Dr. Andy Jones is working on a book about Davis — with your help, it will be published in 2017.
The Guide to Davis: An Exploration of the Cultural Offerings of California’s Most Relevant City
The City of Davis has much to offer the casual visitor and the long-term resident. In Davis we find public art in the form of sculptures and murals, a bustling farmers market, parks intertwined by a series of formulated bicycle paths and greenbelts, public pianos, and an appealing mix of cultural and recreational activities. The city is flat, and therefore bikeable; it is safe, and thus well suited for raising families; it is one of the best-educated cities in the country, and thus it invests heavily in local schools and educational opportunities for all its residents; and it is active, and thus filled with recreational and culturally engaging activities.
This guide will differ from most other city guides in a number of important ways:
- It focuses on things to do and see, rather than merely to buy and to eat;
- It focuses on the distinct, remarkable, and engaging offerings presented by the city and by local cultural organizations and businesses;
- It represents the city’s cultural sites and events, with a focus on art, music, poetry, dance, and theatre;
- It is presented in prose paragraphs that are worth reading, rather than bulleted lists that are worth skimming (like this one);
- It reflects the impressions of a great number of Davis enthusiasts, rather than just one author with limited experience;
- It offers perspectives, surprises and asides that you wouldn’t find in a typical guidebook.
With statistical help from UC Davis and the Yolo County Visitors Bureau, we foresee several groups of people who would benefit from this guide:
- The 35,000 or so students who are admitted to UC Davis every year;
- The 8,500 or so students who choose to enroll in UC Davis every year;
- The 35,000 or so students who are currently enrolled in UC Davis;
- The 2,000 or so faculty members who teach at UC Davis;
- The 5,000 or more staff who support and run UC Davis;
- The 67,000 or so residents of the City of Davis;
- The 2.5 million people who live in the Sacramento metropolitan area;
- The 50,000 people who visit Picnic Day every year;
- And the 400,000 people who visit the City of Davis every year.
Some of these groups overlap, but all these people deserve to discover more about what there is to love and explore in this California city.
This guide will show the reader where, when, and why people congregate in Davis. For example, on Tuesday evenings, runners gather in front of the athletic gear store Fleet Feet on 2nd Street to challenge themselves and make new friends. On alternating Thursday evenings, great poets are introduced at the John Natsoulas Gallery on 1st Street, followed by open mics that feature ukulele songs and attempts at stand-up comedy. And every Saturday morning the nation’s best large farmers market offers ready-made meals and desserts, fresh produce from nearby farms, and live music.
Every day and every night Davis offers an occasion to sample activities and events such as these. This guide will organize, present, and opine upon these riches, and thus encourage everyone to take an opportunity to stroll, roll, or bike around the city that is home to the Bicycling Hall of Fame, the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, and one of the most prestigious research universities in the United States.
I hope you will play a part in this adventure, for your help is needed as a reader and as a participant. As Walt Whitman says, we should be excited “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”
Question: Will the Guide to Davis review everything in the city?
Good question! Here are some things that the Guide to Davis will NOT seek to offer:
- A thorough review of every restaurant in Davis;
- A thorough review of every retail store in Davis;
- A current calendar for what is going on in any particular week (for that, see The Davis Dirt);
- A history of Davis (for that, see a book such as John Lofland’s Davis: Radical Changes, Deep Constants, available at The Avid Reader bookstore and elsewhere);
- A guide for academic talks that are given at UC Davis (for that, see the UC Davis Academic and Events Calendar);
- A wiki-style guide filled with ten years’ worth of comments any every imaginable bit of minutiae about the City of Davis (for that, see The Davis Wiki);
- A thorough review of Davis policies and debates regarding the following local and political topics: water, land use, agricultural set-asides, parking, K-12 educational initiatives, gifted and talented education, the caste system at UC Davis and other universities, the pepper spray incident, noise violations meted out for snoring and other offenses, undocumented students in Davis schools and at UC Davis, the challenges facing under-represented groups in Davis and at UC Davis, Davis and UC Davis athletics, air pollution, noise pollution, light pollution, plastic bags in retail stores, composting, recycling, local and statewide elections, local and national political debates, etc.
Sometimes an exception to this last exclusion policy will be allowed. For example, without much fanfare, current City Councilmember Lucas Frerichs shows up at just about every artsy and cultural event to lend a hand, whether it be spending hours helping to paint the Art Garage at 2nd and F streets, or personally hosting a fundraiser for the Davis Shakespeare Ensemble. Heroes such as Lucas will be lauded in this book, even if they also happen to be politicians.
If there is something else that you feel should included or excluded from this cultural guide to the City of Davis, please let us know.