The first book from veteran urban planning journalist Josh Stephens, The Urban Mystique: Notes on California, Los Angeles, and Beyond covers everything from the minutiae of setbacks, the impacts of transit investments, the promise of smart growth and sustainability, and the precariousness of urban politics in the 21st century.
Many armchair planners are trying to blame the virus crisis on density. Real planners shouldn’t let them get away with it.
Many elements of great, but forbidden, urbanism are on display in a bygone version of Los Angeles
Visual depictions of projects remain an issue — though accessibility might actually be improved for some. Brown Act has been loosened for the duration of COVID-19
Even entitled buildings won’t be built unless they have financing
We’re supposed to hate Solvang’s kitsch. But it’s got great bones — for several blocks in all directions
As the coronavirus shuts down California, planning departments across the state are adapting and staying on-task
I send warm greetings from Los Angeles and hope you are all healthy and safe wherever you may be. I am in the annual lull following the college application season. My students had a fantastic …
The best tea shop in Old Delhi is not a shop at all. It’s a cart, a bottle of propane, a guy, and his assistant…
In Golden Gates, Conor Dougherty chronicles the rise of the YIMBY movement and California’s battle over housing — with the aplomb of an East Bay skateboarder
A typical jumble of land-use measures — but they suggest California’s future direction
Barry Siegel’s new book about the 1932 Olympics shows how much chutzpah counted in early Los Angeles
To cut down on discretionary review, new housing laws require cities to approve housing projects so long as they conform to “objective” design standards. Cities are scrambling to draft standards that promote housing and promote desired aesthetic goals
Not until the first week of December or so did I realize that the change of the year also ushered in a change of decade. My ignorance must have been due to equal parts denial …
SB 50 went down in flames once more. But the bill gave the state cover for other bills that would otherwise would have been considered radical. And RHNA is forcing upzoning all over the state.
CP&DR’s retrospective of the triumphs, failures, and tensions that influenced California’s built environment in the 2010s
The Golden State Warriors’ privately financed arena in San Francisco reflects the moneyed interests of big tech.