Now that Ray LaHood has finally announced he is stepping down as President Obama's Secretary of Transportation, speculation has immediately focused on whether outgoing L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will succeed him.

In a case pitting a real estate brokerage against a homeowners association, the trial court sustained demurrers to the HOA's complaint against real estate brokers who acted as dual agents in the developers' sale of properties in the development to HOA members. 

LOS ANGELES -- Many of the young urban planners in Los Angeles live exactly where you'd expect them to live: the dense, colorful, decidedly urban neighborhoods in and around downtown Los Angeles. They ride bikes and take trains and, in many ways, live the life that they are trying to design. 

It's not quite the Golden Spike, but the completion of Phase I of the Los Angeles Expo Line light rail marks a momentous occasion in the history of westward rail expansion.

For the past few months a supercomputer with UCLA researchers at its helm has been trying to figure out what the weather will be like in Los Angeles in the middle of the 21st century. You'd hope that somewhere in there it would find some good news. Maybe we'll get decades of consecutive weeks of 72-degree days, like Steve Martin reported in LA Story? Not so much. 

The dispute between the State of California and a group of Malibu residents regarding the restoration of the Malibu Lagoon is the latest land-use dispute in this city which occupies – apt word! – a coveted, 30-mile stretch of coastline in Los Angeles County. To the outward eye, the issue appears to center on the state's desire to restore a degraded wetlands area vs. the concerns of local surfers who are fretting about the fate of the legendary point break at Surfrider Beach. 

Now that the age of Senate Bill 375 has arrived, transit-oriented development is poised to become not just a trend but indeed a common practice in California. But, as a typology, TOD is still unknown territory for many developers and planners. Just how to create appealing, equitable developments that actually achieve the goal of getting people out of their cars remains an inexact science. Thus, the Urban Land Institute's TOD Summit, to be held at USC this Thursday, June 7.