Paul Shigley's blog

One of my personal commitments during the last year or so to a more sustainable future is to take the train and transit whenever I travel if time and routes permit.

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With news of yet another Wall Street icon or banking giant tumbling arriving on an almost daily basis, the Congress and Bush administration enacting a massive $700 billion bailout to prevent a complete meltdown (which is probably only the first installment), and the stock market gyrating wildly with each new shockwave, planners may wonder what all this may mean for planning practice (that is, after they finish anguishing over their own pension plan or investment portfolio).
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One of the things prominently on display at this year’s California Chapter, American Planning Association conference was the evolution of the City of Los Angeles from a gargantuan suburb into a true “big city.”

New mixed-use and adaptive reuse projects are located all around the conference site in Hollywood, often within easy walking distance of a Red Line subway station. Conference attendees who ventured onto the Red Line encountered a bustling public transit system no matter the time of day.
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The realization is setting in among planners that climate change is going to affect planning practice – especially environmental review practice – very deeply. As a result, planners at this year’s California Chapter, American Planning Association conference are anxiously seeking guidance.  

At last year’s CCAPA conference, planners embraced the issue of climate change this gusto. They clearly saw climate change as their issue, and the conversation was very enthusiastic, even somewhat heady at times.
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Only three weeks after insisting that California should encourage dense development near transit lines, state lawmakers have approved a budget that yanks funding from transit and redevelopment.

And that might be the nicest thing that anyone can say about the spending and revenue plan approved after last call on Monday night (Tuesday morning, actually).

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A plan to build what would essentially be a new town 40 miles north of Sacramento may be stillborn.
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The proposal by Anschutz Entertainment Group to install the equivalent of a football field in signs and lighted billboards in front of the LA Live development near the Los Angeles Convention Center is a glaringly bad idea. AEG’s proposal is over-reaching and garish.

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The state budget stalemate may get handed to the new Legislature that is seated in December. In the meantime, lawmakers could pass a series of emergency resolutions authorizing the state to pay its bills.

Last week, people were whispering about this scenario. Now, they are speaking out loud about it. After the 21-13 defeat of the Republican budget proposal in the Senate on Monday, it’s clear that lawmakers and the governor are no closer to a budget resolution today than they were in June.
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Did you hear it at the very end of Barack Obama’s acceptance speech Thursday night? “Cities to rebuild” was the phrase, and it marked the closest the Democratic nominee came to discussing urban planning and land use.
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