10/21/2026
We felt this in our bones.
Kasey Reynolds and Tom van Overbeek’s vision for our community was Valley’s Edge. You may recall that Valley’s Edge was focused on building luxury homes, nearly instantly adding a small city (almost exactly the same area and number of people as Gridley) to the outskirts of Chico. Endless sprawl, tract homes, and a stated goal of attracting wealthy people to fill that housing.
This is not the type of growth that anybody who loves Chico wants.
We want a community with character. We want to celebrate the beauty, heritage, and diversity of the gorgeous homes, parks and humans that already make up our community. We want growth that reflects our shared vision for the community. We want a place that is walkable and bikeable, filled with public art and trees … always more trees. And humans, too. We want our community to reflect the diversity and passions of the people that live here.
Downtown Chico will not survive 4 more years of inaction and failed initiatives. Kasey has had eight years to come up with a plan and she has failed utterly. Tom has had four years, which he spent insulting constituents and fellow council members while doing literally nothing for our community.
Vote for change:
Councilmember Addison Winslow
Megan Thomas Petty for Chico City Council
Shelby Hebert for Chico City Council
One of the main reasons our towns are in such poor condition is that we keep equating growth with success.
That is equivalent to suggesting weight gain is a good measure of individual health. Obviously there is so much more to consider. We understand this intuitively on a personal level, but we seem to lose all sense when it comes to our civic lives.
Growth doesn't dictate health. If anything, it's quite the opposite. Every meal isn't healthy, some are though. Putting on fat is clearly unhealthy, but adding muscle is beneficial. It really just depends.
Building more roads, dollar stores, and subdivisions is the civic equivalent of putting on fat. Sure there is more, but more isn't better. It's worse. More apathy architecture, more disconnected communities, more discontent. More infrastructure to maintain, more police and fire, all while the heart of the community has to pump harder just to stay alive.
Muscle is dense and density is the key. Adding muscle strengthens the heart, speeds up metabolism, and helps bones stay stronger later in life. Building with density utilizes existing infrastructure, builds social connection, and strengthens the heart of town.
We are built to walk and our towns were too. We were built to be close to one another and our towns were too. We thrive when our towns are built with the health of residents in mind.
We have to confront the false promise that growth equals health. After 40 years of adhering to this tired trope, we can safely say it just isn't true. We have to start measuring civic health, not just growth.
With this in mind, I created a civic health assessment as a means to measure the overall health of our communities. It helps us move past the growth mindset and understand if our towns are actually healthy.
I hope you'll take a few minutes to complete it and get a clearer picture of the health of the community you call home.
Link to the assessment in the comments.
