Critics Sound Off On 'Ineffective' So Cal Association Of Governments

"Last year, six counties, 187 cities and the federal government poured $23 million into the obscure Southern California Association of Governments, mandated by state and federal law to make sure Southern California doesn't devolve into an unplanned and unlivable mess."

"Joel Kotkin, a Los Angeles–based consultant who studies ways in which U.S. cities attract good jobs and build better neighborhoods, says, 'These days I just make fun of SCAG. Their [economic and growth] projections are waaay off.' In the 1990s recession, SCAG warned that the unemployment rate would remain stuck at or above double-digits until decade's end. Instead, by 1998 joblessness had tumbled. 'SCAG was waaaay off' - by close to 100 percent. Adds Kotkin, 'They go hysterical; they push doomsday scenarios. They figure if they make it sound so terrible, then something will be done. They're ineffective.'

"Pisano says, 'We're trying to make our voice heard in Washington and Sacramento.' But not many power players are listening. Part of that, critics say, is because his team's ideas often sound like a riff from a Cheech and Chong stoner session: Hey, what if we build a high-speed super-railway, and then pull the 18-wheelers off the 710 and give them their own separate freeway?"