LOS ANGELES

HOUSING WATCH - Los Angeles voters approved Prop HHH in 2016 to allow the City to issue $1.2 billion in bonds to house the City’s homeless – a simple matter of building 10,000 units within ten years.

CITY PLANNING - As California’s climate grows hotter and drier, fires have become increasingly common and more destructive. 

THE VIEW FROM HERE - The underlying socio-political dynamics of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Garcetti’s Manhattanization of Los Angeles are essentially the same –

MY THOUGHTS - Nostalgia for the past is a given, especially by older generations.   

THE VIEW FROM HERE - Prelim Point: Inter-urban transit between cities and Intra-urban transit should not be confused. 

PLANNING WATCH -  The 1965 Watts and the 1972 citywide civil disturbances garnered a few days of media coverage. 

LA ZONING - California’s chronic housing shortage stems from specific shortfalls in several key elements needed to reach a level of construction that would relieve the crisis.

L.A. PANDEMIC FUNDS ANALYSIS - The COVID-19 pandemic exposed a slew of inequities, but for small businesses in Los Angeles and across the country, one of the most consequential involved access to credit.

MAYORAL RACE - According to the LA City Clerk’s office, there are 28 candidates who have pulled papers to enter the race to become the next mayor of Los Angeles.

RantZ and RaveZ - In 1975 Paul Koretz began his career in California politics. 

THE VIEW FROM HERE - Like it or not, people have to engage in prognostication or allow their lives to buffeted about like leaves on the ocean waters.  

PLANNING WATCH - The State of California’s Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) has approved seven new local Housing Elements and rejected 190 others, including the unabashed pro-development Los Angeles Housing Element, adopted by the City Council in November 2021. 

HOUSING WATCH - Today, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved a motion that instructs city agencies to provide a report about city-owned properties that can be used for temporary or permanent homeless housing.

THE VIEW FROM HERE - All human activity generates waste products.  Leaded gasoline is an example. It was known in 1922, when tetraethyl lead was added to gasoline to help engines run better, that it was poisonous to humans.

PLANNING WATCH - As sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, the Los Angeles Times (LAT) is a reliable member of the Urban Growth Machine, an alliance of vested interests that promote real estate speculation. 

LA TRANSIT - To individually reduce my carbon footprint, since 1993 I have been a regular transit rider. COVID brought this to a screeching halt.

COMMENTARY - I am writing to express my concerns regarding the participation of Ms. Leonora Camner on the Santa Monica Housing Commission.

THE VIEW FROM HERE - The candidacy of Rick Caruso raises a fundamental question. 

LA CORRUPTION - The Los Angeles Ethics Commission voted Wednesday to have the California Office of Administrative Hearings appoint an administrative law judge to serve as a hearing officer in the commission’s case against former Councilman Mitchell Englander.

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA - If the crisis in American democracy had a capital, it would be Los Angeles.

PLANNING WATCH - Over a half century ago, the 1964 Presidential race gave us the memorable campaign slogan “A Choice, not an Echo,” when Barry Goldwater lost against incumbent Lyndon Johnson.