The Los Angeles Times

Loma Linda, California has an average lifespan higher than most cities, and a significant population of vegetarians. Last week, the city council approved the first McDonald's in town. Will it have an impact on the community's health?

Jessica Garrison reports on how the City of Los Angeles spent $600k designing and building a park that no one ever got to use when it was claimed as a site for a public school.

What happened to the Trans-Texas Corridor, the 10-lane, privately-funded toll road/high-speed train/fiberoptic cable-laden highway to the 21st century promised by Rick Perry in 2002?

Last week, Mayor Villaraigosa presented his vision for a more livable L.A., including the addition of fifty pocket parks.

When a student housing firm faced competition in the form of a proposed new building at USC, it filed a lawsuit against them using CEQA (the California Environmental Quality Act). Then they sued the developer's other projects too.

The Trader Joe's grocery chain, which has long cultivated a funky neighborhood vibe, is going national and opening bigger stores. Will communities still love a big box TJs?

A dam near Ojai, California built in 1947 attracts almost unanimous disapproval. Getting the dam demolished though is a long and frustrating process, one an unknown graffiti artist commented on this week.

Michael McNeilly of SkyTag covered building sides across Los Angeles with multi-story advertisements, disregarding laws prohibiting them. The city is suing SkyTag for millions in penalties.

Solar Drive, deep in the Hollywood Hills, is a ritzy block of expensive homes. But over the past year, an empty mansion was overrun by squatters and partiers. Permission for the gate is temporary, but hikers are upset by blocked routes.

Bell is infamous for being sucked dry by a handful of corrupt politicians. Now that the officials have been removed, Bell is struggling to find its footing. Wealthy Beverly Hills and Santa Monica have stepped up to help.

The unfathomable happened this week in Southern California when L.A. converted 2.2 miles of road into a bike lane that stretches along 7th Street from Koreatown to Downtown.

In a bold move to secure its place as the bastion of sustainability, Seattle sets out to build a series of the "greenest commercial building on earth."

A bill to forcibly disband the tiny city of Vernon, California and incorporate it into Los Angeles County failed to pass earlier this week on concerns that it would economically weaken the county.

Unanimous approval of the five-year outline to build a 72,000-seat football stadium in Downtown L.A. goes to show that the City Council is all game for a politically radioactive project.

With no "rusting relic" like The High Line's trestle to hang the design on, will James Corner Field Operations create a memorable public park for Santa Monica's coastline?

In Antelope Valley, Calif., Alan Kimble Fahey's 70-foot tower - aka "the highlight of his life's labor" - was eviscerated on Friday along with the rest of his 20,000-square-foot quirky concoction. The court found it in violation of local codes.

George Skelton of The Los Angeles Times contends that one of Schwarzenegger's biggest blunders as governor of California was lowering the vehicle license fee to 0.65%.

The Los Angeles Times calls the Leipert-Pasker residence "the greenest house in L.A." In fact, the only thing that isn't green about this three-story home is its color.

South Korea's law mandates developers to commission public art as 1% of the total cost of a proposed project. What the law does not specify is the level of taste that comes with it.

Known for its puritanical environmental laws, California's shipping pollution standards just got tougher. The California Air Resource Board voted unanimously to expand the 2009 clean-fuel zone, which mandates ships to use less-polluting fuels.