Are the exurbs dead? You'd think so, based on all the publicity about plummeting home prices in California – and the rapidly increasing price of gasoline. In the short run, it is probably true that we'll see big housing price drops in the exurbs and construction will stop almost completely.

Wetlands used to cover a huge swath of Southern California's coast, serving as a sanctuary for wildlife and plants. But today one is hard pressed to find many wetlands left in this urbanized section of the state, where homes, marinas and ports long ago replaced native habitat. While wide, sandy beaches and rocky tide pools are part of the Southern California landscape, quieter wetlands with estuaries, marshes and sand dunes are harder to find.

State OPR says agencies must quantify and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from projects. But determining significance and cumulative impact is likely to be tricky.

An environmental impact report for the Cal-Fed Bay-Delta project has been upheld by the state Supreme Court. The unanimous decision was at least somewhat academic because the Cal-Fed process has essentially halted. Still, the court appeared to signal that it would defer to policymakers on Delta water and environmental policy, and to agencies that certify broad program environmental impact reports.

The California Supreme Court has upheld three timber harvest plans that an appellate court had found to be in violation of the state Forest Practices Act and the California Department of Forestry's functional equivalent of the California Environmental Quality Act. The state high court ruled the analysis of cumulative impact on two rare species was adequate, as was an analysis of likely herbicide use.

Redevelopment may have been the biggest winner in Tuesday's primary election. Statewide, voters rejected Proposition 98, an initiative to prohibit the use of eminent domain for economic development purposes. In San Francisco, voters supported a huge redevelopment project at the former Hunter's Point shipyard and Candlestick Point. And in Napa County, voters rejected a slow-growth initiative that was aimed at halting redevelopment of a former industrial site just south of Napa

When Joint Venture Silicon Valley Network CEO Russell Hancock talks about transforming El Camino Real into the Northern California version of the Avenues des Champs Elysees, one begins to wonder what color the sky is in his world.

Just looking at the proposed football stadium on the eastern edge of Los Angeles County is enough to give me indigestion. This six-dollar hamburger is just too big to eat.

Westwood Village sits in the middle of a rare constellation of commercial districts. To the east lie Prada, Spago and the extravagance of Beverly Hills. To the south, Century City offers a resplendent new multiplex and every imaginable upscale chain store. To the west, Santa Monica's Promenade ranks as the paragon of L.A. urbanism. Further afield, the ersatz streets of The Grove and CityWalk attract "destination" shoppers from all over the region. By the unusual standards of

In this month's roundup of news from around the state: Employment and civic engangement concerns confront the Riverside-San Bernardino metro area; a judge rules Carmel Valley incorporation is not a project for CEQA purposes; a different judge throws out an EIR for a Carmel Valley subdivision; hospital bonds fail in Sonoma and Stanislaus counties.

A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit has dismissed as moot an animal rights group's challenge of the environmental review documents for a program in which the National Park Service eradicated feral pigs on Santa Cruz Island.

A Ninth U.S. Circuit of Appeals ruling striking down San Diego County's ordinance regulating cell phone antenna location and appearance has been set aside, and the case will be reconsidered by the court.