How do cities create a thriving urban fabric on large lots? How do you build large developments to fit within existing communities? How can large developments contribute to neighborhood vitality rather than overshadow it?

Yesterday the Senate Budget Subcommittee 4 heard testimony from cities and other supporters of redevelopment in opposition to a bill that could limit the number of former redevelopment projects that receive funding under Assembly Bill 1X 26.

Update: Yesterday, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy M. Frawley ruled against a group of cities seeking a temporary restraining order that would have effectively set aside funds for former redevelopment obligations that are still under review by the Department of Finance. T

Several weeks after I wrote what could be described as emotion-driven defenses of California's approach to smart growth (in response to separate commentaries by Wendell Cox and Joel Kotkin), I was heartened to read a different, but complementary, perspective from Christopher B. L

VENICE, Italy — I felt a sense of dread the moment I stepped off the train: that imprisoning feeling of being in the wrong place, with nowhere else to go. Of the 17 million people who visit Venice every year, I needed only an instant to realize that I did not want to be one of th

The staff of the Strategic Growth Council has issued recommendations for the awarding of a total of $20.7 million for Urban Greening Grants to communities throughout the state. Funded by Proposition 84, the Urban Greening Grants complement the Sustainable Communities Planning Gra

With funding for planning growing ever more scarce around the state, some localities received a windfall last week from the Strategic Growth Council. SGC announced recommendations for its second round of Sustainable Communities Planning Grants. If the recommendations are adopted,

California's relentless, ever widening budget deficit has claimed another victim: redevelopment's affordable housing funds.

Ahoy there! Weary of California? Exhausted by redevelopment battles, EIR lawsuits, lack of transit, lack of money, the impossibility of getting anything done in Sacramento? We have a solution for you: Live on the ocean! No, we're not talking about a cruise ship, nor a well-appoin

The transit activists, it seems, are storming the gates in the Bay Area. Their target for the 2012 election season is the open District 3 seat on the Bay Area Rapid Transit, and a victory could signal the maturation of an insurgent trend years in the making. In an era dominated b

I live too close to Century City and Beverly Hills to objectively report on the what is shaping up to be the most bitter land use battle in California: that of uber-wealthy Beverly Hills versus uber-ambitious Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Here's my bes

Today, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Los Angeles civil unrest, my sense of frustration remains intact with all parties: the Los Angeles Police Department and former Chief Darryl Gates; the looters who torched and ransacked small businesses in my former neighborhood in