In Davis City Planning 1925-2005, John Lofland tells the stories of four Davis, California planning mindsets:

(1) human-scale and slow-growth ideas dominant over the 1920-40s;
(2) mega-scale and explosive growth images of the 1950s-60s;
(3) human-scale and controlled growth conceptions prominent in the progressive 1970s-80s; and,
(4) contested-scale and herky-jerky growth notions of the 1990s and early 2000s.

His histories of wrenching and acrimonious lurchings from mindset to mindset feature some two dozen land use and zoning maps from the first “Use Districts” plan of 1925 to the “Zoning Districts” map of 2004. In addition, there is the novel feature of a color photograph of every major Davis planning publication and volume from 1925 to 2005.

The area now called “Old North Davis” is focused on as a case study of the protracted struggle among these four mindsets. Surveying land use designations for and zoning schemes of that area since 1925, Lofland concludes that at least 19 different such designations or schemes have been applied to it. This “herky-jerkynesss” represents a long-standing and still continuing struggle over what is to happen there—as well as in the rest of Davis.

Davis City Planning 1925-2005 is published on the Old North Davis History web site at http://www.oldnorthdavishistory.org, folder 1.2 and is free to the public. It is 54 pages long and can be read on the web and/or downloaded in portable document format (pdf).