In an excerpt from Talk City, Bill Fulton recalls how difficult it was emotionally to deal with budget cuts in the last recession -- a clear concern as cities face revenue shortfalls again because of COVID-19.
In the second of three recollections of his time in office during the last big budget crisis -- drawn from his book Talk City -- Bill Fulton reminds us that people are willing to pay higher fees if they see the payoff -- but not to cover deficits if they don't see the benefit to themselves.
At CP&DR, we often cover land-use disputes that are rooted in a legacy of racial inequities as they are distributed across the landscape. But we don't always acknowledge that inequity is at the root of the problem. We must -- and we will -- do better.
California urbanism encompasses extremes: beauty and banality, wealth and poverty, diversity and segregation, aspiration and indifference. These dualities underly The Urban Mystique, the new book by CP&DR's Josh Stephens.
