Blogs

Jerry Brown likes to do the unexpected. So it should not have been surprising that Brown turned up unannounced at the Planning and Conservation League's annual symposium on Saturday, January 12, in Sacramento and vowed to sue cities and counties that do not account for climate change in their next general plan.

Along with the collapse of the housing market, here in California climate change was the biggest land use story of 2007. But is there any doubt that the greening of the planning process will be the No. 1 story in 2008 – and maybe No. 2 and No. 3 as well?

Environmental issues are never far from the forefront of concern in the land use arena, especially here, where the California Environmental Quality Act forces environmental review of everything from huge master-planned communities to tiny infill projects.

In planning and development these days, everything's green.

For years, the issue was housing — specifically prices and the lack of affordable places to live. No more. Now, global climate change is taking over every discussion of land-use planning in California. And climate change – along with a variety of related environmental issues – is likely to take over every issue of California Planning & Development Report from here on out.

All too often, local politics in America is parochial, narrow-minded, and faction-ridden – if not crudely partisan. This is too bad, because the issues confronting local government in America are usually regional in scope and require far-reaching coalitions of unlikely allies. That's why John Parr was one of my heroes.

The housing market flopped, and global warming became an issue of overarching concern. Without question, those were the two biggest land use stories of 2007 here in California. Those two stories alone made it a big year for California land use news.

Of course, those of us who write about land use in California like to think that every year is a big year for land-use news. After all, with 100 million acres and 37.7 million people, California has the right basic ingredients.

We have heard, with sadness, that his Honor the Mayor of Los Angeles and his special friend of some months, Ms. Mirthala Salinas, former political reporter for Telemundo, have called it quitsville. The great hook-up of power with beauty, of City Hall and Spanish-language media, of two lonely narcissists, each in search of the perfect audience, is over. And with that romance, an era passes.

Larry Livingston, who died the other day at the age of 89, was one of California planning's true pioneers. And through a courageous public declaration of his own disillusionment, he became a symbol of the practicing planner's frustration.

Blackwater in Iraq means a swirl of controversy over private security forces guarding American diplomats – a job that in the past was done by uniformed U.S. military personnel.

Driving through the Napa Valley last Saturday, the feeling crept over me once again. It's an uneasy, hemmed-in feeling that I often get while traversing the floor of this long, narrow, beautiful valley. Grapevines to the right. Grapevines to the left. Grapevines behind me. Grapevines in front of me.

Okay, I admit it. I felt claustrophobic.