California Planning & Development Report

A year after Gov. Jerry Brown announced his intent to kill redevelopment and repatriate billions of dollars in tax monies that go to local agencies, the day of reckoning has finally come. Over 400 agencies officially shut down on Feb. 1.

Last week, Gov. Jerry Brown announced reforms to the state's Environmental Quality Act that will ease approval for infill development and special projects. Josh Stephens provides the details.

In an effort to seek an 11th hour reprieve from the scheduled elimination of the state's redevelopment agencies, two consortiums of cities have filed lawsuits in Sacramento Superior Court, reports Josh Stephens.

The Supreme Court decision to approve the elimination of California's redevelopment agencies late last year set February 1st as the date of dissolution. A new bill in the state senate would slow down the clock.

Jerry Brown has proposed a huge governmental streamlining to make the state more efficient. But in the process he is proposing separating transportation and housing -- now housed in one agency -- and putting them in separate agencies.

Cities and redevelopment agencies are pushing for legislation that give them a stay of execution. Meanwhile, cities are evaluating which projects will be impacted.

In last week's court ruling, the California Supreme Court didn't just kill redevelopment. The court also upheld a drawn-out process of other agencies picking the meat off redevelopment's bones.

The State Supreme Court struck down redevelopment. Now it's up to the political players in California to strike a deal to bring it back. Can they do it? And what will the state's price be?

1961 marked an extraordinary year for urbanism, with the publication of Death and life of Great American Cities, and also foreshadowed two other intellectual and social revolutions led by women: environmentalism and feminism.

Josh Stephens reviews Big Roads by Earl Swift, which profiles Thomas MacDonald and Frank Turner, the civil engineers who made the Interstate Highway System a reality.

ArtPlace America has issued a landmark series of grants dedicated to supporting the 'creative class' and enhance communities through the arts. Organizations in California snagged eight of thirty-four grants nationwide.

Bill to lower parking requirements in transit-oriented districts in California faces opposition from housing advocates who don't want a parking density-bonus provision to be undermined.

Veteran planner Bill Fulton looks back on a quarter-century of planning in California and finds distressingly little energy or spirit.

Tea Party activists have spoken out at regional planning meetings in California to protest what some consider conspiratorial plans to crush civil liberties under the guise of smart growth.

Imported from Europe, parklets transform parking spaces into inviting public spaces. They are flourishing in San Francisco, and are poised to invade other cities across the country.

Travertine City would house 35,000 residents on the shores of the Salton Sea, California's largest - and most unpleasant - body of water. Developers claim that it will be a model of sustainability. "

The California governor made an unscheduled appearance in front of the state's Strategic Growth Council -- unstaffed -- to find out what they're up to.

Once a bastion of sprawl, the San Diego region is now embracing one of the most significant regional planning efforts in the nation's history. It is the first region in California to draft a Sustainable Communities Strategy, as mandated by SB 375.

Honolulu has the most accessible public transit in the U.S., but apparently the same state with the worst traffic in the nation has the 2nd-most convenient transit.

Harvard professor Edward Glaeser's Triumph of the City presents cool-headed analysis that largely confirms the theories that Jane Jacobs first advanced 40 years ago, says Adam Christian.