2025 was not a great year for cities and, particularly, not a great year for Los Angeles. Perhaps needless to say, I am profoundly displeased about the federal government’s newfound hostility towards America’s own cities and the overwhelmingly peaceful, productive, awesome people who live in them.
I don’t have a solution to that. I guess it just means that local jurisdictions — residents, governments, businesses — need to be their own best advocates. We need to rise above the nonsense and make our small portions of the country as welcoming, prosperous, and diverse as they can be. Hopefully some of these articles advance that cause.
I’m pleased to share some highlights of what I got up to journalistically in 2025.
What Japan Gets Right (A Partial List) – Common Edge
drew optimism from a country that is unabashedly and expertly urban: Japan.
To write a complete list would require me to live in Japan for years, or decades. But, I had only ten days. So, I pulled out some highlights: smallness; quietness; cleanliness; and pedestrianism, to name a few.
Contrast that with an asinine scheme at home….
“Freedom Cities” Won’t Liberate California
This proposal called “charter cities” has been kicking around for a while. The idea is that less developed countries would contract with more developed countries to build and run new cities. It’s a problematic but, from an economic standpoint, not entirely ridiculous idea (see Hong Kong). But, the guy proposing one for the Bay Area doesn’t seem to realize that California is already one of the most developed “countries” in the world.
Why Hollywood and the Housing Industry Need Each Other
Hollywood has historically been too cool to care about land use politics. The problem is, housing is too scarce and too expensive — especially for aspiring stars and hardworking tradespeople — and the entire industry is now suffering from changing tastes, artificial intelligence, and the weight of its own self-regard. Los Angeles, yet again, cannot get out of its own way.
The Battle Over Rebuilding Pacific Palisades – Newsweek
I didn’t write this one, but I’m quoted in it. People, companies, and governments must be held accountable, but I think the political sniping got out of hand. It echoes some of the ideas I wrote about in CP&DR shortly after the fires.
Somewhat more optimistically….
Imperial Valley Hopes for Lithium-Fueled Development Boom
I’m not sure anyone should live in the Mojave desert. But, we might have a win-win in the Imperial Valley if some towns can be revitalized and the green economy can get its lithium without too undue environmental impact.
Transit Advocates Consider How to Elevate Gondolas in American Cities
No transportation mode is perfect. Gondolas don’t make sense in most places, and they may or may not make sense for Dodger Stadium. But, plenty of cities — most notably La Paz, Bolivia; Medellin, Columbia; and Mexico City — prove that they are well worth considering.
California, As Ever, Leads National Trends
This is a grab-bag of ideas gleaned and pondered at the Lincoln Institute’s Journalists Forum.
In 40 Years, Urbanism Has Surged while Journalism Has Faded
The California Planning & Development Report, which is my main writing gig, has been around for 40 years, under the leadership of Publisher and Editor Bill Fulton. Wild, right? I’ve been on board for only a portion of that, and I certainly wasn’t reading urban planning news in 1986. But, I’ve been a city resident for far longer than that. And, I am pleased to say that American cities, including Los Angeles, have improved in myriad ways. Unfortunately, while small newsletters can plug along, the journalism industry as a whole is in turmoil. City-based papers have withered, and many have disappeared. That’s not great, and it’s especially troubling when so many forces are trying to undermine democracy and civil discourse.
Appreciations
Frank Gehry’s Star Quality Outshined His Urbanism
Frank Gehry’s designs were outlandish and maybe frivolous. But, they were also exciting, and they did Los Angeles proud. RIP.
The Death and Life of Shakedown Street
We lost another great artist — no less prominent in his own field of rock music and Americana than Gehry was in architecture — earlier this year. Bob Weir and the various incarnations of the Grateful Dead didn’t sing about cities often, but they were very much the product of special time and place in urban California.
Books
I’m always optimistic when books are involved, even if some of the books themselves are depressing. As long as we’re still reading, we still have a chance to figure out better ways to live.
Book Review Roundup: A Literary and Scholarly Tour of California
California generated an impressive crop of books last year (and the previous year). This collection of mini-reviews covers about 18 months worth of titles, many of them excellent. I’ll highlight Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World, by Malcolm Harris, for mightily skewering Silicon Valley; The Ghost Forest: Racists, Radicals, and Real Estate in the California Redwoods, by Greg King, because we need to appreciate trees; and Common Ground: Multifamily Housing in Los Angeles, by my friend Frances Anderton, because dense housing does not have to be bland.
Planetizen’s Top Urban Planning Books of 2025
On this year’s Planetizen list, I particularly loved American Oasis: Finding the Future in the Cities of the Southwest, by Kyle Paoletta; Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies, by Michael Albertus; and Shade: The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource, by Sam Bloch. We also couldn’t help giving a deserved shoutout to the rare urban-oriented book that became a crossover hit: the ubiquitous but still insightful Abundance, by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.
My Books
My two books are still circulating. The Urban Mystique is available through Solimar Books, and Planners Across America is available from Planetizen Press.
Thank-Yous & The Year Ahead
Thanks to Bill Fulton at the California Planning & Development Report; Diana Ionescu and Christine McClaren at Planetizen; Mark Hrywna at InTransition, and Martin Petersen at CommonEdge. Thanks as well to everyone I interviewed and consulted, and to collaborators, especially Talon Klipp, Susan Klipp, and Ella Morner-Ritt, Jacob Madley, Emily Glennon at CP&DR. Thanks as well to Yasmeen Alfaqeeh, and, of course, Mary Pilon. And, of course, thanks to everyone who reads my stuff and that of everyone else who is chronicling cities.