The federal Opportunity Zone program promises, according to supporters, to direct tens — and possibly hundreds — of billions of dollars of private investment capital into some of the nation’s most needy communities, including over 800 Census tracts in California.
SPUR Head Metcalf Bids Farewell to Transformed, Challenged Bay Area
President and CEO Gabriel Metcalf joined SPUR in 1997 — the year before Google’s first search engine came online — and became executive director in 2005. In the intervening years, he has witnessed, commented on, and helped shape the region’s economic and demographic growth ever since.
Book Review: State of Resistance
Pastor acknowledges the urgency of the housing crisis and its relationship with — for better or worse — California’s new politics.
Suit Attacks Greenhouse Gas Scoping Plan in Name of Social Justice
A coalition of advocacy groups has filed a quixotic, aggressively worded lawsuit against the California Air Resources Board’s 2017 AB 32 Scoping Plan, claiming in part that its encouragement of VMT reductions and other strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will unduly restrict development of new housing and victimized poor and minority residents of California.
Regions Contemplate New, Tougher Carbon Emissions Targets
Targets differ by MPO, but they all stick to the original formula of a percentage reduction in per-capita greenhouse gas emissions compared to the 1990 baseline. Generally, the new targets for 2020 are 1-2 percentage points higher than the current targets, and targets for 2035 are 3-4 percentage points higher.
Eviction Is Only Part Of The Housing Crisis
I think I was the only reader in the country unmoved by Evicted, Matthew Desmond’s Pulitzer Prize-winning inquiry into the dark heart of America’s eviction crisis
Sober Living Facilities Raise Zoning Concerns
Though comprehensive data is hard to find, the proliferation of sober living homes is thought to be particularly intense in coastal California, where the climate and lifestyle are marketed to prospective residents
The Sad Debate Over SB 827
Few land use laws captured the public imagination and animated the land use community the way SB 827 did in its three short months on this earth
Yelp in My Backyard
Yelp is one of the few tech companies whose product is linked, intrinsically and immutably, to the real world.
Sierra Club California Blazes Wrong Trail on Urbanism
Mountains may stand forever, but advocacy groups are fragile. For the good of California and the country — especially these days — I hope the Sierra Club rebuilds and refocuses itself before it’s too late.
California Cities, Counties Grapple With Cannabis
Mountains may stand forever, but advocacy groups are fragile. For the good of California and the country — especially these days — I hope the Sierra Club rebuilds and refocuses itself before it’s too late.
The Transit Crisis Is Really A Housing Crisis
Los Angeles’ shortage of housing and shortage of high-density transit-friendly neighborhoods has run headlong into the obscene, bacchanalian overabundance of automobiles
Undoing the Legacy of Segregation in California
However integrated the United States may be today, Rothstein pointed out a damning truism: the country cannot de-segregate just because laws have changed.
The Opposite of Gentrification
If these communities are going to, at the same time, decry the invasion of newcomers and oppose most development, then they face but one option: they must promote development elsewhere.
OPR Finally Finishes SB 743 Guidelines
The Office of Planning and Research has released long-awaited CEQA guidelines that, by many accounts, promise to revolutionize the way developers and lead agencies measure the transportation impacts of projects under the California Environmental Quality Act.
Searching for Los Angeles in Blade Runner 2049
For all the theorizing about Blade Runner, it’s worth asking not what Scott was saying about the future of Los Angeles (or of cities in general) but rather why he chose Los Angeles in the first place.