Josh Stephens

Josh Stephens is a contributing editor of the California Planning & Development Report (www.cp-dr.com) and former editor of The Planning Report (www.planningreport.com)

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Full Bio

Josh Stephens is the former editor of, and current contributing editor to, the California Planning & Development Report, the state's leading publication covering urban planning. Josh formerly edited The Planning Report and the Metro Investment Report, monthly publications covering, respectively, land use and infrastructure in Southern California.

As a freelance writer, Josh has contributed to Next American City, InTransition magazine, Planning Magazine, Sierra Magazine, and Volleyball Magazine. Josh also served as vice president of programs for the Westside Urban Forum, a leading civic organization on L.A.'s fashionable and dynamic Westside. Josh also served as editorial page editor of The Daily Princetonian and, briefly, the editor of You Are Here: The Journal of Creative Geography while he studied geography at the University of Arizona. He earned his BA in English from Princeton University and his master's in public policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Josh can often be found gazing from high vantage points wondering what it all means.

Simple Cycling Solutions

Now that the weather in Los Angeles has gone from pleasant to perfect with the subtle advent of spring, I've been spending more time risking my life atop my bicycle as I wend my way to meetings and errands. As a faithful urbanist I have little trouble convincing myself of cycling's merits, which, as former California State Health Officer Dr. <a href="http://www.planningreport.com/article/1223" target="_blank">Richard Jackson</a> likes to say, can "improve your life span, lower your blood pressure, make you better looking, improve your sex life, and save you money." Sounds good to me.

Introducing Smart Growth To An Edge City

A new master plan for Los Angeles's Century City attempts to undo some of the shortcomings that typically plague Modernist master-planned edge cities. Its goals include walkability, greening, and a more appealing public realm.

Climate Change May Prompt Revolution In Transportation Planning

Transportation planners and public officials have begun to consider ways to reconfigure cities and alter driving patterns in order to reduce vehicle miles traveled and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Singing the City Sterile: Urbanism and New Wave

I've always hated songs about cities, particularly mawkish anthems like "New York, New York," "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," and the ghastly "I Love L.A." Lyricists seem to dream them up when there's nothing else to sing about. Indeed, cities are the setting for life, not the object of it. Singing about them is like performing a play about a theater.

Art, Agriculture, and Civic Identity Converge in the Great Plains

MINNEAPOLIS--If not for the <a href="http://www.walkerart.org" target="_blank">Walker Art Center</a> I would have scant reason to spend extra time in Minneapolis. Minneapolis is not lacking for charm or culture, but it certainly falls in that middle range of American cities, somewhere between New York and nondescript, which is to say that it is not a destination in and of itself, yet it offers reasons to extend a stay for those who find themselves so far north for other reasons.