L.A. Planning Director's Three Criteria For A Neighborhood

The accomplishment that emphatically put San Diego on the map in planning circles was the "City of Villages," a plan to create or expand several neighborhood centers, each with all of the urban accouterments: businesses, residences, schools, parks and mass transit.

"Upon her arrival [in Los Angeles], Goldberg started by tackling internal issues in her City Hall office. She hired new planners, named the department's first historic-preservation manager, put deputies to work on building design guidelines and began writing nine new community plans to her standards.

Her standards? That anyone can read them and understand what they allow to be built, something she finds lacking in the city's 30-plus current plans."

..."Goldberg moved to Larchmont Village, a few miles west of downtown, because it met her three criteria for a neighborhood: She could walk to a coffeehouse, a bookstore and a movie theater, though she's still driving to City Hall."