It’s an understatement to say that housing bills have been popular in Sacramento over the past few years, with dozens passed and chaptered by eager lawmakers and governors. Not a few exhausted municipal planners have hoped that the pace would slow down. But that’s not happening yet.

The depths of the covid pandemic inspired dire proclamations about the “death of cities,” and downtown areas were Exhibit A.

This weekend, the conference of the California Chapter of the American Planning Association returns to the Central Valley for the first time since 1975.

California Forever dropped from the sky two weeks ago, like a lost chapter from Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. It promised a utopia of low-carbon emissions, a jobs-housing balance, rowhouses (!), light rail, human-scale density, and, most marvelously, diversity social equity. Exquisitely, it created fans and detractors in seemingly equal numbers. Most observers, though, probably fell in the middle, able to imagine best- and worst-case scenarios with equal vividness. Naturally, many people’s fantasies are others' nightmares. And, after a flourish of a week or so, California Forever has receded into the fog. If it revisits us, it will likely do so in the form of lobbying, ballot measures, environmental impact reports, and lawsuits until the end of our days. So far, California Forever--the name of which sounds more like that of a cemetery than a metropolis--offers more of a lesson in public relations than in planning. In the span of a week, coverage of California Forever went from a scoop in the San Francisco Chronicle to multi-article coverage in The New York Times , The Hill, The Guardian --and everything in between. I can't imagine a story related to urban planning that would get more, and swifter, coverage than this one did. Howard Jarvis would have to rise from the dead and insist on the repeal of Proposition 13. Clovis would have to invade Fresno. A whale would have to eat San Diego. Beverly Hills would have to build affordable housing. That's how big it was. The developer, Flannery Associates LLC, had been operating in stealth mode for five years until the Chronicle uncovered what was going on. Flannery's most exquisite move was to immediately post a website -- so fully-formed that it must have been designed and written ahead of time, like an aging celebrity's obituary, long before the news leaked. Flannery (apparently named for a road bordering its original parcel) is thus both an enormity and a mystery at the same time. Planning news rarely "breaks." But, to Flannery Associates' credit -- whether the leak of their buying spree was accidental or calculated -- they gave us, perhaps unwittingly, a story that had it all: a "new city," a huge amount of (private) capital, a place (Solano County) that most people have never heard of, mild deception, and the audacity of the tech industry. The plan's most Calvino-eseque elements so far are the renderings on California Forever's website, if you can call them "renderings." In some ways, they hold tremendous appeal: pretty, well detailed buildings overlooking coves and arbors, dappled in the light of a wine country afternoon. And, yet, they are obviously the product of artificial intelligence--just a little too perfect, and a little too cliched. A recent post on SF Gate confirms as much. By now, Flannery has surely gotten calls from every New Urbanist architect in the country. A city on a hill. The reasons why it got so much attention are more pedestrian and more dispiriting. The attention we gave to a Utopian vision, seemingly inspired by equal parts Tuscany and Philadelphia, says more about the current state of our cities -- and the surrounding discourse -- than it does about Flannery. The vision for California Forever depends on not just empty land but also on blank pages. California Forever's zoning code has yet to be written. (Maybe it won't even have one.) It also doesn't have incumbent residents with entrenched interests. It doesn't have design guidelines. It doesn't have anxious politicians or overworked planning staffers. That's why they can dare to dream of something new, fresh, and attractive. Back in the real world, pretty much nothing is happening. Some of the biggest development stories center on what's not getting built. That high-rise in San Francisco. A new ballpark for the A's. The Concord Naval Weapons Station redevelopment. Anything smaller than Versailles and denser than Alaska on the San Francisco Peninsula. Home mortgage rates just hit 8%. Not exactly fodder for The New York Times. On many levels, the project is off-putting, perhaps terrifying. And yet, there's  useful lesson in California Forever's audacity. California Forever has a shared purpose: its investors have all spent a lot of money and they all want to make a lot of money. I give them credit for being, possibly, more than just capitalists. They seem to understand principles of good urbanism, and they seem to understand that California needs more housing. "Hey Dall-E, give me a perfect New Urbanist streetscape." That's more than we can say for some cities in this state. Too much of the planning innovation and new development in California are taking place under duress (see: Builder's Remedy ), with extreme reluctance (see: housing element updates), or in the face of recreational litigation (hello, Huntington Beach ). None of this amounts to a vision. None of this amounts to an enthusiastic, optimistic consensus about what the state and its cities might strive for. As ever, the California Dream feels passive -- something that we participate in purely because we're here, somewhere near the beach, under the sun -- rather than something we actively, collectively pursue. Sure, many new plans include progressive planning principles. But, they are usually buried deep in codes and general plan updates. They are often included to evade scrutiny of anti-development stakeholders. They lack exuberance. And the incrementalism is excruciating. We get a six-story podium building here; a dozen townhouses there. ADU's aplenty. If we're lucky, we end up with better cities by the time our grandkids graduate from college. This leisurely pace is what prompted developer Christopher Meany to unload on planners when I spoke to him about his Treasure Island project: "Planners have to stop focusing on planning and start focusing on getting things built." What this approach lacks is a vision -- a sense of enthusiasm or shared purpose. It's almost impossible to envision better cities in California because the new elements -- say, a well designed mixed-use building, or street furniture that might make a place walkable -- has to mingle with whatever outdated, Prop. 13-enabled ugliness is still hanging around. So, I can forgive anyone who gets excited about California Forever. It's tantalizing to think that, just this once, we could learn from our mistakes and build something truly enlightened--exorcise the ghosts of Burnham, Corbusier, and Moses once and for all. But what the world wants and what the world builds are often two different things. I am not suggesting that planners should pursue headlines. Doing so would be disingenuous and annoying. But we have to learn something from the flap over California Forever. However difficult planning in the real world may be, planners cannot cede an optimistic, excited vision of California's future to a venture capital fund. Even if he predated the California Environmental Quality Act, Italo Calvino probably knew how hard it is to build utopia. It's why he conjured up cities a few hundred words at a time, never claiming that they would exist anywhere other than in the collective imagination. Now that DALL-E can do Calvino's job for him, it's hard yet to tell whether California Forever believes his fantasies are within reach—or whether California Forever is blind to his cautionary tale. Perhaps it was, and is, both. Images courtesy of California Forever .

Recently, the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley hosted a conference about recent housing legislation that featured four legislators active in the area: Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks from the East Bay, Assemblymember David Alvarez of San Diego, and Senator Catherine Blakespear, who until recently has to grapple with intense no-growth politics as mayor of Encinitas. All but Wicks are former local government officials. The resulting conversation brought an interesting set of obervations from the four legislators. Here' s an edited version of the conversation, culled by CP&DR ’s Josh Stephens.

Atlantic Avenue, a four-to-six lane artery that forms the spine of Long Beach, runs from the waterfront due north for eight miles. It then carries on into the hinterlands of the Gateway Cities in south Los Angeles County. Though Long Beach is relatively dense — at roughly 9,300 residents per square mile — development along the majority of Atlantic Ave. and the city’s other major boulevards rarely rises above one story.

Among the 200-odd housing-related laws that the California has enacted since 2015, many – if not most -- were designed to increase density in one way or another. Some laws encourage housing units where now there are only big boxes and offices. Some encourage developers to build higher in exchange for housing lower-income residents. Others literally put new housing in people's backyards, by way of accessory dwelling units. The entire RHNA process is, essentially, an exercise in densification. To an extent, this is the YIMBY dream writ large. At last this weekend's annual Journalists Forum at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy , David Garcia, policy director for the UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation, had the burden of summarizing all these laws. But he was joined by, among other panelists, Patrick Condon , a Vancouver-based planner and professor who predicted, provocatively, these laws may simply lead to more expensive housing. For at least as long as the YIMBY movement has been around -- calling for, broadly speaking, as much upzoning in as many places as possible -- Condon has questioned the orthodoxy of density. Condon has lived in Vancouver long enough to see high rise condo and apartment buildings rise on a peninsula--which includes its central business district--like the redwood trees that covered it a century ago. Vancouver also encourages duplexes, fourplexes, "lane houses" and other forms of suburban upzoning. Since 1970, Vancouver's population has increased by more than 50%, from around 420,000 to nearly 665,000; thanks in part to pro-density zoning, its number of housing units has doubled, according to Condon's numbers. Its density is over 14,000 persons per square mile--fourth highest in North America. And what happened to its housing prices? They are, according to Condon, among the highest in North America, with the average house costing 24 times the average annual salary. So Condon cautions that increased density does essentially nothing for housing costs. "Land prices absorbed all the benefit of that new supply," said Condon. "Because the capacity of those parcels was increased in terms of the financial return on it, it's reflected in this tremendous rise in land value." To explain: If upzoning, say, doubles the number of units allowed on a given piece of land, the seller will calculate the upzoned value and raise the asking price accordingly, thus sticking it to the buyer, who must, as a matter of necessity, pass on the added cost to residents. In Vancouver, Condon says 40% of the rent or price -- at whatever density -- goes right into the land. Anybody who's been involved in a transaction involving a piece of newly upzoned land will understand this. It's the reason, why, say, prices for a tract of modest homes near my home in West Los Angeles shot up after the adoption of the city's TOC ordinance. Enticed by the possibility of density bonuses, developers were willing to accept inflated prices in order to build a multi-hundred unit building. On a micro-scale, there's no doubt that the potential to build an ADU or duplex in place of an existing single-unit home can raise the price buyers are willing to pay (a phenomenon I personally felt in a recent, unsuccessful, quest to buy a house in Los Angeles). Condon insisted that, absent a policy mechanism to moderate land prices--such as, perhaps, a Henry George-style land value tax -- this pattern is almost inevitable. He suggested that the only way to ensure that upzoning does not raise housing costs is to require aggressive inclusionary provisions so that the cost of below-market-rate units substantially counteract, on average, those of "luxury units." He pointed to none other than Cambridge's recently adopted 100% inclusionary requirement. (He did not, though, explain how these projects would pencil out, though he might argue that land sellers would have to settle for less and, thereby, enable developers to break even.) As Condon repeated several times, his argument spells bad news for anyone, especially YIMBYs, who hopes that upzoning will reduce housing costs. To his credit, though, Condon is not nearly as much of a curmudgeon as certain venerable density scolds who favor Valencia over Vancouver. Emphasizing that "adding density is a good thing," Condon acknowledged that density may embody other, nontrivial benefits that outweigh--or at least offset--whatever its costs might be. He cited reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, increases in transit ridership, and diversity of housing types. What, then, does all of this mean for California and it's 5 bazillion new housing laws? At a glance, it doesn't bode well. California's coastal cities, at least, share a lot in common with Vancouver. And yet, there's reason to believe that, even if Condon is right about Vancouver, he may yet be wrong about California. Most obviously, Condon's argument is arguably a straw man. Many YIMBYs would acknowledge that increased density is not necessarily intended to lower housing costs. YIMBYs might be satisfied if the density simply reduces the rate at which housing costs increase. That's where Condon's analysis is incomplete: might Vancouver's costs be even higher in the absence of upzoning? Is it possible that Vancouver did not upzone enough? Or, is it possible that British Columbia did not upzone enough? Whatever Vancouver has done, its housing market still exists alongside those of Burnaby, North Vancouver, and even Victoria. As the Terner Center's Garcia pointed out, jurisdictional inconsistencies in California have often kept housing supply constrained and costs high. Even if Emeryville or Oakland says "build, baby, build," its new units do next to nothing to counteract the reticence of Lafayette, Walnut Creek, and all of Marin County. "Oakland is pulling its weight, but suburbs prop up housing costs," said Garcia. Rather than focus growth on one small peninsula, as the upzoning in Vancouver has done, most of California's new upzoning laws apply statewide. Notwithstanding cities that complain about (and sometimes sue over) Sacramento's incursion on their sacred right to self-determination, if every housing-constrained region and jurisdiction in the state has to upzone, then we might actually get an economy of scale, and we might actually meet aggregate demand. Of course, the demand for deed-restricted affordable housing will always outstrip the market's ability to supply it. This is where Condon's admonishment really comes into play. Roughly speaking, most cities' RHNA numbers require zoning for roughly equal amounts of market-rate and affordable housing. But, of course, there are no laws, incentives, or funding programs -- locally or statewide -- that approach the 100% density bonus in Cambridge that Condon touts. Whether you’re Cambridge or Canada or anyplace in between, urban economics will always involve combinations of alchemy, soothsaying, and dead reckoning. We can’t predict the future, and we can’t control for every variable. Whether Condon is right, wrong, or somewhere in between, his analysis is crucial for at least one reason: it compels us to define our goals and acknowledge that reaching some goals may be at cross-purposes with reaching others. Then again, given the number of new housing policies in California, it’s hard to keep track of all the goals. And, maybe that’s the point. If this goes well, California might just stumble its way into affordability and abundance. And, really, we’re going to have to. At those prices, we can’t all move to Canada.

If your city could give birth to something, what would it be? Would it be rock music? Free love? The tech economy? The United Nations? Or the Chalupa? I spoke a few weeks ago at the Housing Symposium of the Orange County Realtors Association in Newport Beach--an enviable city, and a stone's throw from Taco Bell's headquarters. My role was to explain how planning plays into the state's housing mess. At one point, I was discussing the legislature's scorched-earth policy towards housing-hesitant cities and assured the audience that, while exclusionary single-family zoning would no longer be tolerated in most places, "if some city in Orange County wants to become the next San Francisco, it can." Cue the guffaws. I clarified: if a city wants to become more dense -- at San Francisco levels or whatever -- Sacramento isn't going to stop them. My interviewer, speaking on behalf of the audience, nonetheless assured me, " no one wants to be San Francisco." Cool beans. Empirically, he may be right. It's possible that the ethos of Orange County is so dramatically opposed to that of San Francisco that emulation is unthinkable. Whether San Francisco embodies density, history, bridges, dirty hippies, progressivism, public transit, dysfunctional government, homelessness, or simply the right to ply the city sidewalks wearing nothing but a leather collar, Orange Countians may indeed want none of it.  Just for the sake of argument, let's say that some city in Orange County was inspired by my offhand vision. Maybe East Placentia, Garden Beach, or Mission Nuevo will lose its mind and decide to go all-in on Victorian rowhouses, zero-parking midrise apartment buildings, and duplexes as far as the eye can see. What does that give us? Fifteen square miles is about average for a city in Orange County. At San Francisco densities, that means 132,000 units for 270,000 people -- roughly three times as many units and four times as many people per square mile as the current countywide average. Our formerly staid suburb thus becomes the third-largest city and by far the densest city in the county. What might it get for that density? Possibly less than nothing. That sort of density at that scale hasn't been built in California--or anywhere in the United States--since the Coolidge administration. We could get 15 square miles of apartment buildings that look like Taco Bells. Or we could get some of the most inspired high-density architecture this side of the Roaring '20s. Who knows. In light of the state's housing crisis, and the manifest demand for housing anywhere within reach of a sea breeze. Folks who like their lawns and their privacy might shudder. But even the most hardcore fiscal conservatives behind the Orange Curtain may yet find something to like. Orange County's GDP in 2021 was a perfectly respectable $238 billion. It ranked ninth among counties nationwide. Guess who ranked 11th? San Francisco -- at less than one-third of OC's population. That's good for $200 billion total and $245,000 per capita, ranking second nationwide (to Manhattan). Not bad for a bunch of hippies. That's not to say that the city singlehandedly creates wealth. But it certainly attracts it. If wealth is your thing, you could do a lot worse than be San Francisco. Of course, not everyone in San Francisco is rich. And there's the rub. San Francisco's vistas, architecture, culture, cuisine, and economic fortitude have been overshadowed by reports of crime, homelessness, trash, vacancies, and the vaunted "doom loop." Sometimes, it seems like the only thing left intact in San Francisco is its political dysfunction. Many of these reports are exaggerated, of course, partly because it's easy, and even fun, to take jabs at whomever is on top. Hence, the chortles. But San Francisco's problems are partly of its own making. Many of them stem from its housing shortage, which is largely self-imposed. Had the market produced anywhere near the needed number of units, the city would have fewer people on the street, more residents to shop at stores and work in offices, and perhaps less of the intraurban tension that causes voters to favor tribalism over collaboration. A denser San Francisco would likely be not only wealthier but also far more livable for everyone. Even so, I get the concerns. San Francisco is already pretty darn dense. Meanwhile, though Orange County's density is fairly uniform; its 3,989 people per square mile does not rise to the level of what anyone would consider a major city. There's plenty of room for pretty much any housing type you could imagine. A denser Orange County -- or at least a portion of Orange County -- could reap all sorts of agglomeration benefits, as long as it had decent design, transportation infrastructure, and jobs (which is already has). The great irony is, if Orange County really wanted to distinguish itself from San Francisco, the best way to do so would be to build housing. The funny thing about the audience's dismissive attitude toward San Francisco is that real estate agents should, by professional necessity, be pro-housing and, therefore, be pro-density. And yet, they were skeptical of the very regulations that promote density. Case in point: The Regional Housing Needs Assessment process was referred to openly as "stupid"—despite the fact that it's designed to bring 123,000 new units to Orange County. Half of those are supposed to be market rate, which means 61,500 units that could potentially generate commissions. I would think that people who make money when, and only when, housing units change hands would salivate at the prospect of having all those new units to sell. I, for one, am going to keep my eye on East Placentia. When the upzoning happens, maybe I'll get my real estate license. And a Chalupa.

The frenzy of housing legislation adopted in recent years, designed to increase the zoned capacities of California, has had ironic consequences for many planning departments: a shortage of the very planners who are needed to implement those laws locally.

Any planner in California who has followed the various sagas of high speed rail knows better than to daydream too much about station-area planning. The state’s north-south system, approved many years ago, is woefully behind schedule and over-budget, much to the dismay of cities in the Central Valley. But, in a different corner of the state excitement is building — possibly with good reason. Last month, Brightline West, a privately developed high-speed rail line connecting Rancho Cucamonga with Las Vegas, received $2.5 billion in private activity bonds from the U.S. Department of Transportation, bringing the $12-billion project one step closer to groundbreaking. All told, the project has received nearly $9 billion in federal loans and grants. Though various versions of Brightline West project have come and gone since 2005, optimism is running high now. The company already opened a line in Florida — connecting South Florida with Orlando — and believes that connecting the Los Angeles area to Las Vegas could, finally, usher in the era of high-speed rail in the United States. Brightly expects to hire 11,000 construction workers in the coming months. And, for Rancho Cucamonga Deputy City Manager Matt Burris, the progress is even more palpable than that. Burris said that, recently, Brightline workers have been taking soil samples in and around the station area. “It was pretty cool to see a drill rig,” said Burris. “That’s serious work. They are moving forward.” If those soil samples give way to a ribbon-cutting on-schedule in 2027 — Brightline wants to operate a the line for a full year in advance of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles — the line could transform Rancho Cucamonga, link exurban desert communities to Los Angeles, and boost the economy of the entire Inland Empire. “If those jobs are located in the vicinity of the new transit service, that’s a good thing,” said Rafa Sonnenfeld, policy director for YIMBY Action. “Having more amenities and destination along that transit corridor is what will make that transit corridor successful. There’s a lot of potential for transit-oriented development in those communities with this new spine of Brightline.” In total, the line will run 218 miles, largely within the median of Interstate 15, at speeds to up to 186 miles per hour. The line will briefly travel through the heavily urbanized areas of the western Inland Empire, then go through the Cajon Pass, and travel 185 miles mostly unimpeded through the Mojave Desert. The right-of-way offers distinct advantages: the line will be built in an already developed area, with easy access for construction crews, and it will only minimally disrupt the desert habitat that lines the majority of the route. The company reached an agreement with the California Department of Transportation to develop the Hesperia-Rancho Cucamonga leg in March. “We’ve done maybe the most difficult steps,” said Ben Porritt, Brightline’s senior vice president for corporate affairs. “Step one is securing our land in all of our right of way, an existing corridor that’s already environmentally disturbed.” In 2016, back when Brightline West’s predecessor, DesertXpress (see related CP&DR coverage ), intended to terminate in Victorville, the City of Rancho Cucamonga adopted a progressive specific plan for the area around its Metrolink Station. The city took over an underutilized 160-acre golf course and envisioned medium-density commercial and residential development. Today, the Lewis Group, a prominent Inland Empire developer, is building on the southern end of that plan area, while the northern end remains mostly undeveloped. Brightline is likely to stir interest from developers who want to build out the plan area. “We’re seeing greater interest in some of the underdeveloped properties in the vicinity of the station,” said Burris. Regardless of whether the train arrives, the city believes that this sort of development is appropriate for Rancho Cucamonga no matter what. The city is required to zone for 10,525 additional units according to its 6 th Cycle Regional Housing Needs Allocation. Burris said that it makes sense to concentrate development in a few key areas so that it does not encroach on the city’s vast swaths of single-family neighborhoods. “One of the strategies laid out in the general plan is that we’re going to accommodate the vast majority of our growth in a couple key corridors and nodes,” said Burris. “It really resonated with the community to come up with a land use plan to protect the existing neighborhoods…but provide new amenities and destinations in close proximity to their neighborhood.” “Having mixed use development with a lot of housing near that station is really promising,” said Sonnenfeld. “They’re planning for basically a TOD employment.” While the city welcomes development near the station, other impacts remain uncertain. Brightline estimates that the line could carry 11 million annual trips at full capacity — for a daily average of just over 3,000. Those passengers will have the option of connection to the Rancho Cucamonga terminus via Metrolink commuter rail (which connects to downtown Los Angeles), local bus service, or, of course, private automobiles. The company is building a 5,000-stall parking garage at the station area to handle that demand. The city’s streets could suffer if a disproportionate number of Brightline passengers opt for cars.  “We could see a good bit of traffic,” said Burris. “On the economic benefits side, we could see increased demand for office, professional, and hospitality associated with tourism.” (Currently, an estimated 50 million car trips are currently taken annually between the Los Angeles metro area and southern Nevada, in addition to more than 2 million commercial air passengers between Las Vegas and the region’s four airports.) The company is collaborating with Metrolink and local bus systems to avoid this scenario. Metrolink has pledged to increase frequencies and synchronize its schedule with that of Metrolink. Metrolink and Brightline are also discussing a ticket that would allow for seamless transfers between the systems. “We are moving our model not away from the commuter but beyond the commuter,” said Metrolink CEO Darren Kettle. “More evening trains, more midday trains, trains targeted for trips for different reasons; we’re already going in that direction. I think Brightline will highlight the importance of that effort.” Even so, Burris says that there are many unknowns — and no meaningful precedents. “We’re not exactly sure what the impacts will be,” said Burris. “We haven’t found a good analog for this type of thing in the United States to see how it functions to understand what it means in terms of economic impact or potential benefits. There isn’t an interstate high-speed rail station within a couple miles of an international airport (Ontario) that connects to a commuter rail system for a multimillion-person region.” Burris linked Brightline to a small commercial airport being dropped into a city, with “similar impacts and benefits.” Though Brightline owns, and intends to develop, a large swath of land at its Las Vegas terminus, at the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip, it has expressed no such ambitions in Rancho Cucamonga. “Brightline has not spent a lot of time talking with us about that,” said Burris. “What they shared with us was their focused needed to be on getting their permitting, getting all their agreements in place, getting their funding in place, and getting the line under construction.” Prospects are, arguably, even less certain for its one intermediate station. Brightline’s “Victor Valley” station — to be located in an undeveloped area on the northern end of the City of Apple Valley, and closely adjacent to Hesperia and Victorville — is not likely to generate much ridership on its own. But it’s being designed, in part, to connect, via a spur that is as-yet unplanned and unfunded, with a future Palmdale station on the state high-speed rail line.  “We look at California High Speed Rail as simply a different model to get to the same goal that we have,” said Porritt. “We’ll certainly root for that project and ultimately connect to that project, and we would serve as the east-west and they as the north-south.” In the meantime, passengers will be able to park and catch the train in Apple Valley — both for trip to Las Vegas and to Rancho Cucamonga. As part of its collaboration with the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority, Brightline will welcome passengers who use the train as commuter rail, presumably from less expensive housing in the high desert to the job centers of the Inland Empire — and, possibly, to those of Las Vegas as well. “What I think this project also does is sort of reverses the commute,” said Assistant Town Manager Orlando Acevedo. “Folks will start to look to the Las Vegas metro as another job area to do business or even commute.” Traditional transit-oriented development in Apple Valley is unlikely, especially since the station area is currently bare desert. But Acevedo said that it could direct the city’s growth. “We know it’ll have significant impact on north Apple Valley,” said Acevedo, who noted that the city is only 30% built-out. “The project will extend water, sewer, roads to the site. “Brightline will help extend infrastructure to this area , and that will really open the door and catalyze development opportunities in north Apple Valley.” While housing advocates are often wary of exurbanization, especially in environmentally sensitive areas, Sonnenfeld noted that Apple Valley is supposed to add 4,290 homes according to its RHNA numbers no matter what. “They have a housing shortage and need to grow,” said Sonnenfeld. “The fact that there is already a city there means that that city needs to accommodate the needs of its current and future residents. Whether or not that city should exist in the first place is a philosophical question. But, the reality is, Apple Valley exists.” “We’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of what that means for job creation in the high desert and residential development,” said Acevedo. Contacts & Resources Brightline West: Project Overview Cucamonga Station Area Plan Prior CPD&R Coverage:  Victorville Hopes to Capitalize on Las Vegas Bullet Train , December 4, 2011 Orlando Acevedo , Assistant Town Manager, City of Apple Valley, OAcevedo@applevalley.org Matt Burris , Deputy City Manager, City of Rancho Cucamonga, matt.burris@cityofrc.us Darren Kettle, CEO, Metrolink, https://metrolinktrains.com/news/metrolink-news/ Ben Porritt, Senior Vice President for Corporate affairs, Brightline, ben@gobrightline.com Rafa Sonnenfeld, Policy Director, YIMBY Action, rafa@yimbyaction.org Images courtesy of Brightline West A version of this article appeared in  InTransition Magazine (with sidebar ) in October 2023. 

A few days ago, I drove from west Los Angeles to Whittier, a leafy suburb founded by Quakers on the eastern edge of Los Angeles County. Just east of downtown Los Angeles, I got on the 60 Freeway and took it to the 605. I kid you not, every single billboard along this route advertised one of two things: insurance or accident attorneys. I lost count of the latter. There was Jacob Imrani, Anh Phoong, Sweet James, Morgan & Morgan, and the dean of Los Angeles accident attorneys, Larry H. Parker, who's been "fighting for you" seemingly since the days of covered wagons. Pirnia Law sponsors UCLA athletics and appeals to the fraternity crowd with the most bro-y slogan in legal history: "putting the 'lit' in litigation." The Pirnia billboard I saw on Friday promised, "We run L.A.," whatever that means. (An aside: if you're going to be an accident attorney in Los Angeles, it is, apparently, mandatory for you or your avatar to have facial hair, ideally a goatee.) These billboards all make for an ugly drive. Granted, it wouldn't have been any less ugly if they advertised something else, like soda pop, cigarettes, or, well, cars. What's remarkable is that, in a county with a $750 billion GPD, these are the only businesses that seem willing to spend money on outdoor advertising. Sadder still: there is a robust market for their services. Our society is as litigious as it is dangerous. Between 2013 and 2022, Los Angeles County averaged around 54,000 fatal or injury crashes annually (the vast majority being injury-only crashes). I'm pretty sure the only people who celebrate those statistics are the attorneys. And yet, the crashes persist. One city in Los Angeles County is attempting to do something about car accidents and, especially, the hazards they pose for pedestrians. On March 5, voters in the City of Los Angeles will consider Measure HLA, an initiative that would force the city to implement its Mobility Plan 2035, which was adopted in 2015. Backers of Measure HLA say that the city has implemented as little as 5% of the plan. Meanwhile, some 300 deaths take place annually on the city's streets. HLA promises a revolution in active transportation and the pedestrian realm. We're talking about enhanced sidewalks and crosswalks; street furniture; trees; dedicated bus lanes and upgraded transit stops; bike lanes; traffic calming; and more. It's the sort of mobility bonanza that activists and progressive planners have dream about. It could turn at least a few of Los Angeles's ugly, dangerous thoroughfares into places that people where people just might want to hang out. HLA will not be cheap. A recent analysis by Los Angeles City Administrator Matt Szabo estimates it will require $3.1 billion. Supporters dispute that number and, of course, argue that the promise of lives saved and streets beautified justifies a major investment. Now, our friends on the billboards haven't come out against Measure HLA, as far as I know. Even they aren't brazen enough for that. And yet, someone else has -- the firefighters of the Los Angeles Fire Department. Let that irony sink in for a moment. The firefighters claim that many of these street improvements could interfere with emergency responses. “Every second counts. The road diets slow down our firefighters,” Freddy Escobar, president of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City Local 112, told the Los Angeles Times. “And it will be so much worse with HLA.” In other words: we don't want a hook-and-ladder truck getting hung up on a bulb-out or squeezed by a bike lane. I give due respect to emergency responders, and I get that the firefighters have their priorities--especially when it comes to saving lives. But the mobility plan isn’t merely about aesthetics. Its point, in fact, is to save lives: not by responding to accidents but by preventing them in the first place. In 2023, 336 people died in traffic-related deaths in the City of Los Angeles (half were pedestrians). Meanwhile, between 2014 and 2019, the average number of deaths from accidental structure fires was 14. I hardly want to pit one sort of tragedy against another. But, let's face it, governance is always about priorities. And, indirectly, Measure HLA can improve public health by promoting walking and biking and even by fostering social relationships. It's a lot easier for neighbors to get to know each other when they're walking down the same sidewalk than when they're both racing to make the yellow light. And, however harrowing a fire may be, at least most of them are accidental and isolated. Measure HLA attempts to undo an entirely intentional, nationwide disaster. The firefighters thus miss the city for the buildings. It's not the first time, though. Many cities' street dimensions are already dictated by the size and performance of fire trucks. And, last year's successful AB 835 made the case that fire codes that require most multistory buildings to include two stairways (for emergency egress) severely constrain the way residential buildings can be designed and, indirectly, make California cities uglier and more expensive than they'd be if buildings were allowed to have only one stairway. I'm not an expert on emergency response. But I've been involved in urban planning long enough to know that, in too many instances to cite, the very people who are trained, paid, and empowered to design our cities somehow get shoved aside. Meanwhile, veneration for emergency responders -- much of it well earned -- has often given them, and their unions, unduly loud voices in the civic discussion. Not this time, though. What's especially bonkers about the firefighters' opposition to HLA is that they are almost alone. The list of groups that have endorsed it is not just long -- it's also among the most diverse you could ever imagine in Los Angeles. Plenty of other unions support it, including the SEIU and the teachers union. Elected officials have lined up in favor of it. Seemingly every mobility, environmental, and social justice organization has too. Democratic groups support it, and so does the Los Angeles County Business Federation. If ever a group could be expected to oppose a measure that de-emphasizes the use of cars, it would be the United Autoworkers -- but, no, they're on the list too. For all of this enthusiasm, I'm not sure that the mobility plan will cure all that ails Los Angeles's streets, even if it's supercharged by Measure HLA. And I certainly don't know if $3.1 billion -- or whatever the true amount is -- would be a sound investment. But, the fact that concepts once as obscure and forlorn as "complete streets" and "active transportation" are on the ballot in a famously car-centric city has to be good news, for planners and pedestrians alike. It has at least a chance of making the city safer and more attractive. Of course, I don’t expect those billboards to come down any time soon, and we’re probably stuck with the freeways too. But we can at least hope that some of those attorneys go out of business.

Some of the hot takes following last Tuesday's election insisted that San Francisco—home of the Beats, hippies, Harvey Milk, and Byzantine development processes—no longer deserves to call itself "progressive." These proclamations stem in large part from voters' sentiments on two land use measures (among five other, unrelated measures on the city ballot): Prop. A, a bond measure to pay for low-income and assisted living housing, and Prop. C, a measure to exempt certain commercial transactions from paying a transfer tax.