A New Yorker, one whose favorite pastime was building skyscrapers before he turned to statecraft, has bewilderingly captured the hearts of the American suburbs, exurbs, and small towns. Yes, this election hinged on race. But it also hinged on geography. While traffic of all sorts — foot, pedal, taxi, subway — rumbles along below the window of his penthouse, the nation’s wide-open spaces and moribund towns cheer for the change they have wrought.  And what of California? What of mid-rise urbanism, mid-range density, the blue ocean, and the 900 miles of blue coastline against which it crashes? What of the 60% of us who envisioned a different four years?  A California secession  movement arose within hours of Trump’s victory. It even has a cute, hashtaggable name: Calexit. As much as this prospect may appeal, we all know it’s an emotional salve and not a solution. If I knew how to navigate the Constitution well enough to permit secession, there are probably a few other changes I’d make first. A certain Electoral College system comes to mind.  A far more powerful and far more realistic option occurs to me. We should not leave the United States. We should do what we have always done: invite the United States to come to us.  Donald Trump’s election reveals that a long-developing trend has now become an axiom: the “sorting” of Americans is essentially complete. America’s open interstate borders have enabled like-minded citizens to group together in places of their choosing. Broadly speaking, liberals have moved to cities and coastal states while conservatives have remained in the Heartland — effectively gobbling up electoral votes (and House districts) in the process. Structurally, “sorting” gave us the discrepancy between Trump’s electoral victory and Clinton’s popular victory. Culturally, it leads to the gross misunderstandings between so-called Red and Blue America. One strategy for a Democratic resurgence is for Blue voters to move to swing states . It’s a clever idea for the adventurous. Anyone who wants to wave the flag of progressivism in Columbus, Durham, or Des Moines has my respect. But I don’t think anyone should have to uproot themselves for the sake of a political strategy in a free country. And it doesn’t solve the clear and present discomfort, disenfranchisement, and, possibly, danger that many Blue voters now feel.  If Donald Trump threatens to pull the nation back into the past, I suggest that California remains — as ever — its future.  The vast majority of my 40 million neighbors are diverse, embracing, industrious, and progressive. (Some of them are undocumented – so what?) As is often cited, California has assets most countries — possibly all countries — can only dream of, foremost being its $2.5 trillion economy. While the presidential campaign lamented the demise of old-school factory jobs in the Midwest, California has developed companies that make 20 th century steel concerns look like lemonade stands. Iowa can only dream of our crop output.  From Apple, Google, and Tesla on down, California’s future seems pretty secure. (Though, terrifyingly, Trump’s victory could undercut the tech industry, which is the economic triumph of our time.) I happen to think that Hyperloop is silly , but if it takes off, I’ll be the first one to cheer. We have media, science, medicine, finance, and, yes, good old-fashioned manufacturing. What’s the country’s No. 1 manufacturing county? Oh yeah, it’s Los Angeles .  Nobody took America. It’s been right here all along. And there is no superlative that can fully describe California’s opportunities to whomever wants to enjoy this version of the American dream. We have the wealth and the economic might. We have the human resources. We have the commercial infrastructure. We have the food and the landscape. We have the ports and the airports. We have global clout. We have some of the finest universities in the world. We have a political class that is not perfect but knows how to make incremental strides. We have the best kind of diversity.  We have all of this and more. Except for two complications.  First, California cannot currently house all the people it has. Residents and businesses alike are paying exorbitant rents, especially in coastal cities. Rents eat into our economic power, limit companies’ hiring options, decimate local multiplier effects, and essentially pit neighbor against neighbor in the search for shelter.  Second, California has traffic.  Fortunately, while the rest of the nation was electing Donald Trump, Californians took strides — some small, some large — to address at least one of these problems. In local elections , Los Angeles County passed Measure M, which, at $120 billion, is probably the largest transportation funding package in the history of the free world. The Bay Area voted for sorely needed funds for BART. Sacramento’s transpiration measure failed, and so did San Diego’s. It’s worth noting, though, that all of these measures required two-thirds majorities. They will be reconfigured and they will find their voters (as Los Angeles did after the 2012 defeat of Measure R). As for housing, that’s where California’s planners come in. The cause of smart infill development — replete with all the urban amenities and efficiencies that should accompany it — is possibly the only thing that lies between California and its full potential. On that front, yesterday’s votes were mixed. Santa Monica rejected the restrictive Measure LV, and affordable housing measures passed throughout the Bay Area. And yet many cities adopted or strengthened urban growth boundaries — without necessarily embracing the infill development to go along with it. Whatever voters say in a given election, planners need to keep fighting for the cause of density. And they need to promote their work. If nothing else, that is the lesson they can learn from Donald Trump. And what of the environmental impact of more Californians and the development to contain them? Well, urban living is inherently more efficient than its alternatives. And we have regulations. Senate Bill 375 in particular directs us to build in such a way that we reduce the state’s per capita carbon footprint. CEQA does some good and might yet do more if it’s ever reformed. That still leaves the problem of water. Even then, dense infill development consumes less water per capita than old suburban development does.  Two days ago, these efforts were just common sense policies for a vibrant, progressive state. Today, for everyone out there who seeks the embrace and promise of California, they are morally imperative.  I suspect that the new regime in Washington is not going to make things easy on us. Trump willfully mischaracterized  cities (including his own) in the campaign, demonizing them to rural and Rust Belt crowds. And, as CP&DR Publisher Bill Fulton notes , Trump will surely betray cities as often as he can with the powers of his office. That’s OK. We just have to work harder, accept the occasional sacrifice, and love each other a little bit more. So, let’s not break away from America. Let’s make sure California remains the best of America.

The recently established Oakland Department of Transportation released its strategic plan, which focuses on four pillars: equitable jobs and housing; holistic community safety; vibrant, sustainable infrastructure; and responsive, trustworthy government. The plan includes a range of goals and strategies in those four categories that the city will pursue. Other points include that transportation has a role in maintaining affordability, strong policies must be made, governments with accountability and transparency, and lastly that the focus must be on the region instead of only Oakland. OakDOT is comprised of 270 staff and 18 work units from the Department of Public Works and the Police Departments. The strategy calls for partnerships with the departments of Planning and Building, Race and Equity, local transit partners, and stakeholders at the local, regional, state and federal levels. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) L.A. County Gold Line Spurs $6.7 Billion in Transit Oriented Development The Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority released two reports that detail the amount of transit-oriented development that has been built or is underway within a half-mile radius of a current and future Gold Line stations. The reports reveal that TOD projects near 18 Gold Line stations from Chinatown to Montclair have resulted in $6.7 billion in private investments since 2003. More than 12,500 new housing units, 3.6 million square feet of commercial space and 1,400 hotel rooms have been built within a half-mile radius of a Gold Line station. The potential TOD for Phase 2 corridor from Arcadia to Montclair would add 17,000 more housing units, 10 million additional square feet of commercial space and 250 more hotel rooms as well as generating $100 million more in annual tax revenues to LA County. The six Pasadena stations amount to $3.3 billion in economic output and roughly 20,700 jobs. These light-rail lines create temporary jobs as well as tax revenues to the county. Los Angeles Takes Stock of Thousands of City-Owned Parcels The City of Los Angeles controller’s office recently a database of counts of properties including parking lots, parks, and orange groves that the city owns but that had not previously been cataloged comprehensively. The data shows the city owns 9,900 parcels in Los Angeles County, much more than previously listed. City officials see this as a first step toward identifying land that could be sold, leased or better utilized for things like condominiums, affordable housing development, parks, or other public facilities. While the databases shows parks, airports and government buildings most residents recognize as city property, the city also found that in 1969 officials began purchasing vacant desert lots in Palmdale to build an airport- there are 17,500 acres in Palmdale that Los Angeles owns. The system will be further detailed to include information on zoning, parking, energy usage, and in some cases estimated property value. UCLA Considers Effects of Climate Change, Envisions L.A. in 2050 Recent climate research from UCLA has found that Los Angeles by 2050 will be hotter, drier, with less snow in the San Gabriel Mountains. It will also grow by 1.5 million people. While one solution is to create denser multi-use developments along transportation corridors, many Angelenos are worried about losing their communities’ characters. The university’s Now Institute released two publications called 100% Sustainable : Strategies for 2050 renewable energy, local water, and ecosystem health in Los Angeles and 99% Preservation, 1 % Densification: A case for 2050 sustainability through a denser, more connected Los Angeles. The studies , led by Los Angeles-based, Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne, find increasing the density of Los Angeles’ Wilshire Boulevard to accommodate an additional 1 million people on the 15.8-mile long corridor would be sufficient. Additionally, the plan would be to extend the purple line light rail to Santa Monica allowing more than one million residents to live within a half-mile of a Metro stop. This densification would allow more residents to live a public transit-based lifestyle, diminish water demand, reduce vehicular emissions, and protect an area 10 times its size, primarily by building upward instead of outward. Coastal Cities Sue FAA Over New Flight Paths Newport Beach, Laguna Beach and Culver City have sued the Federal Aviation Aministration citing concerns about potential increased aircraft noise and pollution, arguing the environmental analysis for a new air traffic control system was not adequately prepared. The FAA’s Metroplex Project intends to replace aging air traffic control systems, redesign busy airspace and change arrival and departure procedures for 21 local airports including LAX and John Wayne in Orange County. FAA officials say the new procedures will be phased in from November through April and many public outreach sessions will be held. City of Ontario Takes Over ONT Airport The City of Ontario has finally assumed ownership of LA/Ontario International Airport from LA after years of litigation and negotiation. The once fast growing airport saw dramatic cuts in airline service and its annual passenger volumes plummeted from 7.2 million in 2007 to 3.97 million in 2013. Ontario International Airport Authority paid LA World Airports $55.5 million in bonds issues by LA for airport improvements and the FAA issues an operating certificate to the authority. In addition to spreading out the region’s air travel, control of ONT may lead to a development boom around the airport as the city tries to capitalize on its new asset. (See prior CP&DR coverage .) Gas-Powered Autos Cost State $15 Billion Annually The American Lung Association released a report saying California’s dependence on gas-powered vehicles costs the state $15 billion a year in health and climate-related expenses. The research tries to quantify the costs of smog and climate pollution caused by passenger vehicles. To evaluate health care costs the report looked at asthma attacks, hospitalizations, and premature deaths. California has some of the worst air in the country, but new policy calls for 15 percent of cars sold by 2025 to be zero-emission vehicles. Coleman to Succeed McKenzie at League of Cities The League of California Cities Board of Directors has selected Carolyn Coleman as the new executive director. Coleman has a law degree from Indiana University and currently serves as the director of Federal Advocacy for the National League of Cities since 2006. She has experience in the public and private sectors and will be the first female executive director of the League and only the fifth executive director in the organization’s 118-year history. Colman succeeds Chris McKenzie, is retiring after 17 years. (See further CP&DR coverage .) Updates & Quick Hits A controversial $1.2-billion residential, hotel and retail complex in South LA known as The Reef is one step closer to approval after the city council’s Planning and Land Use Committee voted to support the project despite arguments from the community activists who said the project could lead to widespread displacement of low-income residents. The Reef would transform two empty parking lots and the current 12-story Reef building into a walkable community just blocks from the Metro Blue Line station. L.A. Metro received three more unsolicited proposals for mega-projects related to the Measure M ballot measure. Two are for the Sepulveda Pass rail tunnel and another for the West Santa Ana Branch Light Rail project. The approaches in the 8 proposals Metro has received utilize an innovative public-private partnership to deliver projects sooner than anticipated. An Alameda County Superior Court judge denied petitions brought forth against an 18-story mixed-use project in Downtown Berkeley. The Berkeley City Council approved the project in December 2015 but lawsuits were filed against the project’s EIR saying the impacts on nearby schools weren’t studies, the project was incorrectly designated as urban infill development, and the buildings height violated zoning limits. The San Diego City Council rejected , 7-2, a proposal to ban short-term vacation rentals in single-family neighborhoods. The Council directed its staff instead to return with a comprehensive ordinance that would regulate STR. “Star Wars” creator George Lucas has released designs for museums for Treasure Island in San Francisco and Exposition Park in Los Angeles. Both museums are designed by Chinese architect Ma Yansong and have a futuristic, fluid look. Lucas will make a decision early 2017. Sacramento rents are steadily increasing with the healthy job market, population growth and stagnant construction of new development according to Yardi Matrix, a real estate research group, Sacramento’s rents are the fastest-growing rent market in the nation with increases of 11 percent per year and occupancy rates of 96.7 percent. This has created a surge in homeless families. The San Diego County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a permit to build a solar farm in Jacumba that would generate electricity for 5,000 homes. The proposed plant is located nearly three miles east of Jacumba Hot Springs near the U.S.-Mexico international border fence and near a San Diego G&E substation, so long transmission lines to hook into the region’s power grid will not be needed. The permit allows Jacumba Solar LLC to build 108-acre solar plant along 304 acres of land. Orange County Superior court Judge William D. Claster ruled the City of Fullerton can continue its plan of preserving pieces of West Coyote Hills with other areas getting developed. Friends of Coyote Hills have fought against the 510-acre development and took the city to court last year saying its plan to preserve 60 percent of the land as open space violated state law and a 2012 voter-approved ballot measure. The City of Santa Ana released planning documents titled “The Safe Mobility Santa Ana Plan” that identifies 42 high-priority projects (37 corridors and 5 intersections) that would take around $40 million to complete. The plan signals a shift from the city away from passenger vehicles to a greater focus on pedestrian and bicycle safety.

After decades of discussion, the Sacramento Planning and Design Commission approved  plans to redevelop the city’s historic downtown railyard. The proposal for the 244-acre site includes a major-league soccer stadium, hospital, and a mix of housing and shops. It would include up to 10,000 residential units and over 3 million square feet of commercial space. Some issues such as noise and schools to serve over 2,000 students who might move to the area must still be resolved but eight of the commissioners endorsed the project. The City Council is expected to vote on the project in November. Los Angeles Reconsiders Garage Podiums for High Rises Los Angeles Department of City Planning is pushing  for new high-rise development to be more pedestrian friendly by reforming policy surrounding above-grade parking. LADCP staff have acknowledged that the zoning code has lead to the proliferation of above-grade parking by not including garage space in allowable floor area. This loophole results in large garage podiums that create dead areas along streetfronts, especially in the South Park area of downtown. The staff report argues that reducing parking minimums will further limit the need for garages. Other solutions include free standing parking structures that serve multiple buildings, eliminating the requirement for parking for smaller businesses, allowing unbundled or shared parking, and introducing parking maximums. Bay Area Worries About Changes to AHSC Guidelines Impending changes  to California’s cap-and-trade program formula may mean some Bay Area cities will no longer qualify state grants that have brought $106 million to the region’s disadvantaged, polluted communities, according to an analysis by the San Francisco Chronicle. These grants, funded under the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities program, are used to improve public health and the environment by funding affordable housing near public transit, planting trees and encouraging car-sharing programs. Communities in the San Joaquin Valley and Los Angeles basin are overshadowing cities such as Richmond, Pittsburg, Antioch, San Jose, Rodeo and Oakland. The agency revised its qualification criteria to add high housing costs to the 200 indicators used to determine which communities are most in need. In the current formula the Bay Area has 4.2 percent of communities in the state that qualify for grants, this number would fall to 2.8 percent. San Diego to Chop Down New Construction in Pt. Loma The San Diego City Council voted  to close a loophole in Point Loma that allows developers to construct 40-foot structures in 30-foot limit areas. The city will close the loophole next summer in La Jolla, University City, Pacific Beach, Otay Mesa and Nestor. The 30-foot limit was approved by voters in 1972 as Proposition D. The leniency stems from where the height of the building is measured, grade before or after construction. While most of the community now has eliminated the loophole, the areas governed by the state’s Coastal Act will remain vulnerable until the California Coastal Commission approves the new law. Water Board Seeks to Replenish Tuolumne River California State Water Resources Control Board wants  San Francisco water users to help save the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta by leaving 40 percent of the water in the Tuolumne River. The river is currently running at 20 percent of its natural flow. This means reduced water supplies for the city and its suburbs. Two salmon runs and several fish are threatened with extinction in the Tuolumne, Stanislaus and Merced rivers. Army Corp s Revises Flood Estimates for L.A. River A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers report found the Los Angeles River, usually just a trickle in a concrete-walled riverbed, could flood more than 3,300 parcels north of downtown Los Angeles in the event of a 100-year storm. Neighborhoods such as Atwater Village and Elysian Valley could be submerged by an average of 5 to 10 feet of water. Other areas such as Griffith Park, Glendale and Burbank could see significant flooding as well. These findings mean property owners with federally backed mortgages will be required to purchase flood insurance and developers may face restrictions on first floor heights for certain properties. However, officials remain convinced the nearly $1.6 billion restoration of the river can move forward without heightening the flood risk. Quick Hits & Updates The City of Palo Alto is creating an ordinance to prevent retail space from being converted to office space. The new ordinance would follow an interim one that expires in April and would foster a mix of stores that allow passers-by to peer into. The California High Speed Rail Authority has announced the system will have shorter trains and smaller station platforms than originally planned, reducing the capacity of individual trains by roughly 50 percent, from 20 cars to 10. High speed rail stations will presumably be downsized accordingly. In March, actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio reportedly announced that he backed Los Angeles’ Neighborhood Integrity Initiative. He recently clarified that he is neutral on the measure and never supported it. The campaign director for the ballot measure took responsibility for the endorsement confusion. The South Coast Air Quality Management District’s efforts to stop development of the World Logistics Center in Moreno Valley were dropped after negotiations between the two groups. The developer, Highland Fairview agreed to pay millions in mitigation fees to the pollution regulator. (See prior CP&DR coverage.)  In May 2016, the American Planning Association launched the Comprehensive Plan Standards for Sustaining Places Recognition Program Pilot. It recently announced eight plans as examples of excellence in comprehensive planning. Los Angeles County General Plan received a bronze level. Bay Area rents are falling in San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland around 3.4, 3.3 and 0.6 percents respectively. However national trends have increased 2.6 percent from September 2015. Opponents of a ballot measure to allow a new high rise on the site of the Beverly Hilton have asked Los Angeles County prosecutors and elections officials to investigate allegations of voter registration fraud. The accusation is that more than 300 Beverly Hills voters are registered illegally to post office boxes rather than home addresses. The Anaheim City Council voted unanimously to put referendums on the November 2018 ballot to revoke development agreements for two luxury hotel projects that have become controversial because of generous tax subsidies attached to them. The referendums were originally supported by hotel workers’ unions until the developer, Wincome Group announced they would not agree to hiring union labor at the hotels. Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved ,13-0, a business plan to boost job creation. The dozens of reforms include a one-stop service to assist businesses, an open door at City Hall for business input, more streamlined regulations, business incentive zones and up to 5,000 new city jobs for workers from low-income neighborhoods.

While the footsoldiers in the efforts to plan cities (and add housing) were grinding away in Pasadena at the American Planning Association conference , a different audience was discovering a challenge that planners have known about for years. Yesterday, McKinsey and Co. released  A Tool Kit to Close California’s Housing Gap , which offers its take on California’s housing crisis. It was a focal point of a session I attended at yesterday’s Milken Institute  California Summit , moderated by none other than Jonathan Wotzel, director of the McKinsey Global Institute. MicKinsey’s conclusion: California doesn't have enough housing. How’s that for a news flash? Perhaps the only thing new about the report was its audience.The people who pay attention to McKinsey (who are much the same people that attend Milken Institute events) are probably different from those who usually pay attention to government reports. And they wear more expensive suits. I approach that with explicit sarcasm because, of course, every planner (and developer) in California already knows this. So does nearly every renter and every homebuyer in the sub-$5 million market. The crisis has been studied and described by nearly every major university in the state and acknowledged by nearly every major think tank and nonprofit that deals in land use. The Legislative Analysts Office put out two major  reports  last year. What’s been missing, in many cases, is political will and, let’s face it, political leadership. While majors like Los Angeles’s Eric Garcetti and Oakland’s Libby Schaff have forcefully called for more housing, leaders in many other cities are acting like they hope the whole thing will just go away. Fortunately, that kind of willful ignorance is getting increasingly difficult to pull off. The panelists at the summit offered anecdotes and analysis — much of it excellent -- that would sound like old hat to most planners. To folks who haven’t considered the housing crisis and especially the influence of anti-growth stakeholders, it must have been terrifying. Scott Laurie of the Olson Co. described the woes of a developer. He described a 58-unit by-right project in the City of Orange that, though it conformed to the zoning code, got cut in half because of the objections of a single neighbor. Then there’s a project on the San Gabriel-Rosemead border. The Rosemead City Council told him up-front that it would nix its portion of the project if a  single  constituent objected to it. Guess what happened there. Assemblymember and former Santa Monica City Councilmember Richard Bloom said that would-be housing developers are bailing out and selling sites to commercial developers because — for reasons that defy logic — neighbors don’t protest commercial but treat residential like it’s toxic waste. “There’s this idea that housing doesn’t pay,” said Bloom. "Commercial pays.” This, despite the fact that residential typically generates less traffic. Carol Galante, former Federal Housing Administration official and current professor at UC Berkeley, said “it’s hardest to build where the jobs are” and summed up the situation neatly: “the way we do land use in California is not normal.” McKinsey, of course, has some recommendations for normalizing the situation. Normal to the tune of 3.5 million units by 2025. That’s the number that the report thinks California can reach with a few nips and tucks to its land use policies. They want cities to identify housing “hot spots,” like places near transit and with vacant lots; make approvals quicker and less complex; promote affordable housing; and reduce the cost of constructing and operating multifamily housing complexes. Again, not exactly news. Among the “hot spots," McKinsey estimates that up to 3 million units can be built statewide around transit hubs. The recommendation that has drawn the most  attention  is that of building on vacant lots that are already zoned for development. McKinsey says there are scads of them in center cities. Well, of course there are. No one ever said California’s housing shortage was due to lack of land, vacant or otherwise. Planners have been encouraging cities to embrace density for ages. SCAG released its “ two percent strategy ”, advocating for the region’s future development to take place on two percent of its land, in 2004. McKinsey's recommendation is therefore odd, kind of like saying you should feed the homeless with the burritos in your freezer. Unfortunately, unless McKinsey is recommending the biggest eminent domain taking in history, the state can’t compel land owners to build so much as a doghouse. Prop. 13 ensures that land owners have nearly zero carrying costs, and California cities don’t have land value taxes. McKinsey’s most provocative recommendation would be to try to, finally, make the Regional Housing Need Allocation mean something. They recommend that the state offer a combination of incentives and penalties for cities that fail to meet their RHNA numbers. This might include withholding state property tax allocations for cities that flout their housing obligations and giving grants and bonuses to those that exceed them. Currently, “RHNA is a joke to a lot of cities. There's no enforcement,” said Galante. It’s hard to imagine how all this would happen given the current political climate and the temperament of stakeholders. As Galante noted, homeowners, not renters, are typically the ones who vote in local elections in California. That means that people like consulting firm partners and captains of finance are the ones with the real power. They’re the ones who vote, donate, and, often, protest against new development. They’re the ones who have heretofore pressured cities into the status quo. Now that the know there’s a problem, maybe they’ll try to do something about it.

On the day after Tom Hayden died in Santa Monica , I went on the California APA’s tour of station-area development along the Expo Line on Los Angeles’s Westside. It was a bit of a homecoming for me, because my life in Southern California began and ended within spitting distance of that line and despite all the years in Ventura so much of what went on in between was all tangled up with the Westside. The tour made me realize how much has changed on the Westside – even in the last few years, but certainly since I first met Tom Hayden 35 years ago. Two things struck me. The first – especially at our first stop at the Culver City station -- is the weird and ever-changing relationship between the Westside and the car. Yes the Westside is rich and hip, and yes ridership on the Expo Line is exploding. (Monday was the first day the line ran on six-minute headways.) Nevertheless, automotive carcasses are littered everywhere on the Westside, and folks there are obsessed beyond all reason with moving them and storing them. The second – especially at our last stop at Bergamot Station – is how thoroughly the Tom Hayden-era model of urban development, if you want to call it that, is now being rejected by the people of Santa Monica. Hayden, of course, was the godfather of the left-wing faction that took over Santa Monica on a rent control platform in 1981 and he represented the Westside in Sacramento for almost 20 years. For decades, the deal for developers in Santa Monica was simple: We’ll give you what you want if we can extract enough community benefits from you. (In fact, this was the topic of my master’s thesis in urban planning at UCLA , which formed the basis of Chapter 1 of The Reluctant Metropolis .) But the recent debacle at Bergamot – including the city council’s decision to un-approve the big Hines mixed-use project and the subsequent slow-growth measure on the ballot this fall – has made it clear that this deal won’t work any more on the Westside. If you add these two things together, it paints a pretty interesting picture of how the Westside has evolved, how much it struggles these days with being a victim of its own success – and how much the Westside slides back into 20 th Century thinking when the going gets tough. The minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour surface street gridlock on the Westside is awesome to behold, almost as if it were one of the seven wonders of the world. Which is, of course, why the Expo Line is so successful. And yet … Our first stop was at the Culver City station, near Helms Bakery. Culver City is doing a great job of station-area planning and the resulting district is going to be an excellent walkable neighborhood with strong connections to downtown Culver City. (For example, Lowe Enterprises’ plans for Ivy Station look really good .) But the most amusing part of our visit there was the automated parking garage at the old Helms Bakery, which owner Wally Marks and his family have lovingly transformed into modern office and retail space. The parking garage is, indeed, impressive. Once automatically parked using a lift, the cars are moved around the garage based on the established patterns of the drivers. If you don’t use your car during the day, it gets shuffled to the back; if you are in and out, it stays in the front. Your car will be gradually moved closer to the exit as the clock the time you typically leave work. And retrieving a car, even from an upper floor, takes a matter of seconds. But as I watched and listened – and Wally and his staff and consultants couldn’t stop talking about how great the garage was – I kept thinking that this must have been how IBM talked about how great the Selectric typewriter was right before the personal computer was invented. Yes, the Helms garage is all about efficiency – but it’s about storing and retrieving cars efficiently. Whereas the buzz in urban circles worldwide is about Uber, car-sharing and autonomous cars – that is, using cars more efficiently, so that you don’t need to store or retrieve them in the first place. In New York and San Francisco these days, you are how you ride or where you go. On the Westside, you are still what you drive. So 20 th Century. And that was part of the reason it was pretty refreshing to move on to the next stop – the Bundy station – and hear Dan Martin, a third-generation car dealer, bitch about parking requirements and talk about creating a walkable environment. When I first moved to L.A. in the early ‘80s, I lived walking distance from the Martin Cadillac dealership at Olympic and Bundy – not that you would have wanted to actually walk to Martin Cadillac in those days. (Take my word for it: Then, as now, I didn't own a car.) After almost 50 years on this 5-acre site, Martin Cadillac will soon give way to Martin Expo Town Center , a 10-story project with 500 residential units, 200,000 square feet of creative office space, and 100,000 square feet of retail, which will probably include a high-end grocery store. The visit was a good reminder that car dealers are often sitting on the best properties in transit-rich neighborhoods, and the best ones are smart enough to realize that as they become retail dinosaurs that real estate is their biggest asset. The Bundy stop is still pretty much an amenity desert, but between the Expo Line and big office buildings that pre-date it, the pedestrian traffic is already pretty good. At lunchtime today I saw maybe 30 people walking around at Olympic and Bundy, an intersection that features not only Martin Cadillac but a bunch of gas stations and convenience stores. One stop to the west is Bergamot Station, which features a combination of hip galleries and other arts businesses, high-end creative office businesses located in old industrial buildings, and traffic-spewing office towers from the 1980s. My life in L.A. may have begun down the street near Martin Cadillac, but it ended here 32 years later, when I was one of the principals in charge of the Bergamot Area Plan for the firm now known as Placeworks. And I do mean ended, because that plan – and some of the development projects that might have been built near the station – suffered the most ignominious fate of any planning effort in Southern California in recent memory. With it died the Tom Hayden-era idea of soaking the developers to get social goods, which has apparently been replaced by the pretty retro planning idea that doing nothing is usually better than doing something. The plan was supposed to build on Santa Monica’s vaunted 2010 LUCE (Land Use and Circulation Element). The LUCE, which supposedly had broad public support, was built on the concept of “tiers” – the idea that developers could get higher “tiers” of density in exchange for providing more community benefits. The LUCE was the ultimate manifestation of the Hayden-era development-for-goodies formula that was developed by the first progressive leaders in Santa Monica back in the ‘80s: Sure, we’ll give you the density for whatever the market is demanding (office, housing, retail) so long as you give us lots of social benefits in return. This was pretty radical stuff back in the '80s, when most people's idea of urban planning activism was to just shut down new development. And despite the fact that Hayden and his buddies had a reputation for being socialists, it requires a pretty deft understanding of capitalism to make this idea work. You have to know just how hard to squeeze the developers, so you still get the goodies and the developers don't go away. Over time, as capitalism has taken over the Westside, the argument for a bigger squeeze has only increased. Today in Santa Monica, the market is so strong that developers will pay almost literally any price for entitlements. Except that this isn’t what happened when Hines proposed a major mixed-use project on Olympic Boulevard right across the street from Bergamot Station. The project was arguably not the best designed project ever, though it dramatically improved pedestrian connectivity and publicly available open space in the area. Nor, apparently, did Hines do an especially good job selling it to the neighbors. The bottom line was that just before the 2014 local election, the city councilmembers up for re-election rescinded approval of the development agreement to save their own skin. And then, subsequently, they also backed off a lot of the good stuff contained in the LUCE . Save their own skin they did, at least for now, but at a cost. Hines sold the land and the existing Papermate factory is now being retrofitted – meaning there is still a 1,200-foot wall along Olympic Boulevard and no sidewalk. Yes, the latest biggest project on Olympic Boulevard went away. But so did all the goodies. And so, by the way, did a lot developers who could have been squeezed. Meanwhile, the defeat of the Hines project infected the entire Bergamot plan, and many of the other things that would have created better connectivity and a mixture of activities went out of the plan. The status quo, however imperfect, was judged to be better than anything new. In a certain way, you can’t blame Santa Monica’s residents for taking such an anti-growth attitude; after all, they’ve been hammered with job-related traffic for 30 years. But in rejecting dense 21 st  Century mixed-use growth, they are stuck with 20 th  Century problems, like no sidewalks, no connectivity, and even no restaurants. They also, by the way, have no affordable housing and none of the other things that the Hayden-era activists in Santa Monica wanted, because they are stuck with the 20th Century solution of simply retaining the status quo. So even as Hayden – perhaps the prototypical 20 th  Century lefty intellectual – slipped away in a hospital a short distance away, the section of Los Angeles that he loved remains mired in 20 th -Century thinking. Unfortunately, it’s not the 20 th  Century anymore. A personal postscript about Hayden: He always took an interest in my work and often quoted me, which on occasion could be pretty embarrassing. For example, one night I was walking down the street in Sacramento with a bunch of Central Valley Republicans when Tom, then a state legislator, hailed me as he was getting out of his car and yelled that he had quoted me in a hearing that day when he was railing against increasing cross-Delta water transfers. We talked briefly, and I pivoted back to discussing farmland with the Republicans as fast as I could. Still, I couldn’t help but like the guy. To me, he was generous to a fault. I well remember the time he hosted a small event at his house when The Reluctant Metropolis  came out. Afterward, I tried to give him a copy, but he pulled a twenty and a five out of his wallet and thrusting the cash into my hand. “I know what it’s like to have to buy books from a publisher and then give them away,” he said. Maybe the guy appreciated capitalism more than he let on -- and more than Santa Monica's current community activists.

The San Diego City Council approved , 5-4, new restrictions on Civic San Diego, the nonprofit that oversees downtown development. The new restrictions include more oversight and transparency, mandates for low-income housing, employee wages and local hiring. The council members who voted against the pact said the language was not firm enough, with too many potential loopholes and wanted stricter income eligibility requirements for low-income housing in CivicSD projects. CivicSD was created in 2012 to oversee redevelopment projects after the state eliminated redevelopment agencies; two of the council members are in favor of phasing out the organization entirely. Treasure Island Plan Receives LEED-ND Platinum Certification Treasure Island Community Development has announced that its redevelopment of Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island have been awarded  LEED-ND Platinum plan certification, the highest designation possible. Treasure Island is the largest plan, in acres, to receive this certification nationwide. The project received its certification for implementing measurable strategies and best practices to achieve sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, sea-level rise adaption and overall environmental quality. The redevelopment of the man-made island created for the 1939 World’s Fair received unanimous approval from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2011. The project includes upgrades to road, utilities and creation of 300 acres of park and open space. Bay Area Council Assesses Housing Regionwide The Bay Area Council Economic Institute released a report  on policies that have been instituted to alleviate the housing affordability crisis in San Francisco. The organization looked at 20 housing-related state and local policies and analyzed their impacts on net affordability. The three key takeaways from the analysis is that local policies matter, building all types of housing is the best way to alleviate housing cost burdens and it is not only about increasing supply but the overall impact on affordability matters. The study noted the importance of keeping rent control in the city, building below market rate units, and the balance of requiring developers to construct a percentage of affordable units. Proposal Could Hasten New Transportation Projects in L.A. County The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has received a proposal  from Parker Infrastructure Partners centered on the concept of flexibility in funding transportation projects at different stages of progress. This new approach would offer multiple Measure M projects to be delivered sooner than anticipated. The Parker proposal is now moving into the detailed proposal phase. In February, Metro officials invited the private sector to bring their ideas for helping Metro deliver projects sooner than scheduled. The Parker Infrastructure Partners’ proposal is one of three currently undergoing initial review to see if they have technical and financial merit. The other two proposals are related to the West Santa Ana Branch Light Rail Project and the Purple Line Extension. Study Finds ‘Filtering’ of Housing Happens Slowly in Bay Area UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies released a research brief  titled Housing Production, Filtering and Displacement: Untangling the Relationships. The study finds that in the Bay Area development of both market-rate and subsidized housing can reduce displacement pressures, but subsidized housing has double the impact of the former. While on average in the United States rental units are filtered down at a rate of 2.2 percent per year, in California and New England the rate is much lower and filtering rates have an inverse relationship with housing price inflation. It is estimated that in the Bay Area filtering rates are roughly 1.5 percent per year and rents decline by about 0.3 percent annually. In housing markets such as San Francisco, aggressive preservation strategies plus increases in subsidized and market-rate housing will help address the displacement crisis. Nevada Stadium Proposal Moves Forward; Could Woo Raiders The Nevada legislature passed  a bill offering $750 million in public funding for a 65,000 seat, $1.9 billion stadium off the Las Vegas Strip for the Oakland Raiders. Team owner Mark Davis will contribute $500 million and billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson $650 million. Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval signed the bill and now three-quarters of NFL team owners must approve in January when they meet. In Oakland, the Raiders are share the aging Coliseum with the A’s. Mayor of Oakland Libby Schaaf said she would not spend public funds on building a new stadium and will not enter a bidding war with Nevada using the public’s money. Scott McKibben, head of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority, said  by the time the NFL owners meet Oakland will have a plan to offer to compete with Las Vegas. Sacramento Seeks to Demolish, Revitalize Public Housing Projects Sacramento housing officials say it is time to demolish  Alder Grove and Marina vista housing projects and replace them with a mixed-use neighborhood. Almost 2,000 residents live in the two projects and would have to be moved into temporary housing while the new denser units are constructed. The new neighborhood would include market-rate housing, to rent and purchase, including town homes and single-family homes. While residents are excited for change and city officials are pushing for the new development, the city will need federal financial help. Local housing officials are hoping HUD will give Sacramento up to $30 million through its Choice Communities Initiative grant program. However, Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency will have to partner with private developers to help close the financing gap. Encinitas, Del Mar Face Twin Lawsuits over Ballot Measures Two environmental attorneys are filing  lawsuits against the cities of Encinitas and Del Mar over land use issues that have ended up on the ballots of both cities this November. Measure R in Del Mar would give voters the right to approve or reject projects that exceed the number of homes allowed on a property. Measure T in Encinitas gives city residents the choice of adopting the city’s housing element. One of the lawyers is representing the Affordable Housing Coalition of San Diego County and wrote a letter threatening to sue if Del Mar did not increase density in a certain part of the city designated for more housing in the housing element. Quick Hits & Updates The L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted  to update the 20-year-old LA River Master Plan. The update will coordinate the numerous ongoing efforts to revitalize the 51-mile body of water by all stakeholders. The new plan will reflect a unified vision from all 17 jurisdictions the river passes through. The Anaheim City Council voted  unanimously to approve the $450 million LT Global’s LT Platinum Center adjacent to the Angel Stadium. The Angels were the last hurdle for the mixed-use development and received the teams approval after resolving differences related to traffic and scale. Rents in San Jose and San Francisco have fallen  for the second month in a row. A 7 percent drop in San Jose from September to October and 6 percent in San Francisco. However, rents climbed in Oakland by 5 percent to $2,358 for a one-bedroom.  The Menlo Park Planning Commission voted, 5-0, to approve  two new office buildings, 200-room hotel and potentially 1,500 units for Facebook. Some community members are worried that the 6,500 employees generated by the two new buildings will not have housing provided. San Francisco Supervisors introduced  legislation to place a 60-day cap on the number of days a housing unit could be rented out as a short-term rental and require hosts to live on the premises for at least 275 days of the year.  Westfield Corp. has proposed  a $1.5 billion project to turn an aging mall into a ‘live, work and play’ complex in Woodland Hills, in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. The project includes a large indoor performing arts arena, central parks, rooftop gardens, pools, and 1,400 apartments. Riverside County  received  a federal grant to move forward with a proposal to initiate rail service between Los Angeles and the Coachella Valley. The train, provided by Amtrak, would run on existing rail tracks and have limited stops in Coachella Valley and Riverside. They are gathering public comments to complete an initial study by the end of 2018. Caltrans released  its FY 2017-18 Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant Application Guide. Statewide a total of $9.3 million is available for transportation planning projects. These grants are in line with Caltrans’ current mission: “Provide a safe, sustainable, integrated and efficient transportation system to enhance California’s economy and livability.” The Palo Alto City Council voted unanimously to provide  a Ford Motor Co.- backed regional bike share program next year grow the current program from 37 to 350 bikes by June. The $1.1 million project is part of a larger plan of growing the Bay Area Bike Share system from 700 bikes to 7,055.

The California Chapter of the American Planning Association presented its 2016 awards this evening at its annual conference in Pasadena. The awards include 13 categories and levels of “excellence” and “merit.”  EXCELLENCE Opportunity and Empowerment City of Salinas 2014-2015 Housing Initiatives City of Salinas Comprehensive Plan, Large Jurisdiction Plan for a Healthy Los Angeles Los Angeles Department of City Planning Comprehensive Plan, Small Jurisdiction Baldwin Park Health and Sustainability Element City of Baldwin park, Community Development Department Implementation, Large Jurisdiction Alcohol Nuisance Abatement Ordinance City of Long Beach Innovation in Green Community Planning City of Los Angeles Sustainable City pLAn Transportation Planning Cross Border Xpress Latitude 33 Planning & Engineering Best Practices Redwood City Community Benefits City of Redwood City Grassroots Initiative Huetra del Valley Community Garden Public Outreach The Game of Floods Marin County Community Development Agency Urban Design The Open Window Project Ten Space Advancing Diversity and Social Change, in Honor of Paul Davidoff Lara Gates City of San Diego Planning Department Academic Greater Washington “Voices of the Community” Assessment Report Graduate Student Teams, San Jose State University Masters of Urban & Regional Planning Program Hard-Won Victories City of Vacaville General Plan Vacaville Department of Community Development MERIT Opportunity and Empowerment Cabrillo Gateway and Anchor Place, Villages at Cabrillo City of Long Beach, Development Services Comprehensive Plan, Large Jurisdiction Sacramento County Development Code Sacramento County Planning and Environmental Review Division Comprehensive Plan, Small Jurisdiction City of La Mesa Urban Trails Mobility Action Plan City of La Mesa Innovation in Green Community Planning Goleta Slough Area Sea Level Rise and Management Plan Goleta Slough Management Committee Transportation Planning Los Angeles Union Station Master Plan Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Best Practices Fresno Multi-Jurisdictional Housing Element Fresno County Department of Public Works and Planning Urban Design Green TI: Terminal Island Freeway Transition Plan City of Long Beach Development Services Advancing Diversity and Social Change, in Honor of Paul Davidoff SurveyLA Latino Los Angeles Historic Context Statement City of Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources Academic Placemmaking for an Aging Population: Guidelines for Senior-Friendly Parks Anastasia Loukautou-Sideris, Lene Levy-Storms, Lin Chen, Madeline Brozen UCLA Luskin School for Public Affairs Hard-Won Victories Carmel Mountain/Del Mar Mesa Natural Resources Management Plan City of San Diego Park & Recreation Department

With due appreciation to the organizers and sponsors of this week’s California APA conference, there’s been a lot of food to keep over 1,500 planners sustained and energized this week. At this morning’s session, there was also a lot of nibbling coming out of Sacramento. As every planner knows, the state’s ability to influence local land use is limited and usually indirect – for better or worse. State policy has traditionally been limited to nibbling around the edges, with the occasional law, and some polite suggestions. The financial incentives that could be most powerful are neutered because, well, they depend on finances. And yet, Gov. Jerry Brown and many other officials have statewide concerns and, in some cases, holistic visions for what the state’s cities should look like. The task of refining those goals and coming up with policies, strategies, and polite suggestions falls largely to the Strategic Growth Council. This morning SGC staffer Suzanne Hague discussed a comprehensive strategy called Sustainable, Equitable Communities. The SGC is drafting it now and hopes to adopt it sometime next year. It includes a range of tasty-sounding morsels designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (per AB 32) and provide a range of co-benefits. Depending how cities respond, these ideas may or may not ever make it out of the kitchen. Here are a few highlights, including some I hadn’t heard before: Regional transit-oriented development funds. The Bay Area has done it with the TOAH program . Other MPOs can follow. Rebates for carbon-friendly housing. If they do it for Teslas, why not for solar panels? Various tax-increment financing schemes, including one that encompasses multiple TOD areas so as to share wealth. Urban growth boundaries, reduced parking requirements, and tax abatements in distressed area. On the transportation tip, Hague mentioned a few well known ideas: subsidized transit passes; bike sharing and car sharing; congestion pricing (which she appealingly recast as “cordon pricing”). She touted the state’s current pilot project to test demand-based taxation that could replace the gas tax: the less you drive, the less you pay (whether you drive a Tesla or a Hummer). If you put Hague’s 30 or so bullet points together and make them happen, you’ll either get a regulatory monstrosity or, perhaps, an walkable, equitable, sustainable urban paradise. In the question-and-answer period, we learned a few reasons why neither scenario may come to pass, including the use of ballot measures to approve leapfrog development, regional transportation plans and taxation measures that have their own agendas, and the perennial shortage of funds to create regulations and do planning work. Hague herself volunteered one of the least talked-about but perhaps most profound impediments to infill living (as opposed to infill development). As it turns out, reduction of GHGs may depend on ABCs. No matter how many high-density, low-parking, mixed-use, yoga-adjacent, dog-friendly units California developers can crank out, none of these developments does a thing to improve public education in center cities. As long as parents, rightly or wrongly, fear for their children’s’ minds and safety, they will always be tempted to flee the suburbs eventually. California’s education tragedy, above all challenges, may be the reason why cities are so family-unfriendly (despite what grumps like Joel Kotkin may claim). So, while California’s planners are learning, and eating, their fill this week, we should remember that the success of their cities may in fact depend on what California’s children learn every day.

If you're in Pasadena right now, you're not alone. The American Planning Association, California Chapter, reported yesterday that 1,800 people are registered for the conference this week. That's a huge number -- in past years it's been more like 1,000 -- and it may suggest that planning and development in California is back after a long downturn that began with the Great Recession. Here are some other tidbits from Sunday ... ... As we tweeted yesterday morning, the most heavily attended session at 8 am. on Sunday was the medical marijuana ordinance session . You can expect even more marijuana land use drama if Prop. 64 passes and every local jurisdiction in the state will have to pass a land use ordinance dealing with marijuana. As we have reported in the past, medical marijuana cases appear to be driving land-use law  in California more than ever before.... ... SB 743 is on everybody's mind. Not only did Rob Dayton from Santa Barbara weigh in on how that affluent coastal city is serving as an "early adopter" of alternative methods of analyzing transportation, but the ever-diligent Chris Calfee from the Governor's Office of Planning and Research reported that a new version of the SB 743 VMT travel guidelines will be out early next year... ... One reason planning may be back in California is that development is back, and one indication of that may be the plethora of land-use ballot measures this fall. Josh Stephens and I weighed in on that yesterday morning at a panel discussing the 60 or so measures on the ballot this fal l.... ... AEP is working through the post- Newhall greenhouse gas emissions analysis problem. At a panel yesterday morning, several AEP leaders worked through their new "field guide"  to GHG emissions and Climate Action Plans. Bottom line: You've got to understand how to separate out the emissions assumptions for new development v. existing development in the area in order to meet the Supreme Court's test.... ....And at a panel on CalAdapt, Erik de Kok of Ascent Environmental gave a nice little primer on SB 1000 , the new environmental-justice-in-General-Plans law that goes into effect in 2018. One interesting sidelight: SB 1000 doesn't specifically speak to climate change, but you might want to take climate change impacts on vulnerable populations into account.

It’s election season, and throughout California we are seeing an unusually large number of ballot measures designed to restrain development. As usual, most of these measures are in coastal areas. Some are urban growth boundary measures, but a lot of them try to put a brake on the density and/or height of new residential development. Presumably that’s because longtime residents in these coastal areas fear that high-density residential development will invade their communities. But even as these skirmishes are still going on, it looks like the battle is over – at least in coastal California. Higher-density development has already won. And increasingly that’s creating a bifurcated state. New single-family homes are built pretty much only in the inland areas. With a couple of exceptions, the coastal areas are turning dense. Perhaps most strikingly, the move toward multifamily development has gotten much stronger since the Great Recession ended. According to the Demographics Research Unit at the Department of Finance, between 2010 and 2016 more than half of all housing units built in California were multi-family units, and the vast majority of those were contained in projects of five or more units. This reverses the trend from the 2000s – but reinforces a trend from the 1990s. (All numbers in this article are derived from DOF's most recent E-5 spreadsheet .) Now, there are a lot of caveats here. There hasn’t been that much housing built since 2010 – only about 300,000 units, or an increase of about 2.5%. (There was only about one housing unit built for every six people addd to the population.) There was a huge amount of single-family housing built during the real estate boom that ended with the crash in 2008 – much of which was available for rent or at cut-rate prices when the Great Recession ended. And lenders have been gun-shy about single-family subdivisions for years. But the trend is striking. And it’s even more striking when you break out the coastal and inland areas – or, more accurately, the land-poor urban areas (which are mostly near the coast and good transit) and the land-rich suburban areas (which are mostly, but not exclusively, inland and away from good transit). To see what I mean, take a look at the striking patterns contained in the chart below. In coastal Southern California – Ventura, Los Angeles, and Orange counties – 77% of new construction is multifamily and only 18% is single-family. (Even in Ventura – land-rich but highly regulated – the numbers were 62% multifamily and 27% single-family.) In the Bay Area, there’s a similar big divide. If you look at the rapidly urbanizing counties with good transit – San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Alameda – you’ll see that 83% of new housing since 2010 is multifamily and only 12% is single-family. In the other counties – Contra Costa and Solano to the east and the three notoriously no-growth counties to the north, Marin, Sonoma, and Napa – you’ll see that only 28% of new housing is multifamily and 68% is single-family. We see the same thing in San Diego – though, as in the Bay Area, some of the single-family dominance is located in slow-growth coastal areas with land. In South County, 66% of new housing is multifamily and only 25% is single-family. In North County, 54% is single-family and 37% is multifamily. But that’s not the whole story. There’s also a story here about big cities in California. Contrary to recent history, they are growing faster than the state as a whole. They are adding housing faster than the state as a whole. And they are adding multifamily housing much faster than the state as a whole. The trend is really striking with the biggest cities. Take a look at the chart below, which compares the four largest cities with the state as a whole. Bear in mind that three of the four cities – Los Angeles, San Jose, and San Diego – are geographically very large, while San Francisco is not. Those big three cities are, however, running out of land. The raw numbers are striking. Of all the new housing built in these four cities, 92% was multifamily and only 7% was single family. But the numbers relative to the state as a whole is even more striking. Look at the chart below. Blue represents the situation in 2010; orange is the change from 2010 to 2016. In 2010, these four cities had about 19% of the population and 19% of the housing. But between 2010 and 2016, these four cities added 24% of the population and 27% of the housing. Most strikingly, they added about 52% of the multifamily housing. In other words, more multifamily housing was built in L.A. San Jose, San Diego, and San Francisco than in the entire rest of California put together . This trend plays out with other big cities, at least in coastal areas. Big inland cities are like their surrounding counties. Housing construction in Fresno, Bakersfield, Sacramento, Stockton, and Riverside – the five biggest inland cities – is all overwhelmingly single-family. So there it is: Bifurcated California. One very identifiable part of California is getting much denser really fast. One very identifiable part of California is not. It doesn’t break out. This doesn’t break down perfectly by coastal and inland areas – political culture about land use in places like the North Bay and North County San Diego matter a lot – but the overall trend is clear. In the long term, the question is not so much how the bifurcation occurs but what it means – not just politically but also in terms of policy, transportation, and lifestyle. For example, as the state’s push for a planning policy revolving around reduction in driving grows, the dense coastal areas will have a huge advantage in competing for money. And the big question is probably whether anti-density politics in the coastal areas will trump pro-density market trends. If the market wins, that means more housing built near job centers, lessening the transportation impact. If anti-density politics wins, that means more housing gets pushed inland. More people will be living in single-family homes, but they’ll be driving a long way to work. Whether they will be happy or not remains to be seen.

At first blush, the rest of California may not have much to learn from a high-priced, semi-isolated Spanish Revival paradise by the sea. But, roughly halfway through this week’s conference  of the American Planning Association California Chapter, held in Pasadena, Santa Barbara yielded what might be the conference's two most compelling pieces of data:  Among all the people who live in Santa Barbara’s downtown core and immediate surrounding neighborhoods, 10 percent commute outside the city for work.  Among all the people who work in downtown Santa Barbara, 39 percent commute into the city from somewhere else.  Hm.  These numbers come from Rob Dayton, principal transportation planner in the Santa Barbara Department of Public Works. They illustrate a truism that planners in big cities know well but that is counterintuitive to many suburban planers and — more importantly — to many of the opponents of growth in center cities. Dayton's numbers attest to the jobs-housing imbalance, in all its Mediterranean glory. (CP&DR doesn’t cover Santa Barbara very often — in part because, being built-out, it doesn’t have a lot of development.)  This data lead to an obvious conclusion: the more residents a downtown accommodates, the less driving there is in the aggregate. That’s doubly true if you believe in a world in which people do not equate self-worth with a steering wheel.  Santa Barbara is acting on this data sensibly: by encouraging development — commercial and residential — in its downtown core. Though Santa Barbara's street grid that is saturated, as Dayton said, a development’s traffic impact depends largely on its location. He expects that developments in the core will generate half the traffic of developments in outlying areas of the city.  This is exactly the kind of logic that eludes many of the opponents of development. In Santa Monica, for instance, voters will soon consider a ballot measure, Measure LV, that would all but freeze residential development. Proponents argue in part that development automatically incurs traffic and they fight like mad against it, ignoring the fact that the people with the most incentive to occupy new units are exactly those who are commuting into Santa Monica. Meanwhile, the westbound Interstate 10 looks like an evacuation route every morning.  Disregard for the jobs-housing imbalance is much the same in Los Angeles, where traffic gridlock is cited as the reason to oppose pretty much everything, especially in sites in West L.A. that would likely house — you guessed it — workers who commute to Santa Monica.  Dayton’s Santa Barbara data is of course no revelation for anyone who has paid any attention to center cities in the past decade. But his way of getting around the NIMBY freakout is. He’s using vehicle miles traveled (VMT) measurements rather than level of service (LOS). That change, which will be blessed statewide with the imminent implementation of SB 743, enables the city to essentially evaluate traffic impacts — and, crucially, CEQA analysis — from potential development in its entire downtown area in one fell-swoop. (The conference's host city, Pasadena, happens to have been the first city in California to implement VMT metrics; see CP&DR coverage .) Dayton said the impacts of any particular downtown development can be performed "on the back of a napkin." That’s because VMT enables the city to account for the non-impact of all those downtown workers who, with closer-in housing, will no longer be gumming up intersections after they spill off Highway 101.  Dayton stressed that Santa Barbara’s plan is new and not yet implemented. But if a place as near-perfect as Santa Barbara can accept that, sometimes, a little development can be a good thing, maybe there’s hope yet for the rest of coastal California.