Here’s how I began last year’s installment of this post: “If California gets any more rain, we might all wash into the ocean.” How fortunes have changed.
As I regroup from the tumult of the early weeks of 2025 in Los Angeles, I’m pleased to share some highlights from the year gone by.
This year has started with a local story that is already assured of being the biggest land use story of the year. I am not among the heroic journalists who have been on the ground in the burn areas. But, I’m in Brentwood, just down the road from Pacific Palisades. Places I know well have been destroyed, including the homes of many friends and acquaintances. I feel for them and extend my sympathies and support to everyone in the Palisades, Malibu, and Altadena.
The only way to make up for this tragedy is to build a better city, not just in the Palisades and Altadena but in every neighborhood. Maybe the fires are the crucibles we need to solve problems that have festered for too long.
Here’s my best attempt at collecting my thoughts: We Don’t Have A Wildfire Crisis. We Have An Everything Crisis.
Let us hope better news is in the offing. In the meantime, please enjoy the year gone by, and thank you for your support.
The Big Stories
Two pieces stand out, for entirely different reasons.
One Ski Resort’s Long-Shot Bet to Survive Low Snowfall and Devastating Wildfires This one is my first-ever story for the New York Times. I’ve been daydreaming about writing about Mt. Waterman — a fascinatingly quirky ski hill in the mountains above Pasadena — for many years. Its recent sale gave me the perfect news peg, and it turned into a great story for the Times’ “Square Feet” column, which covers offbeat real estate stories.
Costco Gets Creative with Mixed-Use Big Box This story probably says more about Costco, everyone’s most beloved warehouse store, than it does about me. This piece, on plans to integrate housing into a new Costco in South L.A., received the greatest number of views among all California Planning & Development Report stories last year.
Book & Film Reviews
I regret that my coverage of books lagged this year. But, I did manage to cover two movies — one I loved (though it didn’t get nearly the attention it deserved) and the other…. I’m not so sure.
- Warlords in Our Midst, a review of climate-related themes in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (which is by far the most awesome movie of the year; the Oscar nominators have lost their minds)
- The Brilliant, Unhinged Spectacle of Megalopolis
I yet again contributed to Planetizen’s Top Urban Planning Books. It was another strong year. My favorite book of the year was A Paradise of Small Homes by L.A.-based planner and first-time author Max Podemski. I interviewed him for CP&DR.
The Las Vegas Sphere: A Placeless Object in a Placeless City History will tell, but it’s possible that the Sphere will turn out to be one of the most influential buildings of the first quarter of the 21st century. Not because other Spheres are going to get built around the world but, rather, because it represents the most grandiose manifestation of virtual reality that we have yet conceived. I expect personal VR to get increasingly ubiquitous, making The Sphere both special and irrelevant at the same time.
Amateur L.A. historian Paul Haddad wrote a terrific book about six of early Los Angeles’s most important boosters and power brokers called Inventing Paradise. I had a great conversation with him at Skylight Books in Los Feliz back in June.
Opinion
I wrote some provocations, for your consideration:
Why Do Firefighters Oppose Safe Streets? To fire departments, it often seems like the only good street is a wide street. This attitude has to change, for the sake of better cities and for public safety.
Will Waymo Help Urbanism — or Hurt It? Robot cars are here, and they’re better drivers than we are (so maybe they don’t need big, ugly streets). Now what?
Good Riddance to Chevron You know what really makes for dangerous roads? Petroleum. For something like 140 years, Chevron was one of California’s corporate titans. They’re decamping from the Bay Area to Houston. I say, good riddance.
Not Enough Shells For California’s Hermit Crabs Many people are leaving the state too, and California’s demographic patterns are about to get really complicated. That means that housing is about to get even more complicated.
California: Where Prosperity Means Decline The most dramatically “declining cities” in the country include Jackson, Miss. and Lake Charles, La. — and San Francisco and Berkeley. What’s wrong with this picture?
Las Vegas’ Opportunity to Learn from California Notwithstanding the Sphere, our neighbor to the east does not have to be a placeless sprawlscape.
News & Features
Ugly Sweaters, Plush Toys, and Transit Maps – InTransition Magazine
Transit agencies don’t just move you around the city. They can also decorate your home and help you fill out your Christmas list.
California’s Housing Crisis Meets California’s Insurance Crisis – CP&DR
My coverage of insurance companies‘ reluctance to cover houses in fire-prone areas was a little too timely for comfort.
Solano County Braces for Vote on “California Forever” Development – CP&DR
The “new city” of the East Solano Plan (previously known as California Forever) was one of the biggest planning stories in recent memory, in part because so little has been built in the state. It’s gone quiet now, and its backers are regrouping.
Agencies Struggle To Find Enough Planners – CP&DR
Plenty of people want to be urban planners these days. But, not enough of them want to work in the public sector.
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, as always, to my editors: Bill Fulton at the California Planning & Development Report; Diana Ionescu at Planetizen; Vivian Giang at the New York Times; Mark Hrywna at InTransition, Melanie Curry at Streetsblog; 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 at CP&DR.
In addition to more fire coverage, I hope, eventually, to get to articles on high speed rail in the Central Valley, lithium extraction in the Imperial Valley, and suburban transit hubs, plus I have a pile of books stacked up already. I have a fun one lined up on the use of gondolas for urban public transit. If anyone has tips for another skiing story, I am all ears.
For those of you in Los Angeles, please join us at the Westside Urban Forum, where I’m on the board and chair the programming committee. In February, we’ll talk to the mayors of all five small cities on the Westside, and in March we will likely discuss fire recovery, likely demographic trends in April, and, at some point, the odd rise of urban data centers.
If nothing else, we can bet that 2025 will be eventful. Let’s hope it’s not too eventful.