&amp;#x27;s my &amp;quot;zero-zero-zero-zero&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;While I don&amp;#x27;t consider myself a NIMBY, because I wouldn&amp;#x27;t go out of my way to stop a development project, I do appreciate how it has kept Davis a really nice place to live.&lt;p&gt;I now live in Elk Grove, there are 3 Walmart within 5 minutes of me. Urban sprawl here is ridiculous and can be measured by how many dead skunks, and homeless coyotes you find on the road because farm land and wild spaces are turning into giant air conditioned homes (which I am totally guilty of owning). Folsom, Rancho Cordova, Roseville are the same. If you want to see what happens when Davis grow into a giant city, move to one of these places.&lt;p&gt;I am not sure what my point is. I guess I am just saying that what Davis is, is not bad, it can be worse.&lt;p&gt;But for the sake of conversation, if we are going to raze small towns like Davis in the quest of more housing friendly cities, I recommend we model it after Bellevue, WA. They have skyscrapers, and it&amp;#x27;s beautiful. But then again, that just speaks to the wealth disparity more than anything else... Which is also what keeps Davis so nice.</text></item><item><author>brucelidl</author><text>10 year Davis resident here, with generally quite Yimby tendencies. I would support something like this, as we do absolutely need more (and if possible) cheaper housing in town for students. The university is the whole reason the town exists and it&amp;#x27;s just not healthy to make it prohibitive for students to live here, while at the same time force university staff to live in cheaper surrounding towns and then commute in and out, in my opinion.&lt;p&gt;But I do have to be realistic, the Nimby feelings in this town are VERY strong. Everybody who buys a house here seems to feel the town should stay exactly the way it was on the day after they arrived, without any recognition of how blinkered that is. The legal fight against something like this would be intense, to say the least. It would require a developer with great lawyers, very deep pockets and the thickest of skins.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kevinburke</author><text>I guess that’s the idea behind trying to add infill housing, is to prevent ugly sprawl.&lt;p&gt;Davis has one of the highest bicycle mode shares of any city in the state. It’s an ideal place to add denser housing without the additional traffic or parking lots that blight a lot of bigger (and less dense) cities.</text></comment>