Since 2005, the American Institute of Architects has contributed technical assistance on sustainability to over 30 communities through its Sustainable Design Assessment Team (SDAT) program, including Windsor (2008) and Culver City (2007) in California. We are pleased to announce

Sacramento city and county officials are congratulating themselves – and getting congratulated by editorial writers and others – for cutting a deal to share sales tax revenues from auto dealers. But the deal's not the result of enlightened regional cooperation. It came about beca

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.

Senate Bill 375 – commonly referred to in the popular press as the "climate change smart growth bill" – is going to become a law . The newspapers have been calling the legislation "precedent setting," but it's got nary a new idea in it. If you peel back the layers, you've got wha

The state Assembly has voted 46-22 to approve SB 375, the bill that ties together land use planning, transportation funding, affordable housing planning and greenhouse gas reductions. The largely party-line vote followed a 40-minute debate in which Republican bill opponents argue

The State of California is nearly two months into the 2008-09 fiscal year, and it faces at least a $15 billion gap between current spending levels and tax revenues. Yet there is no sense of urgency at the state Capitol. Earlier this month, I predicted that lawmakers would pass a

I've been listening to sports talk radio since "Sportsphone 68" with Scottie Sterling was on the Bay Area airwaves during the 1970s. I think the show was on for a couple hours on weekday evenings.

It's the last week of the California Legislature's session, and we're still on the SB 375 watch. SB 375 is, of course, Sen. Darrell Steinberg's bill that would implement the AB 32 greenhouse gas emissions reduction bill by tying state transportation and infrastructure money to re

A housing bill that local governments love and affordable housing advocates hate has passed the state Legislature.

What really matters in economic development today? How about highway access – and labor cost – and energy cost? Huh? What ever happened to the New Economy? You know, all those creative types sitting around coffee shops drinking lattes and typing on their laptops? (Which, by the w

Climate change has a lot of people talking about "alternative" energy and water resources. Fine, say some people, let's built more dams for hydroelectric power and impound more surface water. But that's not what environmentalists have in mind at all.

Earlier this week, the author of a bill that seeks to place regional planning, transportation funding, affordable housing and greenhouse gas reductions into a "smart growth" package conducted a press conference to announce that builders, local governments and environmentalists ha