The smart growth crowd has weighed in on global warming, suggesting that more compact development patterns could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 7-10%. Why? Because there's significant evidence that compact development patterns reduce vehicle miles traveled; and without the introduction of cleaner-burning fuels, the only way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles is to reduce driving. But this is not likely to happen without more tough regulation that links emissions with land use. At least that's the argument contained in a new report called "Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change." And it's a sobering argument as California seeks to implement AB 32. The report has received a lot of publicity because it was issued by the Urban Land Institute. But it was really a collaborative effort between ULI, the National Center for Smart Growth at the University of Maryland, Smart Growth America, and the Center for Clean Air Policy. The authors included such familiar smart growth names as Reid Ewing, Don Chen, and David Goldberg. The report doesn't present any new research results. Rather, it re-packages a lot of existing research on smart growth and compact development in the context of climate change. Nevertheless, a lot of it is interesting. The report drives home the point that the greenhouse-gas emissions issue is really not very different from any other air pollution. The report concludes that any reduction in carbon dioxide emissions is likely to be offset by an increase in driving – pretty much the same thing that has happened, at least in California, with carbon monoxide emissions over the last 40 years. And the report's main policy recommendation is to create a greenhouse-gas emissions conformity provision for regional transportation plans. This would be the same conformity requirement that currently exists for other air pollutants. So there you go: This is just another air pollution problem. And California faces the same tough choices on greenhouse gas emissions as we have faced for decades on other emissions. Except in this case, the goal isn't to curb the increase in emissions. The goal is to reduce emissions – by a lot. Which means any solution is going to force radical change in the way we live.

It's undeniable: California is in the worst housing bust since the early 1990s. Sales have dropped by a third compared with last year. Prices are stable for now, but nobody knows what will happen once all those bank repos hit the market. And it's pretty clear that developers all over the state are sitting on their entitlements. Nobody's building anything unless they absolutely have to. Which means all those condo and mixed-use projects that planners are crowing about will not get built anytime soon. But does that mean they won't get built at all? No. In the long run, the shift toward a more urban California – especially in the coastal areas – will continue. Land won't get a whole lot cheaper, and construction materials will probably still go up in price. But the urban transition may not happen as fast as we thought, and it might look a little different than we expected. This is the fourth real estate bust over the last 35 years in California. The other three have all followed a pattern – the bust is long, and then it is followed by a boom of slightly shorter duration characterized by huge price increases. Last time, prices bottomed out during 1991 or 1992, then stayed flat until 1997 or '98, then tripled between '98 and '06. (Evened out over the 15-year period, this actually represents about 8% annual appreciation.) But there are some differences. The last bust occurred mostly as a result of Southern California's aerospace-led recession. Lots of people were losing their jobs in factories and on military bases, or were shifting over to jobs that didn't pay as well – or they were just plain nervous about getting laid off. It's fair to say that the early '90s bust was an honest-to-God recession. This time, the bust can probably be viewed much more as a "correction" – an inevitable downturn in an overheated real estate market fueled at least in part by easy credit. Sales are slow partly because those 100%-plus, low-initial-interest-rate mortgages just are not around anymore. (The 65% fixed-rate mortgage is doing just fine.) This will not have much effect on prices – unless those subprime mortgage holders default on their loans or have to sell at a bargain-basement price, which is already happening in some market segments. So it is reasonable to assume that prices will drop some. The question is how much. Five percent? 10? 20? No one really knows. A lot depends on the extent to which both the feds and the Fed decide to step in and bail out the subprime mortgage lenders with refinancing opportunities and lower interest rates. The bottom line question in planning and development goes more or less like this: Will housing continue to be the driving force in the real estate development business, as it has been over the last decade? And, if not, can other sectors of the real estate industry attract enough capital to keep the development business going? You can't build too slowly during a recession; and you can't build too fast during a boom. Developers downsize during a bust. But they also keep pushing for entitlements, so they can come out of the bust ready to build. What will they try to entitle during this bust? California's push toward urbanism during the last decade – and, more to the point, smart growth and new urbanism – is attributable mostly to housing prices. All kinds of high-density, urban-style projects pencil out for developers when condos go for $400,000 instead of $150,000. Demand has been strong enough, especially in the built-out coastal counties, that condo developers willingly delivered retail and lots of other mixed-use components to cities in exchange for permission to lay the golden egg of housing. The condo egg isn't so golden anymore – but wherever prices land, they are still likely to be far higher than they were back at the end of the '90s. That would suggest we shall see more high-density projects entitled in the future. But it's also an article of faith that in bad times, developers stick to the knitting. So maybe we'll see residential developers sticking with residential projects and not venturing so readily into mixed-use projects – even when planners push them in that direction. But the developer is only half of the entitlement equation. The other half is the investor. And whereas developers stick to what they know – residential developers like to do residential projects – investors are fickle. They'll put their capital wherever they think they'll get a return. They're also lemmings, following the latest fad. This can affect the planning and development business in two ways. First, it's possible that the overall amount of capital flowing into real estate development will decrease considerably. Investors tend to regard real estate and stocks as "countercyclical" – that is, when one goes down, you should invest in the other because it's going to go up. This trend is often a self-fulfilling prophecy, as prices in either sector rise simply because more investment money is being shoveled toward those investments. It's no surprise that real estate went up during the late '80s when the stock market went down. The reverse happened in the early '90s; and the trend reversed again around 2000. Right now both real estate and stocks look fragile, but it may well be that capital flows from real estate into stocks over the next year or two. The other possibility is that capital will flow to other types of real estate. It's been easy to forget this during the recent housing boom, but the truth of the matter is that investment in different real estate sectors is cyclical and faddish as well. Remember the early 1980s boom in warehouses? The late '80s boom in office buildings? The mid '90s boom in entertainment retail? All these were capital-driven booms, as investors threw money at a real estate sector that was hot at the time. And with money being thrown at housing over the last decade, we've got a pent-up demand in some of these other sectors, especially office and industrial. It is entirely possible that in the near future, mixed-use condo projects will be remembered as so-o-o-o 2005 – compared with those shiny new office condos built in 2010.

Director of Community DevelopmentCity of El Cajon, CA Ideally located in Southern California's San Diego County, the City of El Cajon (pop. 97,000) is seeking a visionary Community Development Director. Just minutes from downtown San Diego and area beaches, El Cajon is a valley community encompassing 14 square miles surrounded by mountains. The Community Development Department is supported by 18.5 FTEs and an annual operating budget of $1,698,358. The Department is organized across two divisions: Planning (Current and Advanced), and Building and Fire Safety. El Cajon's next Community Development Director will be a proactive big picture leader who is well-versed in contemporary planning principles and practices, as well as economic development and revitalization. The Director will also be knowledgeable regarding building codes. The candidate selected will have the opportunity to influence the specific plan currently being amended which applies to the City's downtown area. At least five years management experience in a similar setting and a Bachelor's degree are required. The closing date for this recruitment is Friday, October 12, 2007 (updated). The salary range is $112,965 to $137,634 plus 5% differential for a Master's degree related to the job, and is supplemented by an attractive benefits package. Detailed brochure and submission instructions are available online at www.tbcrecruiting.com . Teri Black-Brann tel 310.377.2612 Teri Black & Company www.tbcrecruiting.com

A city planner, architect and journalist, Mark Hinshaw is the director of urban design for LMN Architects in Seattle. The American Planning Association recently published his book True Urbanism: Living In and Near the Center . In True Urbanism , Hinshaw identifies a back-to-the-urban-core trend, in which people who have rejected suburban uniformity are choosing to live instead in dense, diverse urban environments. "After decades of decline," Hinshaw writes, "downtowns are coming back, perhaps with a vengeance. And it might also be that the very notion of what constitutes downtown is changing. Most of the downtowns we have examined have acquired, over the last six or seven years, a ring of dense urban neighborhoods in areas that previously were only underused commercial or industrial buildings or parking lots." Hinshaw spoke with CP&DR Editor Paul Shigley in September. CP&DR : What was the genesis of this book? Something in particular? Hinshaw: I write extensively for Landscape Architecture magazine. Often, the editor sent me on assignment to other parts of the country. I've done that for the last 10 to 12 years. And then, with LNM Architects, I get sent on assignments that take me across the country. That has been frequent enough that I started to see things across the country. At first I started thinking it was confined to coastal cities that are considered hip. Then I started seeing it in Dallas and Kansas City and Minneapolis. CP&DR : Cities that are not considered hip? Hinshaw: Yes. I've seen it commented on in real estate pages, but nobody's really commented on it from a national perspective. Then just about the time I had the idea for the book, I happened to be on a panel with Eugenie Birch, the chair of the planning school at the University of Pennsylvania. She had received a grant to look at 44 downtowns around the country. She found that some of them were struggling, but she also found that dozens of them were thriving. So I jumped on her few dozen examples. But I continue to see it cropping up. As I travel more, I see more and more of it. What she didn't identify is that this isn't just happening in big cities, but in inner suburbs and in smaller towns, stand alone towns. Americans love small towns, and that's what the new urbanist group has latched onto. Americans love small towns with their small scale and narrow streets. … People know that what small towns often don't give them is access to lots of other things, not the least of which is well-paying jobs. So what people are trying to do is get the feeling of a small town that is housed in a much larger area. So you have these very dense urban areas — they have parks and public spaces, they have a graciousness to the street and they take on a patina that comes over time. They have quirkiness and an unpredictability. People are not looking for sameness, they are looking for something different. That's where I part company with the new urbanists. They are trying to create this out of whole cloth. I think you need an understory of things that give a place roots. I don't think you can invent that. I don't think that you can design it. It comes from the fact that a number of people get their hands on these places. That's where it becomes magic. You get these shared spaces, this collective attitude. It's not just you and a lot of other people living in an area. It's a shared history of the place. It's a richer array of things that results. It's almost kind of weird because it's so scattered but it's almost spontaneous combustion. There's no school that's called this. It doesn't have a name. Yet it's happening in hundreds of places. Some of it is due to demographic forces that Eugenie identified. There is a whole group of people with disposable incomes who don't have children in the house anymore, and who don't want to live in a big house and mow the lawn. Instead of purchasing a big home, they are buying a neighborhood. And then there is the other demographic — people in their 20s. They grew up in the suburbs and they don't like it. They want edgy. You can't find it in a new urbanist town. They are looking for a place where you can find 100 different things to do every night. … In the inner suburbs, you don't get that, but you get enough of it. It's the places where you get enough of the older style of living, combined with 21st Century access to goods, services and technologies. It's not like people are living in the past and wanting nostalgia. They want things that are real. What's different about this phenomenon from the new urbanism is that folks who are choosing this are not afraid to live in towers as contemporary as possible. These folks want to live in the 21st Century. I'm talking 100 to 300 units an acre. It is not a fearful thing. The new urbanism seems to top out at about 4 stories. It's not a dense enough environment to support a lot of locally produced products and services, and transit. CP&DR : Has the planning system caught up with this trend that you have identified? Hinshaw: I think some places are skilled in their ability to help it happen in a good way. Neighborhoods I've observed around San Diego's downtown seem to have had a good hand. I'm not talking about a redevelopment authority that sweeps in with a master plan, but a way for people to engage. You are not looking for consistency or uniformity, but the exact opposite. What is sought after is variety. It's not uniform housing block after block. There can be two-story buildings next to 30-story buildings. It's not a simple model. I'm not suggesting everybody wants that. But enough people do that it's fueling whole new neighborhoods that didn't exist 10 years ago. They existed only as industrial areas or gray area. CP&DR : You use a number of case studies and examples from California – San Diego, Long Beach, Oakland, others. Where is our state on the trendline? Hinshaw: It's certainly happening in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco. All of those cities have been pretty aggressive about using various tools. It's been pretty rare that it's been a traditional master plan that's done it. It's been specific developments or it's been investment in public spaces, like the Esplanade in San Diego, which spurred tremendous private development. Everyone does it a little differently. Some are using tax increment financing and some are not. Some are using redevelopment and some are not. Sometimes nonprofits make a big difference. The techniques are all over the board. CP&DR : What can a planner learn from these cities? Hinshaw: One singular modal doesn't make sense. That's why I'm not a fan of form-based codes. I think that's a singular model. People need to sit down, come up with what they want to see, and then tailor it to their particular city. It baffles me that people spend so much time on their general plans and specific plans and then use generic regulatory tools. You need to sit down and figure out the best for your situation. It's not following somebody else's template. CP&DR : What has the response of practitioners been? Any of them tell you that you're wrong? Hinshaw: The only thing that I've seen that was sort of a cut was in New Urban News . I don't disagree with most of what they have to say. It just seems like that is the answer to everything now. I think we learned 30 years ago that sweeping pronouncements don't work. Some people have asked me a question — will this last long? And that's a good question. My response is that I think we're just seeing the tip of the phenomenon. One of the groups fueling this is the baby boom, which is just beginning to retire. So this could be a 20- to 30-year phenomenon.

A whole new set of stormwater regulations is about to wash over cities and counties, especially in Southern California. At first blush, these new regulations may seem most onerous on new development, which will probably have to meet very demanding onsite detention and water quality standards. But it might also mean retrofitting older urban neighborhoods – and using existing parks and other open spaces, including cemeteries, to help water quality in those neighborhoods. Bottom line: In an infill setting, every piece of public works – hardscape or softscape – has to serve several different functions. That, at least, was the message from Los Angeles city and county officials at a meeting on water and land use last week. The meeting, attended by about 100 planning and water folks from various agencies in Southern California, was sponsored by the Local Government Commission and held at the offices of the California Endowment adjacent to Union Station in downtown L.A. Paula Daniels, a member of the City of Los Angeles Board of Public Works, spoke specifically to her department's "Green Streets" program, which is learning lessons from Portland, Seattle, and elsewhere to use streets and sidewalks for better percolation. One example is the "bumpout," which cuts into a street and has a vegetative garden that attracts runoff. She said an 11% reduction in impervious surface can reduce in runoff by up to 90%. "Most pollution actually comes from automobiles," she said. "Not only do they drive land use decisions, but they also have air pollution impacts. You know about air pollution. But the same pollutants end up on the streets and end up being carried off into the ocean through the streets, which are a rapid conveyance system for pollution. …These vegetation solutions – the roots, the leaves – they sequester carbon, they take in stormwater, they convert what comes from the automobile into nutrients." Daniels pointed in particular to a green project on Oros S treet, near the interchange of Interstate 110 and Interstate 5 (not far from Dodger Stadium). The Oros Street project marks the first time that the City of L.A. constructed "stormwater gardens" that filter most pollutants running off nearby houses and streets. - Bill Fulton

The eminent domain legislation sponsored by the League of California Cities and the California Redevelopment Association (CRA) died on the floor of the Assembly this week when Republicans voted against the measure. Although the sponsors of ACA 8 and its author, Assemblyman Hector De La Torre (D-South Gate), made a late change to add protections for houses of worship, Republicans refused to budge. Because the measure was a constitutional amendment, it needed a two-thirds vote in the Legislature (meaning some GOP members in both houses) before going on the ballot next year. With the legislative year now finished (business officially ended a little after 3 a.m. on Wednesday, September 12) the eminent domain fight shifts entirely to two initiatives — one sponsored by ACA 8's backers, and a more far-reaching proposal sponsored by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the California Farm Bureau Federation and apartment owners. Both measures are currently in the signature-gathering phase. Essentially, ACA 8 would have prohibited the acquisition via eminent domain of owner-occupied homes or churches for economic development purposes. The measure, along with its failed companion AB 887, also would have provided new eminent domain protections for businesses with 25 or fewer employees. The initiative has similar protections for homeowners, but it does not speak to churches or small businesses. Republican lawmakers said ACA 8 did not go far enough. They appear to favor the Jarvis initiative, which would block all use of eminent domain for economic development purposes. The initiative would also prohibit rent control. "The only constituency that would have any interest in financing the League's measure are those who benefit from existing practices of eminent domain abuse," HJTA President Jon Coupal said in a written statement issued Thursday. "Simply put, the League's ballot measure was drafted by redevelopment interests for those who profit from the status quo." Meanwhile, CRA Executive Director John Shirey wrote in a legislative update that the organization is considering whether to continue its current signature-gathering effort and is weighing a formal campaign against the Jarvis initiative. That lawmakers failed to act on eminent domain was hardly a surprise. The consensus among observers, lobbyists and Capitol insiders is that 2007 has been one of the least productive years in modern times for the Legislature. Check out Sacramento Bee columnist Steve Wiegand's take on the session here: http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/376345.html . The eminent domain bills could return in January, but nobody expects them to go anywhere. With voting scheduled in February, June and November, 2008 is likely to be known as the "year of the election." - Paul Shigley

With lawsuits, referendums and an economic slowdown, it's been a rough few weeks for large-scale development projects. Some updates: The 14,000-housing-unit Placer Vineyards project has been hit with at least three lawsuits. Sutter County, environmental groups and a citizens group filed the court actions over various impacts of the proposed 5,000-acre project in unincorporated Placer County, just across the line from Sacramento County. Litigation was anticipated, although Sutter County's lawsuit over traffic came as a bit of a surprise. The 5,100-unit Yuba Highlands project in unincorporated Yuba County is headed for the ballot. Project opponents led by Supervisor Hal Stocker gathered enough signatures on referendum petitions to qualify for the February ballot. In addition, at least one lawsuit has been filed over the environmental impact report for the project, which is proposed for grasslands between Beale Air Force Base and Spenceville State Wildlife Area. A specific plan adopted by the City of Livermore that calls for 1.5 million square feet of retail space, including a factory outlet center, is the subject of a lawsuit filed by a quarry. A road serving the development envisioned in the El Charro specific plan would cut off access to about 20 acres owned by Rhodes & Jamieson, which operates a rock quarry. The city has proposed a land swap, but Rhodes & Jamieson is apparently uninterested. A Monterey County judge upheld a referendum vote overturning the county's approval of the 1,150-unit Butterfly Village project near Salinas. Developer HYH Corporation argued that the referendum violated a 2001 court order requiring the county to process the proposal. Voters' rejection of the project in June was "not a direct and conclusive challenge to the court's judgment," Judge Robert O'Farrell concluded. Butterfly Village would be part of the larger Rancho San Juan development. The Modesto Bee reported the Florsheim Land Company has abandoned a proposed 1,500-unit, 380-acre project proposed for orchards just south of Atwater, in Merced County. Locals opposed to what they considered to be an incompatible housing development in a rural area filed a lawsuit over the Atwater Ranch project two years ago. Since then, the Central Valley housing market has sunk, which apparently forced Florsheim's surrender. The Bakersfield Californian reported that developer Bryan Troxler has abandoned the proposed 9,000-unit Flying Seven Ranch project. The Californian also suggested that the 16,500-unit Gateway project is also in jeopardy. Both developments are — or were — proposed for farmland on the western outskirts of Bakersfield and would extend the city limits to I-5. Again, the slow market appears to be the driving factor. - Paul Shigley

When people think of downtowns, they often think of huge cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. But anybody familiar with California knows that the big city downtowns are the exceptions. By and large, California is a state of mid-sized cities, and some of the most delightful urban places are the smaller downtowns. Often in older cities, these districts are manageable, pleasant and, very often these days, in the midst of a strong renaissance. That's why we at California Planning & Development Report are expanding our "best and worst downtowns" compilation beyond only the largest cities. Back in July, CP&DR selected San Francisco and San Diego as the top big-city downtowns in California , and we placed Fresno at the bottom. Now, it's time to look at the state's 94 cities with populations of 75,000 to 290,000 people - what we at CP&DR consider "mid-sized" cities. These cities couldn't be much more diverse. They range from old regional centers (Riverside, Modesto) to inner-ring suburbs (Lakewood, Daly City) to fast-growing bedroom communities (Temecula, Elk Grove). Some of these cities have visions of grandeur (Irvine, Roseville), and some are blue-collar factory towns struggling to regain their footing (Fontana, Richmond). Some are California icons (Santa Barbara), while others are icons of post-war planning practices (Thousand Oaks, Sunnyvale). The downtowns of many of these cities are great - the sorts of places that locals and visitors enjoy whether or not they care anything about planning, architecture, social systems or transit boarding statistics. Other downtowns, unfortunately, are grim places where nobody is enjoying much of anything. Some of these districts have been distressed for decades. Some have been the scene of failed revitalization plans, while others have simply been ignored. We name some names here, but with a caveat: We're pulling for every one the cities on our "most disappointing" list. We'd be very pleased to return in a few years to write about a downtown transformation. Such transformations are entirely possible. Some of the downtowns we rave about today were districts that excited no one outside of the vice squad during the 1970s and 1980s. Of course, a number of the 94 mid-sized cities have no identifiable downtown. By and large, these are cities that have grown rapidly since the 1960s, a period when creating a downtown with a messy mix of uses and extended hours was legally prohibited. You can find a number of these cities in Orange County and the Inland Empire. It's a shame because any city of 75,000 people should have a core area that provides a sense of place. Indeed, a sense of place and a feeling of vibrancy were critical in our rankings. We also considered land use mixes, public spaces, architecture, pedestrian friendliness, cultural facilities and activities, and other amenities. But we always get back to how a place feels - and how it makes you feel. If you were to visit any of the downtowns in our top 5, you would find a very strong sense of place. What all five cities have in common is that they are grounded in a history in which their downtowns served as significant regional commercial centers for a broad area. This factor helps account for their magnificent public realm and architecture, which almost all of them have. Three of the five are college towns, which tend to have good downtowns, and a fourth (Pasadena) has strong educational institutions. All five work well for residents, business people and tourists. Enough of the introduction. Here is our list of the best and worst mid-sized city downtowns, along with a few special awards. Best Mid-Sized City (population 75,000 to 300,000) Downtowns in California: 1. Pasadena. One of the country's biggest planning success stories of the last 30 years, downtown Pasadena was not always a happy place. In the 1970s, the only people who went to Old Pasadena after dark were probably up to no good. The city began an urban renewal program that, thankfully, the local citizenry halted. They wanted a real place with a real sense of history. What has made Pasadena the most magnificent example for other cities is the way it is being transformed during what is now the second generation of downtown revitalization. What began during the 1980s as an attempt to leverage retail revitalization on Colorado Boulevard off of strategically located parking garages has evolved, believe it not, into a transit-oriented housing strategy thanks to the Gold Line. Who would have believed you could blow out the middle of a shopping mall and put housing on top - and make it one of the hottest residential properties in L.A. Who would have believed you could build housing on top of not one but two light-rail stations within walking distance of each other? Believe it. It's a clich- to say Pasadena is the best, but nothing else is even close. It's the gold standard. 2. Santa Barbara. If you can afford it, this historic coastal city is about as close to paradise as you can get. Downtown, however, is not for only the wealthy. There is famously hip nightlife that caters both to UC college students and tourists. Shopping consists of everything from high-brow boutiques and department stores to thrift shops. Restaurants range from steakhouses to organic vegan take-out. Mixed in are professional offices of all stripes. State Street provides the heart, but the downtown vibe extends well beyond to take in some historic neighborhoods, grand civic structures, lush gardens and the well-maintained Alameda and Chase Palm parks. And it's all reachable without a car, thanks to a pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly atmosphere and electric trolley rides that cost only two bits. 3. Chico. This Sacramento Valley city may be California's ultimate college town, and that is reflected in the downtown, which lies just across Second Street from the third-oldest campus in the CSU system. Like any good college town, Chico is replete with nightclubs, sports bars, coffee houses, eateries, bookstores and even shops that sell vinyl records. The place literally pulses with energy well into the night. But you'll also find stores and services that clearly appeal to the college kids' parents, upper-floor professional offices, artist studios and civic institutions. A carefully revamped downtown plaza is only going to get better as it matures, and new housing is on the way. The edge of Bidwell Park - a 4,000-acre jewel that extends for miles from the valley floor into the foothills - is only a couple blocks away. 4. Berkeley. Not a whole lot of new development has happened in downtown Berkeley recently, but the place is a dense, rich, diverse district with fabulous transit, including a BART station in just the right place, thus providing immediate access to most of the Bay Area. Believe it or not, many chain stores are doing quite well (although, in Berkeley fashion, the run-down, no-public-bathroom Starbucks feels more like an urban McDonalds catering to the near-homeless). Despite the chains, local businesses thrive, including nationally renowned restaurants. There is a great deal of housing on upper floors and in the immediate vicinity, the UC campus is close by, and everything is walkable, if a bit spread out. Patrick Kennedy's Gaia Building, the first new high-rise in 30 years, and Shattuck Lofts are excellent urban projects, even if the locals hate them. 5. Santa Rosa. Maybe the biggest surprise on our list, downtown Santa Rosa is big and strong with many different features: shopping, offices, some fabulous public spaces, a smattering of housing, a touch of the arts, and an overall flavor that says "Sonoma County." The enclosed shopping mall could be problematic, but it relates pretty well to downtown. The 101 freeway is something of a dividing line; however, as Railroad Square continues to develop, the freeway will likely become little more than a minor annoyance. This is a downtown that's only going to get better. Honorable Mentions: Visalia San Mateo Ventura Riverside Santa Monica Best Manufactured New Downtown: Valencia Town Center in Santa Clarita. Forty years ago, Valencia was first developed as a planned suburb - pleasant and walkable, though it did not exactly have a downtown. In the late '90s, however, developer Newhall Land and the city of Santa Clarita began a serious effort to manufacture a downtown - and so far it's the best of all of the new downtowns created from scratch. A retail Main Street was constructed at one end of the Valencia Town Center mall, complete with multiplex theater. If it seems a little mall-esque, that's OK; the scale is great and there is some diversity in the form of office buildings housing the headquarters of (believe it or not) Princess Cruise Lines. Across McBean Parkway, the Main Street continues toward a hotel, some nice mixed-use projects, and pretty high-density housing. Narrow the eight-lane McBean and throw in some kind of arts or college component, and you've got a real downtown. The Next Big Thing: Redwood City. This Peninsula city is in its third round of redevelopment after two earlier efforts failed to produce much. But this time, it's taking. Want evidence? You now have to pay to park downtown on weekends - unthinkable only a few years ago. Downtown has a new multi-plex and the restored Fox Theatre, alfresco dining aplenty, watering holes, an invigorating blend of old and new architecture, and hundreds of new housing units. Anchoring downtown is the refurbished San Mateo County courthouse (now a museum), which is one of the state's most handsome public buildings. A public square in front of the courthouse provides a great view. And all of this is within walking distance of a Caltrain station. As it matures, downtown Redwood City could well become one of the Bay Area's most interesting urban places. Most Underrated (even by us): Fullerton. While much of Fullerton offers up Orange County's suburban blandness, the small downtown almost makes you wonder if you're still south of the Orange Curtain. Harbor Boulevard is lined with a nice mix of services, retail, restaurants and comfortable bars. New multi-story housing has brought people to the neighborhood 'round the clock. Plus, only one block off Harbor is Fullerton High School (an inviting Mission-style campus with no obnoxious fence on the perimeter). Just beyond the high school is Fullerton College. Thus, downtown is full of young people on foot. Yes, the place could be better. There's too much through traffic, for one thing. But restoration of the Fox Fullerton Theatre appears to be gaining traction finally, and there is civic and developer interest in making more things happen. Most Overrated: Santa Monica. We concede that many people like downtown Santa Monica. Heck, we even gave it an honorable mention above. The Third Street Promenade is magnificent urbanism in just the right place. But take away Third Street, and what do you have? Not much besides a mix of uses and pretty good bus transit. Big chunks of land are poorly utilized, a freeway divides things up and there is little architecture of note. Part of the reason there's something missing here is due to Santa Monica's historic lack of regional significance as a commercial center, something that the best downtowns all have; hence, the lack of magnificent architecture. Yes, some of the coolest, modernist-style mixed-use and residential buildings anywhere in Southern California are in close proximity to downtown. But it doesn't hang together as an urban district. There are too many things pulling people away from the downtown, including the beach, the funkiness of the Ocean Park neighborhood, and the civic center, which is on the other side of the freeway. Underneath, this is only a small-city, pre-war downtown. Santa Monica, you're not Pasadena. You're not even Chico. Most Disappointing Mid-Sized City Downtowns in California: 1. San Bernardino. Where to begin? Downtown San Berdoo has been a depressing and dangerous place for a long time. The Carousel Mall (originally called the Central City Mall) opened during the early 1970s, helping kill off mom-and-pop businesses. Before long, the mall itself started to decline and for two decades it has been a white elephant surrounded by empty parking lots in the midst of downtown. For years, developers have been interested mostly in freeway frontage elsewhere in town. During the last 10 years, the city and developers have cooked up numerous schemes to revive downtown, ranging from wiping out part of downtown with a series of lakes and canals, to re-using the mall for housing. But it has been little more than talk. 2. Redding. Downtown Redding started to die in the early 1970s, when the city transformed four blocks on either side of Market Street - the heart of downtown - into an enclosed mall. In a city with 110-degree summers, air-conditioned retail comfort seemed like the right thing. It wasn't. The mall began to fail almost immediately (a "real" mall opened across town a year later) and most of the forlorn downtown mall still stands, a glum collection of offices, struggling shops and vacant space. There are signs of life downtown today. A new Shasta College health sciences center is replacing part of the old mall, the art deco Cascade Theatre has been refurbished into a performing arts center (full disclosure: CP&DR Editor Paul Shigley served on the Cascade Theatre restoration committee) and there is a bit of genuine investment by the private market. Reasons for optimism? Maybe. Check back in 10 years. 3. Antioch. A forgotten district in a city of commuter housing tracts and big-box centers. Even under the tightest definition of redevelopment, this qualifies as urban blight. 4. Costa Mesa. Massive Harbor Boulevard and its glut of traffic chops things in half. The poorly situated Triangle Plaza has never worked right. A bunch of run-down stores matches the run-down neighborhoods nearby. This should all be so much better. 5. Richmond. It's probably unfair to call this San Bernardino North, but downtown Richmond may be equally unsafe. Even during the recent real estate boom that juiced most of the region, downtown Richmond continued to stagnate.

JOIN US IN BEAUTIFUL IRVINE, CALIFORNIA! The City of Irvine is ideally located in Southern California and is close to many of the area's tourist attractions, numerous resorts and some of the state's finest beaches. Irvine has also been recognized as "one of the ten best places in the nation to live," according to U.S. News and World Report.  The City encompasses over 65 square miles and has a residential population of 202,000.         Supervising Transportation Analyst  $68,075.00 - $102,111.00 annually, plus excellent benefits (PERS: 2.7% @55) The City of Irvine Public Works Department seeks a motivated and enthusiastic candidate to work as a Supervising Transportation Analyst in the Development Review Division. In this challenging position, the successful candidate will demonstrate the ability to perform a broad range of transportation planning and engineering tasks with emphasis in transportation development review. The position will serve in the lead role within the function overseeing senior, associate and/or assistant level analysts. Specific tasks include the review of traffic studies, environmental impact reports and various types of plan review, as well as the assignment and review of work, and the management of multiple complex projects at any given time. Position requires a Bachelor's Degree in Transportation Planning, Engineering or a related field, plus six years of professional transportation planning/analysis experience, or any combination of education and experience that provides equivalent knowledge, skills and abilities. Position closes on Tuesday, October2, 2007. Please visit www.cityofirvine.org/jobs for a detailed position description and to apply. EOE

Prior to visiting a series of planned communities in and near Southern California's San Fernando Valley, I envisioned them as they were depicted in Greg Hise's book, Magnetic Los Angeles — suburban enclaves dotted with single-family homes, cars lining the wide curvilinear streets, children walking hurriedly to school. I almost expected my vision to blur slightly and force my surroundings to take on hues of white and black, matching the old photographs which told the story of the Valley's birth to a number of postwar self-contained suburban communities. The day's tour began with Westlake Village. Upon exiting the 101 freeway where it crosses the line between Los Angeles and Ventura County, we were transported to a classic example of 1960s planned suburbanism. But what we discovered was more characteristic of a retirement community than a serene master-planned suburb of lakeside condos and suburban homes. The community park was underutilized, the small office and retail uses embedded in the center of the neighborhood were overwhelmingly vacant. There were two other people in sight on a cool, breezy Saturday afternoon in late August. The walking paths winding between private residences were altogether devoid of human life. Public spaces ripe for human interaction and commerce remained in tact, but there was little evidence of current use. The next stop was Panorama City. This time we did a windshield survey of the area, driving along Van Nuys Boulevard, the commercial arterial that became the area's regional shopping center, and touring a couple of the winding internal streets. The architecture and layout of the residences were indicative of the mass-produced homes built during the postwar era. Henry Kaiser's planned community also included industrial uses that employed a large share of the neighborhood's first generation of working-age residents. But the agricultural landscape that hemmed in the once self-sufficient and self-contained community was gradually eaten up by a growing population. Automobile dependence and the decline of large-scale industry had forced regional interdependence within the Valley. In today's Panorama City thrived a community of working-class Latinos and Filipinos who had made Kaiser's version of the suburban dream their own reality. Heading north to Valencia, the monotonous suburban landscape lulled me to sleep. I was caught somewhere between reality and a waking dream-state. From the backseat of the car I was propelled to any number of familiar suburbs I had experienced in my childhood and travels as a young adult. Occasionally, I was jerked awake by surrounding conversation or a quick turn of the car, and I would have to remind myself that I was in Southern California, not suburban Chicago, or Atlanta, or Jacksonville, or Denver, or DC, or… What I saw that afternoon in Valencia — which is within the bounds of the City of Santa Clarita — caused me to rethink New Urbanism's attempt to create a "better" American suburb. Neither the garden suburb nor the new town development has fully realized Ebenezer Howard's Garden City principles. America's urbanization and the bursting of the real estate bubble rendered obsolete the goals of Nolen and Stein's suburban designs of the early 20th Century. So where does the hope lie for New Urbanism? A visit to Valencia's new town center addressed my question. Originally constructed and unveiled in the late 1990s, Valencia's downtown had all the elements of a prototypical New Urbanist development. There are a variety of mid to high-density residential units within a five-minute walk of the center, a smattering of offices and commercial businesses, and a city center replete with coffee shops, public art, hip restaurants, and a movie theater. The internal streets were narrow and in a modified grid pattern. But despite Valencia's noteworthy attempt of achieving a pedestrian-orientated neighborhood, it was difficult to overlook the busy arterial splitting the residential and commercial portions of the development. Once again, we witnessed the nostalgia for pre-automobile urban environments manifest itself in design philosophy. But does the movement represent a truly new idea, or will the fate of New Urbanism follow that of towns and neighborhoods that were built on similar principles until the 1920s? Maybe the historic master-planned community will be revisited, or perhaps the idea should be abandoned all together. The country continues to rapidly urbanize and Americans are increasingly mobile, so why do we need civic, commercial, and office uses within walking distance of our homes? Are we chasing a dream of a more livable community or a cultural abstraction, the latter which may only be obtained by squinting our eyes against the realities of modern design? - Jessica Daniels

To succeed in the 21st Century, do cities really have to be cool, as Richard Florida argues? Or do they have to be uncool, as Joel Kotkin insists? Maybe they have to be both. A few years ago, a little-known academic named Richard Florida turned the economic development world upside down by publishing a book called The Rise of the Creative Class . In a nutshell, Florida's argument was that to be successful today, cities have to be cool. The engine of the American economy, he claimed, was creativity. The United States had produced a "creative class" of close to 40 million highly educated professionals who focus on researching and creating innovative products. In his followup book, Cities and the Creative Class , he argued those professionals were increasingly concentrated in cities with certain "cool" attributes, including an arts and culture scene, bohemian enclaves and even large gay populations. Economic development is a field susceptible to "panacea" thinking. The latest hot idea, whether it's the sports stadium, the convention center, the downtown multiplex or the auto assembly plant, is often trumpeted as a panacea and pretty soon every city starts craving it. There is no economic development panacea, of course. (For many years as the economic development correspondent for Governing magazine I was nicknamed the "panacea editor," because my job was to write a long article every few months concluding that the latest hot idea was not a panacea). Even so, most of these ideas – Florida's included – have at least some value. The minute Florida declared that cities had to be cool, however, it was only a matter of time before Joel Kotkin starting writing that cities wouldn't succeed unless they were un -cool. Kotkin had long been a fan of what he calls "nerdistans" – boring suburbs (he always seems to mention Irvine) that nevertheless house some of the most powerful drivers of the American economy, especially in the tech sectors. But Florida's work really revved him up. In a typical article for the Manhattan Institute last year, Kotkin called the cool cities idea "shtick" and suggested that the creative class "by the time they get into their 30s, may be more interested in economic opportunity, a single family house and procreation than remaining ‘hip and cool' urbanites." The question of how to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina gave Kotkin a special opportunity to wave the flag for uncool cities. Less than a week after the hurricane, he drew a line in the sand. "The wrong approach would be to preserve a chimera of the past, producing a touristic faux New Orleans, a Cajun Disneyland," he wrote in the Los Angeles Times . Rather, the city should follow Houston's model. "Houston has succeeded by sticking to the basics, by focusing on the practical aspects of urbanism rather than the glamorous." The powers that be in New Orleans have not listened to Kotkin and he has continued squawking. On the second anniversary of the hurricane last week, Kotkin wrote in the Wall Street Journal that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was about to make a big mistake by committing to the $1 billion Riverfront development in order to lure "the much ballyhooed ‘creative class'." He frequently calls this approach "the ephemeral city". Is Kotkin really just being a contrarian? Or does he have a point? On this one, he's got a point – and a pretty good one. But just as he is prone to being a contrarian, he tends toward creating straw men in order to win an argument. In this case, he has set up Florida and the creative class in just this way. Over and over again, Kotkin has reduced Florida's "creative class" argument to nothing more than tourism and entertainment – in other words, bread and circuses. Kotkin has repeated it so frequently that nowadays even politicians and economic development experts tout the value of tourism and entertainment and claim they are following Florida's philosophy. This is a fundamental misreading of Florida's argument. Which is too bad, because it forces people in the world of economic development to take sides, rather than do what they should do – understand the value each of these combatants bring to the table with their arguments. In other words, by reducing Florida to a straw man, Kotkin forces us to treat Florida's ideas in an either/or way. It's either a panacea – or a worthless argument. In his book, The City: A Global History , Kotkin argues that cities serve three basic functions: religion, safety, and commerce. His view of cities as centers of commerce is nothing new; from time immemorial, cities have served as the geographical focus of commerce in general and trading in particular. Creating a safe zone goes hand-in-hand with commerce, obviously. But Kotkin's deepest conviction seems to concern the role of religion in shaping cities. And he seems to want to place himself and Florida on opposite sides of the culture wars in the U.S. today. "The sacred place" is so important to Kotkin that he ends his book with it. He decries the fact that New Urbanists, for example, "rarely refer to the need for a powerful moral vision to hold cities together." He ascribes much of Singapore's recent success to neo-Confusianism. And he decries the modern urban environment, "with its emphasis on faddishness, stylistic issues, and the celebration of the individual over the family or stable community." This last is clearly a frontal attack on Florida's ideas, with their emphasis on bohemian aspects of urban life, arts and culture, and the presence of a gay community. It's also, in a way, an attack on the idea of the city as a place of diversity. But there is more to Florida than art galleries and gay bars, no matter what Kotkin says. In identifying the creative class, he's not just talking about artists and actors. Indeed, if that were all he was talking about, he'd have gotten a lot of play on the Westside of L.A. and in Greenwich Village but nowhere else. To Florida, the creative class includes architects, software developers, medical researchers, scientists, engineers – anybody and everybody who is involved in the high-value-added process of conducting basic research and converting that research into new products. And Florida's argument is not that art galleries and gay bars by themselves are economic bonanzas, but that a wide variety of urban amenities are required to attract and retain the key members of the "creative class" to specific locations. Kotkin – who has long positioned himself as "Mr. Nerdistan" – would undoubtedly disagree. But I think, by and large, Florida is right about what the creative class wants. Not long ago I was giving a speech in just about the most blue-collar city you can imagine – Buffalo – and I made the Florida argument. New York State was investing hundreds of millions of dollars in life sciences research in Buffalo in an effort to compete with Georgia, Arizona, and California in this sector of huge economic opportunity. But I pointed out that the prevalent new development pattern in Buffalo was the creation of three-acre suburban lots. I suggested that research scientists trying to cure cancer did not want to spend all weekend on a riding mower. Afterwards, one woman came up to me and told me – in the broadest, flat-a Upstate accent you can imagine -- that she works at a cancer research institute. "You're right," she said of the scientists. "At the end of the day all they want is a restaurant, a gym, and a loft." It's worth noting as well that some businesses associated with the ephemeral city actually do represent enormous economic sectors. As Florida protégé Elizabeth Currid points out in her new book about New York, The Warhol Economy , art galleries aren't very big business, but the fashion industry is a huge industry of worldwide significance. You'd think Kotkin would acknowledge this every once in a while, considering how many times he's told the story, in speeches, about the Lower East Side and the economic miracle of the needle trade a century ago. And in Kotkin's own adopted hometown of Los Angeles, one of the biggest industries is the most ephemeral of all – entertainment, which has a long history of providing well-paying middle-class craft jobs that have provided a path for upward mobility for generations of families who have lived in Kotkin's own neighborhood. You won't read much about these subtleties in Kotkin's columns because they fit don't in with the straw-man argument he's usually making. And that's too bad, because Kotkin makes an important point that we all should bear in mind: Coolness alone will not make American cities work in the 21st Century. In other words, as I might put it in Governing magazine, coolness is not a panacea. But neither is uncoolness. This is the point that Kotkin does not allow for. Successful economic development in the 21st Century will require that American cities understand the creative class and how to attract and retain them just as Florida suggests. At the same time, obviously, cities cannot ignore basic infrastructure while subsidizing art galleries and gay bars. As I concluded in every Governing article I ever wrote, no one thing – no one structure, no one theory -- will guarantee a city's long-term economic success. The more those of us in the business of commentary communicate this message -- rather than the straw man, either/or argument that Joel Kotkin typically makes -- the more likely cities are to dig deeper, search harder, and find the real keys to success. - Bill Fulton Third of three blogs. For Part 1, click here . For Part 2, click here .

It's no secret alternative energy and sustainability are hot topics. There are all kinds of ingenious ideas to harness "green energy" through wind, hydro, thermal and solar sources, but did you ever think about harnessing energy from the movements of crowds? Some guys at MIT seem to think people can move trains instead of trains moving us. A "Crowd Farm," as envisioned by MIT architecture graduate students James Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk isn't intended to promulgate crowds as the name implies but rather to harness energy from them as they move over small blocks imbedded in the pavement ( http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/crowdfarm-0725.html ). These blocks, or dynamos, slightly depress when stepped or sat upon and transfer the energy into electricity. These students have run a couple models with the technology imbedded in train stations, and they have set up a chair that powers a tiny LED light. Still, the technology is expensive in its infantile stages. Somehow, someone figured 28,527 steps on these dynamos is the magic number to run a train for a second. I put this in the context of Union Station in Los Angeles with about 1.4 million visitors last year. Assuming they walk a quarter mile on average when in or around the station, and their average step covers about a foot and a half, the 1.3 billion steps taken in Union Station last year is enough to power a train for 12.4 hours. LAX had 61 million visitors in 2004; imagine that all these footsteps in the quarter-mile walk through the security line would power a train for almost 22 days! These gadgets would really be powering less exciting things than trains, but even feeding the power back onto the grid would help California reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Mass produce them cheaply an install them at airports, train stations, concert halls even sports stadiums. "The wave" could be popular again at Dodger games if it helps global warming, and I could tolerate a couple standing ovations at the opera if they lit the exit signs. It's just plain fun to consider, not to mention the fact that dynamos would add a new perspective to urban interfaces by encouraging movement and interaction. I imagine the blocks would give a little, like walking on gravel, and this would reduce stress on the joints and burn a couple extra calories on the way. I wonder if they feel like rubber sidewalks; I love the feel of walking on rubber sidewalks. Another grad student at Princeton, not to be outdone by the likes of MIT, made a similar themed invention (converting kinetic energy into electricity) a couple years ago. Only this other project harnesses the tumultuous ocean surface on weekdays, and converts into a park for boats on weekends with the accumulated energy. Check out Yuske Obuchi's "Wave Garden" at http://pruned.blogspot.com/2005/06/wave-garden-by-yusuke-obuchi.html or http://www.archiprix.org/project_2007.php?id=2032 . They're thinking this thing will succeed the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in 2026! - Aaron Engstrom