A new book accounts for ways major infrastructure projects bust their budgets and make mincemeat of their schedules; another predicts demographic upheaval due to climate change.
A bumper crop of books related to California urbanism came out during the pandemic; Josh Stephens reviews titles about the Central Valley, San Diego history, Los Angeles pop culture, and more.
California urbanism encompasses extremes: beauty and banality, wealth and poverty, diversity and segregation, aspiration and indifference. These dualities underly The Urban Mystique, the new book by CP&DR's Josh Stephens. >>read more
In his new book, Josh Stephens plumbs the depths of California's good and bad -- and tries to find the reason why urban life there is so oddly compelling. >>read more
In Golden Gates, Conor Dougherty chronicles the rise of the YIMBY movement and California's battle over housing -- with the aplomb of an East Bay skateboarder >>read more
This Land skewers the federal land management agencies -- and, in the process, indirectly provides a good reason to keep CEQA and California's other environmental laws. >>read more
In his new book, Eric Klinenberg can't quite decide whether social infrastructure is physical and tangible or whether it's something squishier. >>read more