Bill Fulton's blog

Joel Kotkin is at it again. In yesterday’s Los Angeles Times Sunday opinion section, the enfant terrible of L.A. urbanism dissed the “suburbs as slums” thesis of Brookings’ Christopher Leinberger. But in once again coming to the defense of “suburbs”, he has revealed that he can’t tell the difference between Glendale and Palmdale.

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I’ve always known that there are limits to celebrity in the world of urban planning. You write a book or two, people get to know your name, they ask you to come and give a speech, you make ‘em laugh, and maybe – maybe – they’ll give you a couple of bucks for showing up. In a small professional field where nobody’s very rich, that’s the best you can hope for.

In other words, people might know who you are, but you’re not really a star.

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The Los Angeles Times is running an all-week series on traffic congestion in L.A. and how miserable everybody’s commute is. The topic is a sure-fire winner among readers, and the personal stories of commuters are interesting and well-told. But the Times appears to have taken the position that the problem can be solved by simply building more highways and denying development projects that would generate traffic. Good luck getting that package through the Legislature!
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Rick Caruso, retail genius – ok. But Rick Caruso, mayor of Los Angeles?

C’mon! It ain’t gonna happen.

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Do cities have tourniquets that can be used to stop the subprime mortgage bleeding?

They like to think so, but the answer appears to be no. Instead, cities are increasingly focused on two things: First, increased code enforcement to make sure that abandoned houses and neighborhoods aren’t rundown. And second, finding a silver lining in the dark cloud by helping first-time homebuyers purchase repossessed houses.

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As Barack Obama would be the first to say, you can’t underestimate the importance of North Carolina anymore. At 9.1 million people and counting, it’s now the 10th most populous state in the nation, and it has added a million people just since the 2000 Census. Another few boom years and North Carolina – along with Georgia – will pass Michigan in population.
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Here’s a puzzler for you: What land use creates more pedestrians than any other?

Transit stations? Office buildings? Condos?

Try airports!

Every single person who arrives at an airport from out of town arrives without a car. At many airports, the first vehicle in which people ride after landing is a train of some sort. So what’s the rush to put them into cars?
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Even on a typical day, Las Vegas often seems like an extension of Los Angeles. Throngs of tourists arrive via car on the I-15 each day, and it’s not uncommon to walk down the Strip and run into people you know.

This week, however, the American Planning Association conference – being conducted at two hotels along the Strip – has often seemed like an extension of Los Angeles as well. Not only is the conference flooded with planners from L.A., but there are so many sessions on L.A. that it could become a whole separate track!
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All the urban planners in the country are in Las Vegas this week, and it’s clear they have a love/hate relationship with the place.

Vegas is kitschy and over the top, and at first glance it always looks like the least sustainable place on the planet. Vegas is acres of neon plastered across the front of 30-story casinos in the 100-degree desert – each casino more outlandishly upscale than the other – along with the occasional lake and 200-foot water fountain.
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OK, so everybody’s bought into the idea that Sacramento’s Blueprint process is a national model of regional smart growth planning. But what happens next in this cooler-than-we-ever-imagined metropolis? Depending on who you talk to the answer is:

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