I recently returned from four months of living in Moscow. The best thing I brought from California was a Zen-like detachment to accept Russia on its own terms. Because Russia is what it is. And Russia is basically a mess. A livable mess, where the trains run on time. But it is th

The California Air Resources Board will take over many duties of the Governor's Office of Planning and Research (OPR) by the first of the year.

Caltrans sponsored Planning Commissioners Training – One Day! Thursday 7/16/09 UCLA Extension will offer a one day seminar at the Caltrans building in downtown Los Angeles on July 16th. This seminar is meant to provide planners and commissioners with useful information to assist

At the risk of repeating what I and about a million other people have already said, I'll say it again: California could learn a lot from Portland when it comes to transit and its climate-related benefits. In the Portland metro area, transit is efficient and relatively inexpensive

One person's infill is another person's environmental disaster.

It seems to me that, like so many other policy initiatives, this whole SB 375 thing can either be a bureaucratic nightmare or a useful way to move forward. We can devote an enormous amount of time and attention to figuring out how to comply with the law ... or we can figure out h

The Bay Area can accommodate the next 25 years' worth of growth – 2 million additional people and 1.7 million new jobs – entirely through infill development, according to Greenbelt Alliance. The San Francisco-based advocacy group unveiled the all-infill strategy in a plan called

The future of the Governor's Office of Planning and Research appears very much in doubt. On Wednesday, the Legislature's Conference Committee on the Budget recommended eliminating OPR only hours after Gov. Schwarzenegger called OPR "a total waste." The Los Angeles Times quotes th

The committee charged with recommending how the Air Resources Board should establish greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets under AB 32 and SB 375 spent much of its first half dozen meetings talking in about the technical details of measuring emissions and modeling for future

There is no better example of the conundrum in which Gov. Schwarzenegger and all Californians find ourselves than the controversial oil drilling deal off Santa Barbara County.

The state will appeal a Superior Court decision blocking the state from shifting $350 million of tax increment revenue from redevelopment agencies to schools In the midst of the state's larger budget crisis, the amount at issue in the litigation suddenly appears piddling. Still,

Even as local officials in Southern California attack the question of how to implement SB 375, they have slyly begun to suggest that the bill isn't the best way to attack the problem it supposedly addresses – greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It is not clear what the locals will do