Let’s Retire Our Ideological Labels For Cities

Cities can be open to change and open to new residents, in whatever configuration suits them best. Or they can be closed, choosing to serve their own and hope that other people will find refuge in other places. Neither position bears on a city’s attitude towards peace and love–just on the number who can be loved.

Are Market-Rate Units Unwelcome In San Francisco?

San Francisco has become equally famous for rejecting projects, including, recently, everything from a branch of a locally beloved burrito restaurant to a 13-story, 316-unit building in the Tenderloin. The apartment building, at 469 Stevenson, met the same fate—for now—on a 8-3 vote in late October.

Eli Broad, Urbanist

The great irony of the philanthropist’s life was that he made his billions on sprawl — and then poured it into making Los Angeles a more urban city.

Surplus Land Act Upends Public Agency Development Plans

According to the Surplus Land Act (SLA), a relatively new state law whose implementing guidelines went into effect in January, all of these properties must be made available to affordable housing developers first. While state officials defend the guidelines, the landowning agencies say the law will undermine their vision for the property – and maybe even hinder their ability to build the affordable housing that the law seeks to create.

The Phony Debate Over Wall Street and the Housing Crisis

Over the past few years, concerns about “Wall Street ownership” of houses in California has grown increasingly serious, with the The Blackstone Group being the poster child for a handful of finance companies that buy up single-family homes, often in disadvantaged areas, only to kick out tenants and increase rents.