If you're in Pasadena right now, you're not alone. The American Planning Association, California Chapter, reported yesterday that 1,800 people are registered for the conference this week. That's a huge number -- in past years it's been more like 1,000 -- and it may suggest that planning and development in California is back after a long downturn that began with the Great Recession.

Here are some other tidbits from Sunday ...

... As we tweeted yesterday morning, the most heavily attended session at 8 am. on Sunday was

Most heavily attended early morning session at @2016_APACA : #marijuana regulations. #Prop61

— CA Planning-Devt Rpt (@Cal_Plan) October 23, 2016 "> the medical marijuana ordinance session. You can expect even more marijuana land use drama if Prop. 64 passes and every local jurisdiction in the state will have to pass a land use ordinance dealing with marijuana. As we have reported in the past, medical marijuana cases appear to be driving land-use law in California more than ever before....

... SB 743 is on everybody's mind. Not only did Rob Dayton from Santa Barbara weigh in on how that affluent coastal city is serving as an "early adopter" of alternative methods of analyzing transportation, but the ever-diligent Chris Calfee from the Governor's Office of Planning and Research reported that a new version of the SB 743 VMT travel guidelines will be out early next year...

... One reason planning may be back in California is that development is back, and one indication of that may be the plethora of land-use ballot measures this fall. Josh Stephens and I weighed in on that yesterday morning at a panel discussing the 60 or so measures on the ballot this fall....

... AEP is working through the post-Newhall greenhouse gas emissions analysis problem. At a panel yesterday morning, several AEP leaders worked through their new "field guide" to GHG emissions and Climate Action Plans. Bottom line: You've got to understand how to separate out the emissions assumptions for new development v. existing development in the area in order to meet the Supreme Court's test....

....And at a panel on CalAdapt, Erik de Kok of Ascent Environmental gave a nice little primer on SB 1000, the new environmental-justice-in-General-Plans law that goes into effect in 2018. One interesting sidelight: SB 1000 doesn't specifically speak to climate change, but you might want to take climate change impacts on vulnerable populations into account.