A couple of weeks ago, while I was listening to yet another SB 375 panel at the California state planning conference , a text message popped up congratulating me for being named the 99th top urban thinker in a recent Planetizen poll.

Special Event: Planning for Aging Communities – Nov 2nd , 2009 A special event in conjunction with UCLA Extension will be held on Monday, November 2, at the Westin Pasadena Hotel to explore the nature of today's inter-generational relationships in regards to housing and transport

There are consequences to every public policy choice we make. An editorial in today's Monterey County Herald makes the argument that one consequence of not providing enough decent, affordable housing for low-wage laborers is crime and violent death.

It's increasingly clear that land use planners are not quite sure what to do about climate change. For the third consecutive year, the subject of climate change dominated the annual conference of the American Planning Association, California Chapter. What was evident during this

The planners may have all gone home from Squaw Valley, but the planning talk has continued apace in San Jose, where the League of California Cities annual conference started on Wednesday. Most of the talk, not surprisingly, is about money – specifically, how Sacramento keeps taki

Increasing Housing in the Midst of a Crisis: Roles and Responsibilities High foreclosure rates due to skyrocketing debt and unemployment have pushed the availability of affordable housing beyond the reach of lower to middle income families. As a result of this current crisis the

The recession's very personal impacts provide the real story at the APA California conference that concludes Wednesday in Squaw Valley. Sure, we're all going to panels about climate change and LEED and CEQA and form-based zoning codes. But in between and after the panels about sa

A lot of the talk here at the California APA Conference in Squaw Valley is about climate change – and, more specifically, about how to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. But there's more and more talk – important but poorly attended – about the other s

It's always been a mystery to me why traffic modeling – and traffic mitigation – is such a big part of analysis done under the California Environmental Quality Act. After all, traffic in and of itself is not an environmental impact, any more than building a building is an environ

The executive director of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency told the lunch crowd at the APA California conference today that her agency provides a model for regional planning. She was right – but not in the way she intended.

A bill that would exempt a planned football stadium and an adjacent 3 million-square-foot entertainment and retail complex in the City of Industry from the California Environmental Quality Act, and state planning and zoning law is speeding through the Legislature at a rapid pace.

California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA): A Place to Start As part of the Environmental track of UCLA Extension's Global Sustainability Certificate we would like to introduce a brand new quarter long course on CEQA. The twelve-week, 4-unit class will examine the fundamentals o