When we listed the best small-city downtowns in the Central Valley , we didn't include Exeter, a Tulare County community eight miles east of Visalia. Exeter was in our discussion, but it didn't make the cut for reasons that I don't recall. After spending part of one day last week

The Los Angeles Times is running an all-week series on traffic congestion in L.A. and how miserable everybody's commute is. The topic is a sure-fire winner among readers, and the personal stories of commuters are interesting and well-told. But the Times appears to have taken the

Some of California's best-known Gold Rush towns feel like museums that are operated for the benefit of tourists and transplanted retirees. Although the towns are genuinely historic, they may or may not be genuine places today. Yreka is different. The historic district in the coun

Rick Caruso, retail genius – ok. But Rick Caruso, mayor of Los Angeles? C'mon! It ain't gonna happen.

If you've ever shopped around for securities or mutual funds, you've heard the caveat that past results are no guarantee of future performance. The same warning apparently applies to California's water system.

JOIN US IN BEAUTIFUL CONTRA COSTA COUNTY! Contra Costa County is one of nine counties that comprise the San Francisco–Oakland Bay area, and is located directly east of the City of San Francisco. The current population of Contra Costa County is just over 1,000,000, and is the nint

Do cities have tourniquets that can be used to stop the subprime mortgage bleeding? They like to think so, but the answer appears to be no. Instead, cities are increasingly focused on two things: First, increased code enforcement to make sure that abandoned houses and neighborhoo

When gasoline costs $5 a gallon, and diesel $6, who is going to buy a house in the exurbs? With those fuel prices appearing inevitable within a year or two, I have been posing that question in casual conversations with people. Their answers is, well … no one.

The campaign in Napa County over a ballot measure that would impose a 1% growth limit may be a microcosm of the entire Bay Area. On one side are slow-growth advocates with the usual arguments about density, traffic, greedy developers and untrustworthy politicians. On the other si

As Barack Obama would be the first to say, you can't underestimate the importance of North Carolina anymore. At 9.1 million people and counting, it's now the 10th most populous state in the nation, and it has added a million people just since the 2000 Census. Another few boom yea

My laptop battery started dying just as I noticed the huge bats somewhere around Barstow.

In the race for endorsements, the anti-Proposition 98 camp has lapped the competition. The question is whether the endorsements will make any difference in an election that is likely to see very low voter turnout.