You may not yet have heard, but tanks are massing on the border of Santa Clarita.  Special forces have ziplined into Poway city hall. Under cover of night, Jerry Brown himself stands resolute on the prow of a PT boat, his beloved corgi Sutter at heel, motoring up the American River towards Folsom. There, an unhinged planning director has gone native, grilling freshly slaughtered meat in a backyard. From atop the Coit Tower, you can hear it: the strafing has begun in San Rafael. May God have mercy on all our souls.  So implies the latest essay by Wendell Cox, "California Declares War on Suburbia," published in this past Saturday's Wall Street Journal. In it, Cox takes aim at Senate Bill 375, California's landmark law promoting compact development patterns for the purpose of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Any regular reader of CP&DR knows that over the past year the state's "Big Four" metropolitan planning organizations--in San Diego , Los Angeles , Sacramento , and the Bay Area--have been producing regional plans to comply with SB 375 . Lamenting that 1.6 million people moved out of California in the 2000s, Cox contends that these plans will force housing prices up and thus drive more people out of the state.  SB 375 is naturally irresistible to Cox, the outspoken libertarian urban scholar who, on a roughly annual basis, announces the results of such-and-such new study or analysis that conclusively proves the evils of smart growth. (See CP&DR publisher Bill Fulton's response to Cox's previous volley.) What I've finally figured out is that, in his own mind, Cox does not dwell in the outer suburbs of which he is so fond. Rather, he seems to inhabit his own Frontier, an empty, windswept place where no one else will read his thoughts and, therefore, never discover their fallacies. Because if Cox did imagine that anyone would read his work, then he might for a moment consider that he puts up some pretty big targets. Think Moby Dick in a swimming pool.  In the latest go-round, Cox's logic follows a circuitous path, so it's best to respond roughly in order of the claims that he presents.  Since 2000 more than 1.6 million people have fled, and my own research as well as that of others points to high housing prices as the principal factor. SB 375 and AB 32 did not pass until 2008 and 2006, respectively. In the first half of the 2000s, developers could not build homes fast enough in California. So, yes, it must be the climate change regulations and not the incredible demand for housing that has driven prices up.  California has declared war on the most popular housing choice, the single family, detached home Let's not confuse most popular with most common. And let's not forget that the single-family home is most common because of the laws, regulations, and public investments that made it most common.  Metropolitan area governments are adopting plans… Here's his first whopper of a falsehood: metropolitan planning agencies are government agencies, but they are not governments. They have no police power and exert influence only to the extent that they control some transportation funding. And much of their policymaking depends on the consensus of their members: typically cities and counties, which are governments. Notably, MPO planners have based SCS's in large part on the general plans of these constituent jurisdictions. (Cox should know that the SCS of the Southern California Association of Governments was adopted on a unanimous vote; and, no, the suburban representatives were not bound and gagged in a back room.) … that would require most new housing to be built at 20 or more to the acre, which is at least five times the traditional quarter acre per house. Cox has built a career on an appealing but often useless observation: less dense areas promote efficiency because cars burn relatively less gas when they travel at consistent speeds on uncongested streets. This metric, however, ignores overall fuel consumption that takes place when you have to drive to the next county to buy a quart of milk.  If every urban area in California continued to build at four houses to the acre, the distances from homes to basic amenities would grow ever greater. And you can forget about your commute: unless companies are going to open up branch offices in Tracy and Palmdale, then commutes from Cox's fantasy fringe to established job centers would become farcical.  Big houses and the Frontier mentality are fine if you live and work in Jurupa. Sure, people like big houses.  They also like living close to their jobs. Some of them even like living close to other people.  Cox ignores the inherent attributes of places -- charm, vibrancy, attractiveness, convenience, accessibility (see London, Paris, Santa Monica, San Francisco... you get the point) -- that would make a resident perfectly happy to live in close quarters and assumes that residents base their preferences purely on housing types. In other words, don't hire Cox as your economist, and please don't hire him as your real estate agent.  But what about the inner suburbs? What about Milpitas? Or Covina? Or even Irvine? They can't keep expanding. So if, as Cox's whole premise suggests, population growth is a good thing, then how exactly are they going to grow without becoming more dense?  State and regional planners also seek to radically restructure urban areas, forcing … SB 375 doesn't force anything on anyone. It provides incentives and a few penalties. No city is going to go out of business if it doesn't comply.  Moreover, planners at MPO's have insisted that SCS's will cause anything but "radical" restructuring. Places that are suburban will remain largely suburban. Places that are urban will simply become "more" urban and thus relieve pressure on suruban areas. By promoting this high-density development, most new development will take place on a relatively small footprint, thus largely preserving Cox's precious status quo.   …much of the new hyperdensity development... "Hyperdensity"? Hyperdensity is Hong Kong. It's Mumbai. It's a Hunger Games screening on opening night. The notion that Cox thinks any place in California could ever be hyperdense is enough to forever disregard him. (Ironically, I don't actually want to disregard him. I like a good contrarian.) ...into narrowly confined corridors. This description implies that California's boulevards will turn into sun-starved canyons, with laundry hanging between tenements. That's hardly the case. But even if it was, Cox willfully ignores the premise behind directing density to "narrow" corridors: it keeps density out of single-family home neighborhoods. What a concept. If the planners have their way, 68% of new housing in Southern California by 2035 would be condos and apartment complexes. This contrasts with Census Bureau data showing that single-family, detached homes represented more than 80% of the increase in the region's housing stock between 2000 and 2010. On Day One of moral philosophy class, most professors review the naturalistic fallacy, otherwise known as the is-ought fallacy. It means that what "is" is not necessarily what "ought" to be. (For an example, see the American South, ca. 1600 – 1865.) Mr. Cox apparently was absent that day.  Over the past 40 years, median house prices have doubled relative to household incomes in the Golden State….economic studies…have documented the strong relationship between more intense land-use regulations and exorbitant house prices. I'm not going to tangle with Cox over studies. We all know that there's a study for everything. I'll only say that a lot more things were going on in the 1970s than just the introduction of land use regulations. There was also, say, Prop. 13, the oil crisis, the consumption of readily developable land, and disco too.  Since then, California has weathered the flight of the defense industry, the slow decrease in oil production, the scourge of the War on Drugs, the closure of military bases, the evisceration of the public school system, the near-lifetime incarceration of nonviolent felons, and the rise of the Kardashians (who, not coincidentally, live in Calabasas). I have no idea what this has to do with home prices, but my point is that California is a slightly more complicated place than Cox makes it out to be.  A 2007 report by McKinsey….recommended cost-effective strategies such as improved vehicle economy, improving the carbon efficiency of residential and commercial buildings, upgrading coal-fired electricity plants, and converting more electricity production to natural gas. The California Legislature recommended the same thing. It's called AB 32.  It is better to raise children with backyards than on condominium balconies. In a universe full of empty assertions based on nothing but aesthetic biases, rarely does logic flee from opinion with quite such haste as it does from this one.  In point of fact, only an illiterate boor would categorically privilege the suburbs over all else. Cox needs look only to Betty Friedan (or Betty Draper, for that matter) to consider that maybe life holds more than meatloafs, soap operas, and chain restaurants.  Plenty of young parents would be perfectly happy to live in nice, well located multifamily dwellings rather than in poorly constructed stucco boxes in the high desert. If only there were more such dwellings to go around. However, if Cox thinks that the outer suburbs are so darned attractive, then he can get bargains on just about as many homes in Riverside, Stockton, and Merced as he wants. Everyone else who can afford to buy is buying elsewhere, or so just about all the demographic analyses suggest. A less affordable California, with less attractive housing, could disadvantage the state as much as its already destructive policies toward business. Here, Cox conflates the form of housing with the supply of housing. Sustainable Communities Strategies explicitly account for projected population growth. Though Cox may not like them, all the odious little apartments in those regional plans are meant to house exactly the number of people by which each respective region is projected to grow. If Cox thinks all 10-plus million of those new residents should live in detached homes, then I'd like to see what sort of plans he has in mind.  Conclusion To Cox's credit, he never denigrates the mission of reducing emissions and greenhouse gases. At least he shares that goal with the fact-believing community. I wish, though, that he had more to offer. Surely SB 375 and its SCS's have their flaws. But if California is going to absorb millions of new residents, reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and be anything less than a snarled hellhole a generation from now, then it needs to do something. For now, SB 375 is that something, and spreading falsehoods and half-truths about it will not help. Cox would like to believe that war is coming. It's not. But summer is coming, and it's going to be a long, hot one if California—and the rest of the world—does not get its house in order.  This piece has been updated since its original publication April 11.

With the American Planning Association National Conference arriving in Los Angeles tomorrow, it's likely that more planners than usual will not just be attending lectures and idly networking but rather will be actively, and sometimes desperately, trying to remain in the profession.  Gov. Jerry Brown's decision to eliminate redevelopment agencies has not only sent cities into a frenzy and threatened thousands of projects, it also may be sending thousands of planners, and other land use professions, into a dismal job market. Although many planners are hanging on as staff for successor agencies, as 2012 progresses, many expect that competition for scarce planning jobs will grow ever more intense.  Just before redevelopment agencies had to shut down Feb. 1, the California Redevelopment Assoc. conducted a survey to roughly determine how many staff members of redevelopment agencies would be laid off.  "At the time, we estimated 2,500-3,000 employees of redevelopment agencies would be laid off as a result (of elimination)," said CRA interim executive director Jim Kennedy.  As recently as a year ago, redevelopment had appeared to be one of the most secure career paths for urban planners, even amid state- and city-level budget crises. The passage of Prop. 22 had ensured that agencies would be fully funded, until the governor and legislature eliminated them entirely. Many redevelopment planners are expected to seek refuge with municipal planning offices, but many of them have also downsized because of budget cuts.  "It's pretty financially constrained these days," said Kennedy. "We're not engaged in a high level of hiring activity.  I would suspect that it's a buyer's market." Ironically, the elimination of redevelopment could heighten the need for capable planners in cities across the state—if only cities had the money to hire them.  "Redevelopment helped fund many local services, including planning efforts for urban areas that were in the greatest need," said Kevin Keller, a planner with the Los Angeles Dept. of City Planning and president of the California Chapter of the American Planning Association. "The removal of this tool actually increases the need for planners to fill this void, but the public sector job market will likely remain flat for the immediate future."  In municipal planning departments, many planning functions that used to be conducted in-house are now being outsourced to private firms, meaning there are fewer permanent staff positions than ever.  "As governments have downsized, they're starting to look to more outside help for what they consider interim needs," said Phil Carter, president of PMC, a Rancho Cordova-based consulting and placement firm that specializes in public sector, land use-related careers.  Those jobs that are available may not be considered dream jobs. Many planning departments consider long-term planning and vision-setting positions to be the most expendable.  "We're seeing a continued slowdown in the demand by local government for certain types of planners, mostly those who are working on larger-scale design-type projects: urban landscapes or downtown plans," said Carter.  Meanwhile, Carter said that those jobs that are available tend to focus on relatively mundane administrative tasks, such as the processing of development applications.  The Los Angeles planning department is one of few agencies that intends to hire new employees in the foreseeable future. It may be an anomaly, however, because its funding is coming from grants rather than from sustained revenues or contributions from the city's general fund.  For planners on the job market, flexibility and geography may offer keys to success--as long as job-seekers are determined to remain in planning. Kenny Lousen, president of the Associated Students of Planning at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, said that some graduating students who have studied redevelopment have resigned themselves to exploring other lines of work.    "A lot of the students are focusing on whether they should go to grad school first or if they should start somewhere that's not their forte," said Lousen.  Eva Yuan-McDaniel, deputy director of planning at the Los Angeles planning department, said that lack of experience should not necessarily deter applicants. The department hires, in large part, according to an applicant's score on the city's civil service exam.  "You are not discriminated against just because you got out of school…or because you left school two decades ago," said Yuan-McDaniel.  In fact, graduating students may not, however, have the hardest time on the job market. Because applicants need to be flexible, Carter described something of a sweet spot for job seekers: a few years of experience, but not so much experience that they have committed to a particular function.  "Certainly someone with 3-5 years of a good urban planning background has a leg up on someone coming out of school," said Carter. "At the same time, we'll run into people who have been in the business for 10-15 years and they have locked themselves into a way of doing things that a younger person hasn't yet." Even though redevelopment agencies had been located in cities throughout the state, Carter recommended that job seekers be willing to relocate to increase their chances of landing jobs. He noted that development activity is likely to pick up in cities far more quickly than it will in rural  areas and in outlying areas that experienced housing booms in the early 2000s.  "There are huge geographic voids in the state," said Carter. "The more urban settings are more active." Contacts:  Phil Carter, PMC, 866.828.6PMC Kevin Keller, California Chapter, American Planning Association, www.calapa.org Eva Yuan-McDaniel, Los Angeles Dept. of City Planning, 213.978.1244

Gov. Jerry Brown's successful effort to shut down the state's now defunct redevelopment agencies has taken another casualty: the California Redevelopment Association.  In a statement released today ( pdf ), CRA officials and board members announced that the organization, absent its raison d'etre, would soon begin the process of shutting down, pending a vote of its membership. The venerable organization had led the fight to preserve redevelopment. Along with the League of California Cities, CRA drafted and promoted Prop. 22, the 2010 ballot measure that was designed to protect local funds, such as redevelopment monies. It then took on Gov. Brown and ultimately filed suit to overturn the legislation that forced agencies to shut down if they refused to make payments to the state. That legal effort turned disastrous for CRA, as the state Supreme Court rendered a ruling that eliminated the payment scheme and condemned all the state's RDA's.  Since the court rendered its decision in December, CRA has been helping agencies navigate the dissolution process.  In a letter from CRA President and Alhambra City Manager Julio Fuentes, and CRA Interim Executive Director Jim Kennedy reads, in part: "(W)e are confronted with the unfortunate reality that the years of incredible success with redevelopment – building affordable housing, creating jobs, cleaning up and reusing contaminated sites, and revitalizing communities – have now come to an end due to a policy choice of the State of California to address its fiscal imbalance in part by dissolving redevelopment agencies. As a result, cities and counties in California will, at least for a time, have to address community revitalization needs without this incredibly powerful tool. "With the dissolution of local redevelopment agencies as of February 1, it has become clear to the board and executive staff that the business plan for CRA is no longer sustainable.  (T)he CRA Board of Directors has now concluded with great reluctance that it has no other prudent choice but to initiate the dissolution of the association." Fuentes and Kennedy explain that the League of California Cities has already taken a leadership role in discussing the future of any "next generation" local community revitalization tool:  "The League of California Cities has already convened a Next Generation Task Force to assist in these discussions. The imperative for California's communities to continue addressing their infrastructure, affordable housing, jobs/economic development, brownfield reuse, and military base reuse challenges remains." CP&DR will provide updates as they become available.

Nearly two years ago I wrote an article  that pondered the effects of legalized marijuana on California's cities. The options, for those cities that didn't forbid cannabis entirely, seemed to range from stoner wastelands to magical communities of mellowness.  Back then, the state was on the verge of transcending the medical marijuana movement and in fact legalizing recreational use for all adults. Oakland's Oaksterdam "University"--which teaches about the cultivation and sale of cannabis--and its proprietor Richard Lee were at the center of this movement, claiming that legalized marijuana would be good for everyone: good for patients who needed relief, good for adults who needed the occasional mental vacation, and--not insignificantly--good for taxing entities that could finally cash in on an enormous, but previously untaxed, portion of California's economy.  My article traced, in part, the potential effect that legalization would have on the urban environment. If you've been to the real Amsterdam, you know that coffee shops figure prominently in the streetscapes of some neighborhoods, to the delight of tourists. Though I am personally ambivalent about marijuana, I figured that enterprising cities might attempt to replicate Amsterdam's success (minus the canals and Rembrants), and Oakland seemed like the leading contender (with Eureka not far behind). This week, the federal government--with apparently no backing or cooperation from local officials--lodged its objection to this notion.  Agents of the DEA, IRS, and federal marshalls raided Richard Lee's home Monday, with the intent of shutting down his legally operating business. Reports indicate that "dozens" of agents took part in the raid and used such devices as battering rams and power tools to breach Lee's defenses. Lee is a wheelchair-bound paraplegic; he uses marijuana to control his pain. Now his institution seems all but  defunct . At nearly the same moment that the feds were busying themselves with weed -- and a 10-minute drive away -- seven people at another institution of learning, Oikos University, lost their lives  at the hands of a disturbed, but apparently stone-cold sober, criminal.  When I wrote on the legalization two years ago, I spoke with Rebecca Kaplan, the Oakland City Council member who has long championed the legalization, regulation, and taxation of marijuana. She spoke of the value of legal cannabis in no uncertain terms. Oakland has already cashed in, levying a significant city tax on what has been, in large part, a peaceful economic activity. And, by some accounts, the city has benefited. Oaksterdam has already become something of a neighborhood hub, in an area between downtown Oakland and Lake Merritt. I'm not going to posit whether or not this is a good thing--that should be up to the people of Oakland--but I will point out that the forces of urban development often work in strange, unpredictable, and fascinating ways. Great cities are great in part because they house diverse peoples. They allow like-minded groups to congregate and create communities, often for everyone's benefit. So far, I haven't heard any reports indicating that Oakland is any worse off.  The forces that bring people together and subsequently shape neighborhoods are economic, cultural, and ethnic. But they can also be legal. Certain laws, some with no particular mind to land use, have profound impacts on the urban environment. In California's case, the legalization of cannabis allows cannabis enthusiasts to congregate. They can share ideas and gain a sense of dignity that many of them--especially those for whom marijuana is truly  medically necessary --may not have experienced heretofore. If this openness gives rise to coffee shops, cafes, and even "universities" where well meaning patients and users can cease to be marginalized, so be it.   In a city that has suffered riots, racial strife, chronic unemployment, and all manner of derision (cf. Gertrude Stein), it's hard to say that Lee, Kaplan, and law-abiding cannabis enthusiasts don't know what they're doing.  We can be fairly certain that Oikos shooter One L. Goh was not in his right mind. Whether the DEA was, and whether Oakland will be better for it... that's probably an open question.

LOS ANGELES - Hasan Ikhrata, executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments, began this afternoon's general assembly session by saying that the organization's 2012 - 2035 Regional Transportation Plan and Sustainable Communities Strategy "isn't perfect, but it's good." In some circles, that sort of candid modesty would probably get Ikhrata fired, or at least booed off the stage. Instead, he got applause from general assembly members, and none of roughly 20 speakers who offer public comments offered lodged any major objections.  In a room full of public policy wonks and elected officials representing six counties and nearly 200 cities, "good" is good enough.  "It is going to change the way we do business an the way we think about the urban form," said Ikhrata. "It's going to provide choices for people to move around." Shortly after Ikharta's introduction, the general assembly adopted the RTP/SCS on a unanimous vote of its 83 members. The age of climate-friendly, smart-growth regionalism has official begun in Southern California.  "Today's approval of the 2012 – 2035 RTP/SCS was a historic decision made by Southern California elected officials on SCAG's Regional Council.  This action establishes a roadmap to welcome four million new residents and 1.7 million new jobs into our region by 2035," commented Pam O'Connor, SCAG President.  SCAG's is the second RTP/SCS to be adopted under California's 2008 landmark climate change and smart growth law, Senate Bill 375. The San Diego Association of Governments adopted its plan in November, but that plan is facing legal challenges under the California Environmental Quality Act. So far, no one has raised legal objections. The Sacramento Area Council of Governments is soon expected to adopt its SCS and Metropolitan Transportation Plan update.  As CP&DR reported in December, the RTP/SCS is based on a decidedly "bottom-up" approach. The plan does not ask jurisdictions to swallow growth or transportation strategies that they are not already willing to take. And, notably, the plan allows for some subregions to create their own alternative SCS's so that they can meet the greenhouse gas targets of SB 375 as they see fit.  Implementation of the RPT/SCS is now a looming challenge. It is expected to cost $524 billion over 25 years. The plan dedicates 54 percent of funding to transit and non-highway options, more than triples the funding for bike and pedestrian projects, and reduces traffic congestion overall and per-capita delay by 24%--despite the addition of 4 million residents in the 6-county region by 2035. It would locate 87 percent of all jobs and 82 percent of all housing within a half mile of rail stations and bus stops. Apartments and condominiums would account for 68 percent of all development, up from 39 percent in the previous plan. Some environmental highlights of the plan include the following (noted by NRDC's Amanda Eaken on her blog ):  Increases funding for biking and walking by over 350% from $1.8 to $6.7 billion; Spends $246 billion—nearly half the plan's total revenue-- on public transportation; Reduces congestion 24% per capita despite adding 4 million residents; Brings 12 key transit expansion projects to Los Angeles in the next 10 years under Mayor Villaraigosa's 30-10 plan; Creates 60% more housing near transit than is currently available; Creates 4.2 million jobs in the region, 87% of all jobs will be ½ mile from transit; Achieves a 24 % reduction in pollution-caused respiratory problems, resulting in $1.5 billion per year in health care savings' and; Saves over 400 square miles of open space--more than a third the size of Yosemite--from development by shifting to a more walkable land use pattern for the region. Supporters contend that this investment could yield savings of $3,000 per resident because of savings in fuel, electricity, and water. These savings are based on the premise that more compact development patterns will eliminate expenditures on laws, cars, and heating and cooling.   "We can expect a reduction in per capita emissions, supporting the construction of new homes and businesses but with a plan to connect the dwellings with multiple transportation options, preserving the natural beauty of the California landscape for today's recreation and our future generations enjoyment, and ensuring that businesses remain in the Golden State and prosper," said Ikhrata in a statement.

According to Randall Arendt, a renowned planner and fellow of the Royal Institute of Town Planners, the effective planner must have four basic skills: observing, recording, communicating, and self-educating. Given the essential nature of urban planning, it's assumed that most of these skills play out in the real world: streets, buildings, parks, and the like. Unfortunately, many planning jobs keep planners cooped up in offices staring at desktop monitors. Smartphones, however, can reverse this trend, allowing planners to do much of the work they do on computer – researching, analyzing data, and even sketching – in the field, where, ideally, they ought to be. While even planners can get distracted by Angry Birds and Pandora, we can now choose from a host of mainstream and industry-specific apps that can help uphold Arendt's time-honored principles. For example, on the job with Los Angeles County Parks & Recreation, I can use mapping and data analysis apps to evaluate and determine the suitability of potential new sites for parks while out in the field.  Smartphones and apps also come in handy in meetings when I need to quickly research and answer questions about our parks, such as how many residents are within a half-mile of a certain park or which schools are within walking distance of the park.    For planners who haven't yet spent much time in the App Store, here are a few of the most useful apps, many of which are smartphone versions of software and websites with which many planners are already familiar. ArcGIS ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/arcgis/id379687930?mt=8 ) While it is not possible to do full blown GIS work on a smartphone, this app allows you to: find and share maps from ArcGIS Online (ESRI's online GIS); use tools to search, identify, measure, and query; and collect, edit, and update GIS features and attributes. Business Analyst Online (BAO) ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bao/id380484178?mt=8 ) BAO allows you to get key demographic and market data about any location in the U.S.  It is a great tool for planners who need to evaluate an area on-site. Users can get up-to-date facts about the people at a location, e.g. age, income, education, home ownership, lifestyle, spending habits; compare one address against another or against the county, state or U.S.; and share facts about a location with others.  Additional features are available for subscribers. Cyurbia ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cyburbia/id446645799?mt=8 ) Cyburbia is the internet's oldest social networking site for urban planners and others interested in shaping the built environment.  The Cyburbia Forums message board allows you to discuss and possibly find solutions to the issues facing your communities, share your knowledge, and enjoy conversation and camaraderie with other planners, architects, students, and other like-minded people. Google Earth ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-earth/id293622097?mt=8 ) Everyone should be familiar with Google Earth by now. This app offers the same global satellite and aerial imagery available on the desktop version of Google Earth, including high-resolution imagery for over half of the world's population and a third of the world's land mass. Planetizen  ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/planetizen/id328082077?mt=8 ) Planetizen is intended to be a one-stop source for urban planning news, commentary, interviews, event coverage, book reviews, announcements, jobs, consultant listings, and training.  This free app allows you to browse Planetizen's daily news summaries, job listings, feature stories, and blog. (Disclosure: Planetizen's parent company manages CP&DR's website.) Planetizen Courses ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/planetizen-courses/id483028462?mt=8 ) Planetizen Courses provide online video courses related to the field of urban planning.  With this app, you can learn tools like mapping, Photoshop, and SketchUp, and about topics like pedestrian planning and planning ethics.  This app enables you to view sample chapters (usually the introduction) of urban planning courses available.  Full courses can be viewed in the app when you subscribe on the Planetizen Courses website. SimCity Deluxe ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/simcity-deluxe/id380017992?mt=8 ) The idea of building a city from scratch is exciting, especially when compared to the incremental, piecemeal approach to planning most of us have grown accustomed to.  With this app, you can build your dream city, test your ability to handle multifaceted scenarios, and guide your city through seasonal catastrophes. It just may sustain your passion in planning and may even help you gain some useful insights for real life city planning.    All of these apps are available on Apple's App Store and most can be found on Google's Android Market.  Unfortunately, there are no CEQA or post-redevelopment apps yet.  But one can always check out CP&DR's website on a smartphone for the latest news coverage on both topics.

Loath as I am to make grand pronouncements, I think Bay Meadows, the 83-acre project in San Mateo, is possibly the best plan I've seen for a transit oriented development. This mixed-use proposal brings an unaccustomed level of clarity and order to the design of mixed use-neighborhoods near transit stations.  Bay Meadows, in fact, makes most other TODs look almost slipshod and disorganized by comparison. The desire to achieve density, rather than instill a sense of order, often prevails at TODs. The much praised Contra Costa Centre, for example, appears casually planned and suburban compared to Bay Meadows, while others look like dense business parks. But is high-density urban design really incompatible with pedestrian activity? Bay Meadows' site plan, however, is as easy to understand as a diagram. Yet, the irregular and flexible parts of the plan may be equally responsible for its success. Planned for the former site of the Bay Meadows horse racing track just south of the San Mateo County fairgrounds, Bay Meadows is entitled to build up to 1.25 million square feet of office space, 90,000 square feet of retail space and 1,170 apartments and condos.  (The same developer, Wilson Meany Sullivan, was earlier responsible for conversion of the Ferry Building in San Francisco into office space and retail.) As in most other TODs, the biggest buildings are closest to the transit station, in this case a future Caltrain stop (which will replace the current Hillsdale station). Also familiar is the strategy of scaling down development the further one gets from the station. Rather than invention, it's the straightforwardness of the design, prepared by Cooper Robertson of New York, is what makes Bay Meadows a model for other TODs. If I were an academic, I might say that Bay Meadows has lifted the klutzy phenomenon of transit-oriented development to a recognizable building type. (Architects, who seem to love opacity in language, might call it a "typology.") Let's start with the obvious features of the design. Rather than blurring the difference between residential, retail and office buildings, the designers here have made each building type as distinct as possible. Each of the building types–office buildings, retail boxes, apartment clusters—has its own identifiable size, shape and location on the map. Here, the notion of mixed use is more horizontal than vertical, with different kinds of buildings sitting side by side, rather than stacking housing atop storefronts atop one another. Equally important, each building type is arranged in long rows that run down the width of the plan, with the regularity of rows of beads in an abacus. Nearest to the station is a set of five office buildings, known collectively as "The Station." This is Bay Meadows' gesture toward the noble if elusive goal of jobs-housing balance. Immediately east of the big-footed office buildings is a neighborhood-serving shopping street, which appears relatively narrow and pedestrian friendly plan. This is the place for residents to pick up the dry cleaning and a quart of milk, and it provides some eating places for office workers. Large-scale, multifamily housing starts on the eastern edge of the shopping street. Moving further east, the housing is interrupted by a linear park that parallels the almost rigid arrangement of buildings. The park is formal and French-looking, like a silk tie on a white shirt. The park looks small, active and inviting for dog walking and bicycling. One sign of refinement of the Bay Meadows plan is that the landscaping tends to be active, as is only secondarily used as a buffer or negative space.  The major recreational site is a 12-acre park on the north edge of the plan, which looks like a scoop of ice cream atop a piece of apple pie. The park also provides a buffer (see above) to the immense parking lot for the fairgrounds on the immediate north. Flexibility is important to Bay Meadows. Although the plan is set up on a grid, the pie-shaped site does not allow the designers to use a strict, unvarying grid. Instead, the grid is soft-edged, allowing lot lines tend to stretch, contract and sometimes take on irregular contours. Slight irregularities in the shape of individual blocks grow more pronounced as we head east, toward the shift to the diagonal streets. The flexibility, whether "suburban" or not, also makes it possible for the developer to develop the land efficiently, with a minimum of awkward, triangle-shaped spaces left over in the transition from the square grid to the diagonal street. Also, the soft-edge nature of the plan allows the designers to provide a pleasant concave edge to the southern boundary of the big park, rather than an ugly, arbitrary straight line. Nothing in life or urban design is perfect. The designers of Bay Meadows cannot entirely avoid the awkwardness of the site, with the parking lot to the north and a large industrial parcel to the east. In this setting, Bay Meadows may look like a stand-alone suburban island of medium-density development amid big empty spaces. The next place to plan is that parking lot, where hopefully some future developer can extend the orderly urban fabric created at Bay Meadows. Bay Meadows site plan.  An earlier version of this article listed Bay Meadows in Santa Clara County, not San Mateo County. It has been corrected accordingly.

CP&DR is pleased to co-host a launch party for Next American City's new online magazine, Forefront. This event will take place in conjunction with the American Planning Association's Annual Conference in Los Angeles.  What: Next American City's Forefront launch party When: 5pm - 7pm, Sunday, April 15 Where: Wuho Gallery, Hollywood RSVP: RSVP@americancity.org We hope to see you there!  For more information, please see flyer:

You know when you're driving east on Interstate 10, past downtown Los Angeles, and all you can see ahead of you is the jumbled horizon of rooftops, trees, and overpasses? That is, according to the latest Census figures, the true face of density. Don't let any skyscraper-dwelling, subway riding Chicagoan, New Yorker, or Philadelphian say anything different.  Today the US Census released a slew of city-related data from the 2010 Census, and it includes some figures about California that will be startling to anyone who hasn't been paying attention for the past few decades. It reveals that, contrary to 20th century images of shuffling hoards that populate eastern cities, the West now has by far the most dense urban areas in the country. Nine of the top ten densest urban regions are in the west, and the top four are all in California:  Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim ("about 7,000" people per square mile).   San Francisco-Oakland (6,266) San Jose. (5,820)  Delano, Calif. (5,483)  New York-Newark comes in at is fifth, with 5,319 people per square mile.  Setting aside Delano's unexpected star turn, none of this should come as a surprise to planners in California (which also happens to be the "most urban" state, with 95% urban residency). Density is what happens when you build freeways all over the place and everyone gets to live all over the place. For all the objective connotations of these figures, there's no doubt that there's plenty of room for interpretation, which can have deep implications for public policy.   Measures of Density Seven-thousand people per square mile. Does that mean that I'm sharing my particular square mile with 6,999 other people? Of course not. These Census numbers, like almost all statistics, are crude, insofar as they refer to entire urban areas. Moreover, measure of density depends on where demographers draw the line around the "urbanized area." For instance, Manhattan tops out at an astounding 560 residents per acre. San Francisco's central city comes in second place nationally, with 260 per acre. Los Angeles' center city density is 70 per acre. Meanwhile, though Chicago's residental densities are simliar to those of Los Angeles, its central city has 2,200 jobs per acre, compared to L.A.'s 1,200. The moral of the story: the Los Angeles region's density is high on average but evenly spread. New York, Chicago, and the Bay Area have much greater densities in their central places, but then they peter out into more bucolic places like New Canaan, Buffalo Grove, and San Rafael.  Sprawl vs. Density This is one of the bigger non-debates in urban planning. It was stoked a few years ago by Robert Brugmann in his book Sprawl: A Compact History. In short, he argued that the definition of sprawl--i.e. his definition of sprawl--precluded density. This definition implies that sprawl exists only where development has used greenfield land inefficiently, to create spread out houses on the urban fringe. But Brugmann was disingenuous. Density is a demographic measurement. Sprawl refers to the form of land use. That's why CP&DR publisher Bill Fulton has long referred to the Los Angeles area as "dense sprawl," because the built up area spreads out to the horizon despite the fact that it is dense. After Southern California's initial phases of leapfrog development, cities filled in the empty spaces, resulting in a density gradient that is remarkably uniform throughout the region.  Interestingly, this pattern continues in the developing world. A recent study sponsored by the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy found that cities in Latin America are growing larger not by consuming more land on the urban fringes, but rather by filling in undeveloped patches. This pattern means that urban land cover is increasing at surprisingly high rates, because the consumption of infill land is, according to the authors, harder to perceive than is the consumption of urban land. In the Los Angeles area, "dense sprawl" means that residents are living at high densities and yet are spread over a wide geographic area and often in places that don't offer convenient local services. The result: traffic.   Crowding vs. Density In the popular imagination, I gather that there is little distinction between crowds and density. But the two could not be more different. Los Angeles seems like it's not dense because it has few crowds - no Times Square or Michigan Avenue (and no Union Square or Delores Park, for that matter). We rarely experience what P.J. O'Rourke refers to as the "jostle and squash" of urban life (he was talking about the grandstand at the Kentucky Derby, but same difference). So Los Angeles doesn't feel dense because it's not crowded. Until, that is, you enter the Santa Monica Freeway at 5pm.  The Culture of Density The more I visit other cities and the more we discuss the Red State/Blue State divide (which you can extrapolate to Red/Blue counties and even Red/Blue neighborhoods), the more I believe that urban life depends as much on attitude as on demographics or even urban form. Los Angeles has a long history of pretending not to be dense - because for a while, it wasn't.  But even though apartments have replaced single-family homes and we've now hit 7,000 people per square mile, I've always felt a palpable longing among many L.A. residents for the old days of privacy and disconnection. You see it when homeowners protest against apartment developments and when they rail against anything that would bring more cars to a given neighborhood. L.A. does not have a tradition of strolling about or spending afternoons in the park. We look at fellow Angelenos with suspicion, as if each one of them is a competitor for the last open parking space on earth. By contrast, a city like Portland, Oregon, embraces walking, biking, and riding public transit even though the urban area is not nearly as large or dense as those in California. That's a cultural choice that Portlanders have made. Meanwhile, down south, the backyard, the fence, and the swimming pool dominate the city's mentality, no matter how many thousands of neighbors you have.  Density and Urban Form Generally, progressive planners and smart growth advocates seem to like density. In its crudest form, greater degrees of density probably can lead to more functional, pleasant cities. But it's not the numbers that matter. The L.A. area could have a density of 7,000, 14,000, or 1,000. As I told the L.A. Daily News' Dakota Smith for her article on this very subject, what matters is how a city carries its density.  Some dense cities (NYC, San Francisco) have great transit and appealing streets. For instance, according to the University of California Transportation Center, the combined percentages of commuters who walk or use public transit in New York is 36%. In SF-Oakland, it's 20% and in Washington, DC, it's 18%. Los Angeles? 8%. Meanwhile, some sparsely settled cities (Salt Lake, Phoenix) have wide, fast boulevards that, if not pleasant, at least make them easy to get around. Then there's Los Angeles, which offers the worst of both worlds: it's too dense for traffic to flow, but not quite dense enough--and not designed well enough--to foster the street life that makes other big cities so wonderful.  The Future of Density: Smart Growth & SB 375 The relatively uniform density that has arisen in Southern California, thus far, is largely the result of a relatively free market for development and the relative dominance of the automobile. In this land rush, quantity overwhelmed quality, and the result is the land use equivalent of a television tuned to static. It's busy, uniform, and incoherent. More entropic than organized.  For about the past few years, however, planners in California have been trying to figure out what do with all this density now that we have it. The solution--or so some hope--is Senate Bill 375. While full implementation is still a long way off, the intent of SB 375 is to do exactly what California's major urban regions have not done in the past: it focuses density into places that can best accommodate it. Public transit offers the most obvious accommodations, and SB 375 encourages cities to nudge dense development towards light rail stops, major bus routes, and the like. It also promotes a better mix of residential and commercial, so that one day residents can walk around the corner for that quart of milk rather than drive to the Super Walmart.  If cities implement the tenets of SB 375's Sustainable Communities Strategies--regional plans being drawn up by the metropolitan planning organizations of San Diego, Sacramento, the Bay Area, and Southern California (Los Angeles)--then density may no longer be hidden. It will be plain to see in the streetscapes. And if California residents can accept the fact that we are, indeed, an urban state, maybe, by the time we hit 8,000 per square mile, we'll look like one too.

Perhaps more quickly than anyone would have thought, the California Legislature is already considering a collection of bills designed to both smooth the process of dissolving redevelopment agencies and to introduce new tools that cities can use in redevelopment's absence. For supporters of redevelopment, Senate Bill 1585 (Perez) is the Holy Grail. Or, if not the Holy Grail, at least a big help. It both cleans up some of the challenging aspects of Assembly Bill X1 26, thus making the dissolution process clearer for successor agencies, and expands the definition of enforceable obligations. The other bill that has gotten significant attention is SB 654 (Steinberg) which would restore some funds for low- and moderate-income housing. That bill has received support from nearly every housing advocacy group in the state, most of which decried the loss of redevelopment's 20% set-aside for affordable housing. With the Legislature's spring recess upcoming, from March 29 to April 9, several bills have been making progress. SB 654 (Steinberg) – Affordable Housing SB 654 modifies provisions relating to the transfer of Low- and Moderate-Income Housing Funds (LMIHF) and responsibilities associated with dissolved redevelopment agencies. SB 654's provisions modify the scope of the term "enforceable obligation" and require that any unencumbered amounts on deposit in the LMIHF of a dissolved redevelopment agency be transferred to specified entities. Status: Passed out of Senate, 34-1. SB 986 (Dutton) – RDA Bond Funds SB 986 provides that all bond proceeds that were generated by a former redevelopment agency shall be deemed to be encumbered and prohibits a successor agency from sending these proceeds to the county auditor-controller. The bill requires that these bond proceeds must be used by the successor agency for the purposes for which the bonds were sold pursuant to an enforceable obligation that was entered into either by the former agency or its successor agency by December 14, 2014. Status: Heard in Senate Governance and Finance Committee March 21. SB 1151 (Steinberg) - Accounting for Properties This bill would require the successor agency to prepare a long range asset management plan that outlines a strategy for maximizing the long-term value of the real property and assets of the former redevelopment agency for ongoing economic development and housing functions. The bill would require the successor agency to submit the plan to the Department of Finance and the oversight board by December 1, 2012, and would require the approval of the plan by the department and oversight board by December 31, 2012. Status: Will be heard in the Senate Governance and Finance Committee on April 18. SB 1156 (Steinberg) – Community Development SB 1156 would enable cities and counties to establish a "community development and housing joint powers authority" to assume successor agency responsibilities and create an additional sales tax to fund sustainable economic development and affordable housing. Status: Will be heard in Senate Transportation & Housing Committee on April 10. SB 1220  (De Saulnier) – Affordable Housing SB 1220 titled the "Housing Opportunity Trust Fund Act of 2012," would establish a permanent source of funding for affordable housing.  The funding would come through the imposition of a $75 fee on the recordation of each real-estate document, and such funds would be used to support the development, acquisition, rehabilitation, and preservation of affordable housing. Status: Referred to committees on Transportation & Housing and Governance and Finance. AB 1585 (Perez) – AB X1 26 Cleanup/Enforceable Obligations AB 1585 also expands the definition of "enforceable obligation" to include any loans between the agency and the host city or county within two years of the date of creation of the redevelopment agency or within two years of the date of the creation of a project area if the loan is specific to that project area. Other loans may be also be deemed enforceable obligations provided that the oversight board makes a finding that the loan was for legitimate redevelopment purposes. There are other provisions clarifying the functions of successor agencies and oversight boards. Status: Passed Appropriations Committee, 11-3; passed Assembly, 58-7. Will be heard in the Senate after April 9.

As cities wrestle with the process of dissolving their redevelopment agencies, Assembly Bill 1585 (Perez) has been advancing through the state legislature. AB 1585 is designed to clean up many of the holes and ambiguities in AB X1 26, the budget bill that mandated the dissolution of redevelopment agencies and includes the provisions for liquidating their assets.  On Wednesday, the Assembly Local Government Committee heard and passed AB 1585, which is an urgency bill. Earlier today the measure was heard and passed by the Appropriations Committee at a special meeting. It could be heard on the Assembly floor as early as Monday and then, if approved, sent to the Senate before the end of next week. The Legislature goes on a two-week recess Friday, Mar. 30.  Many supporters of the bill have hailed the bill for making the dissolution process more clear and, importantly, for expanding the definition of enforceable obligations to include the repayment of loans made by cities to former redevelopment agencies. Opponents contend that this provision, among others, goes too far. Representatives from Los Angeles and Santa Clara counties testified against AB 1585.  At a recent speech in Los Angeles, County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said that the bill "carries water for redevelopment" and attempts to undermine the transfer of funds to state and county coffers. Meanwhile, it has broad support from affordable housing advocates and from local agencies.

UCLA professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris was perhaps ahead of her time when she said in 1995 that "the ever-changing urban form and social ecology of neighborhoods calls for a flexible rather than rigid park design and for spatial layouts that can be easily changed in response to future needs…One can even think of mobile parks-spaces whose equipment and furniture can be transported to other parts of the city if the need arises."   As a park planner, I know firsthand how expensive and time-consuming it is to acquire land and build new parks.  It typically takes years before new parks can be provided due to bureaucratic, financial, political, and other constraints.  Portable parks and mobile gyms may sound strange at first, but they may be entirely appropriate given the urgent need for additional recreational opportunities in underserved areas and the high costs of developing new permanent recreational facilities. Portable Parks Portable parks can bring the experience of nature into unexpected locations in urban neighborhoods.  Recently, I witnessed how Portable Parks IV, a public art exhibit by artist Bonnie Ora Sherk, transformed a mall site and raised awareness of ecological sustainability and urban agriculture. This ten-day display at Santa Monica Place included mini-gardens of drought-tolerant plants and edible organic landscape consisting of fruit trees, flowers, herbs, and vegetables.  It was also accompanied by a series of art installations, artistic/interpretive signage, performances, and public programs that addressed sustainability and consumption.  While building parks in needy neighborhoods can take years and cost millions of dollars, portable parks—set up in parking lots, lawns, playgrounds, and other open spaces—can provide temporary and inexpensive relief for park-starve inner city residents.  Mobile Gyms Gaining traction in cities like Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Cleveland, mobile gyms are typically privately operated facilities that provide opportunities for residents to work out.  Because they may be parked at any location where vehicles are allowed they can serve marginalized communities with not access to private health clubs or to proper public facilities. While most mobile gyms target adults and offer modern exercise equipment, there are a number of companies that operate vehicles specifically for children.  For example, the Gymagic Bus (Pennsylvania) is a mini-gym on wheels equipped with: bars, beam, incline mats, barrel mats, a zip line, monkey bars, mini-tramp, and rock climbing wall for kids. New York City has even experimented with mobile pools made from repurposed garbage dumpsters.  Park Avenue was shut down to cars on three consecutive Saturdays last summer so that people could spread out to bike, walk, play, watch live theater, and swim.  Each 8-by-22 foot "dumpster pool" is surrounded by a wrap-around deck and has its own built-in water filtration system.  These portable pools can be used in any city, and are relatively inexpensive and easy to transport to different neighborhoods.  Also, it is significantly cheaper to use dumpster pools than to build and maintain permanent pools and the parks where they are typically found.  Mobile pools could be used in underserved communities in California, especially during the hot summer months when the demand for these facilities could be high. Challenges and Solutions • \t Regulations: It is unclear how and whether planning and/or health departments would regulate mobile gyms. If cities choose to regulate mobile gyms, they should do so by establishing a clear approval/permitting process for such temporary uses. One model is the letter-grading system that Los Angeles County uses for mobile food vendors to indicate whether a truck made the grade according to public health inspectors. • \t Operation and Funding: Mobile gyms are typically privately operated, although a few cities have "parks on wheels" vehicles.  An important policy question is whether local governments should operate their own mobile gyms or offer funding and/or incentives to private operators to serve underserved communities.  Without some government subsidy or support, private operators may not venture into park-poor areas even if the need is great.  Funding may be available through public health-related grants as both federal and state governments have committed funds to promote healthy communities.    • \t Coordination: Creating and accommodating portable parks will require different stakeholders to work together.  They may include public artists, urban farmers, florists, operators of shopping malls, the local parks department, and organizers of farmers markets.  The success of the Portable Parks IV exhibit proves that effective collaboration is possible regardless of how diverse the group of stakeholders is.   Conclusion As Dr. Loukaitou-Sideris suggested, planners and decision-makers must explore innovative strategies to meet the growing and evolving recreational needs of California's underserved communities.  Portable parks and mobile gyms are new and exciting ways to bring in outside recreational resources to needy neighborhoods.  Of course, there would be some challenges, but they should not stop us from trying out alternative ideas with the potential to yield great benefits.     A portable park art project at the Santa Monica Place mall.   Clement Lau is a planner with the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation.