A protest designed to challenge Davis Apartheid, some students advocated a boycott of Davis.
How do you do this? Try your best not to shop in Davis. Don't let the city get sales tax revenue from you. Buy on the internet. Go to Sacramento or Woodland. Just spend less money. Do whatever you can because the city won't care about college kids until it starts to feel an economic crunch.
I don't see the point of this. If the problem is the discrepancy between student economic contributions and political influence in the town, then why not try to increase the latter instead of decreasing the former? Davis is a nice town to live in. Why should we try to damage it instead of trying to make ourselves a more integral part of it? - KenjiYamada
"The reason that there isn't any political influence from students is because students, for the most part, are unwilling to weigh any political influence at all! And the ones that are, like KrisFricke, are rather conservative chaps. It's not like there are armed guards that prevent you from becoming active. It's only your own inaction. What you suggest is a response to inaction with more inaction." - ChristopherMcKenzie
There are actually many factors that contribute to what Rob is terming the "Davis Apartheid". Students don't seek political power because for the vast majority of them Davis is a temporary home. The atmosphere that is created by city hall and the DPD also contributes to this. The high property values and rental prices in downtown make it difficult to own a business that caters to students (who have little money to spend typically). So you begin to see situations where the property on the corner on 2nd and G ends up being a store selling overpriced furniture. The space would have been perfect for starting a venue. Unfortunately at $2 per square foot per month such a venue would have to sell out shows while pricing them WAY out of range of most students. You see hard working individuals like the folks at ClairanceThomas presents try put on shows in the venues that do exist in this town and they still have to charge WAY too much money to break even. You see no other options so you start having shows in your living room only to have 2 police officers with bad attitudes at your door issuing you a citation for the insidious crime of playing music at 9:00 pm on a friday. Why would a student want to get involved with a place that appears so stacked against them? Why not just do your time for 4 years and get out? These are good questions. But the real questions we need to be asking ourselves are: Why do the permanent residents, many of whom were once students here endorse such an environment? Do they even recognize the problem? What can we do as a community to reconcile this problem once we can all agree to acknowledge it? Lastly and most importantly, who is going to actually take the initiative to bring all of these people together so the issue can be resolved? - DanMasiel
I understand your point, but for someone who is NOT a student to resolve the issue then smacks of the residents telling the students what to do, which generally doesn't sit well either. If it is a serious problem and the students are the ones who are unhappy about it, the move for change should originate with the students. I have been a resident here for 31 years and you are saying things of which I was not aware. I suspect most residents have no idea of the perception of the student population. I don't believe that it is our responsibility to wander around town interviewing students and asking what we can do for them to make their temporary stay here comfortable. - BevSykes
I couldn't agree more. I think it absolutely needs to be a student taking the initiative. What most students fail to realize is that no one can understand their perspective if they don't interact with non-students. I would also point out that the creators of this wiki have given us a powerfull tool that is already enabling constructive dialouge, such as this. As a student I might consider taking up this cause but I may be leaving this town for graduate school soon, and I am swamped with other stuff. If only there was a student who was charismatic, hard-working, and had the respect of many students/pirates... - DanMasiel
Be it known:
- Davis is kind of a "sticky" college town; a lot of students who were active in the community during school choose to hang around Davis after graduation, sometimes for the long-term.
- Lamar Heystek made a crucial move in patching student-city realtions by running for City Council in 2004. He didn't get last place, at least.
- The last time a student-type candidate was elected to city council, Unitrans was created. Tight. I can't picture Davis without it.
- The City Council is pretty clueless about what students actually want from the city, and it's important to let them know (see Davis Choice Voting, incorporating residential UCD areas into the city's jurisdiction, live music venue). This is also an important issue for ASUCD to address, whether they realize it or not. They can't rely on Brian McInnis as the only ambassador.
- Most cities don't have many local-level music venues in their downtown areas; the land is always too expensive and there are too many businesses and residents nearby who don't want the noise. Venues are out in the boonies or in scuzzy parts of town. Consider instead: Mace Boulevard, Olive Drive, the old Ralph's building (for the ambitious), something like Plainfield Station. — Eric
I boycott Davis for different reasons entirely. But more power to you. - RoyWright
