You may not yet have heard, but tanks are massing on the border of Santa Clarita. 

With the American Planning Association National Conference arriving in Los Angeles tomorrow, it's likely that more planners than usual will not just be attending lectures and idly networking but rather will be actively, and sometimes desperately, trying to remain in the profession. 

Gov. Jerry Brown's successful effort to shut down the state's now defunct redevelopment agencies has taken another casualty: the California Redevelopment Association. 

In a statement released today (pdf), CRA officials and board members announced that the organization, absent its raison d'etre, would soon begin the process of shutting down, pending a vote of its membership.

Nearly two years ago I wrote an article that pondered the effects of legalized marijuana on California's cities. The options, for those cities that didn't forbid cannabis entirely, seemed to range from stoner wastelands to magical communities of mellowness. 

LOS ANGELES - Hasan Ikhrata, executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments, began this afternoon's general assembly session by saying that the organization's 2012 - 2035 Regional Transportation Plan and Sustainable Communities Strategy "isn't perfect, but it's good." In some circles, that sort of candid modesty would probably get Ikhrata fired, or at least booed off the stage. Instead, he got applause from general assembly members, and none of roughly 20 speakers who offer public comments offered lodged any major objections. 

According to Randall Arendt, a renowned planner and fellow of the Royal Institute of Town Planners, the effective planner must have four basic skills: observing, recording, communicating, and self-educating. Given the essential nature of urban planning, it's assumed that most of these skills play out in the real world: streets, buildings, parks, and the like. Unfortunately, many planning jobs keep planners cooped up in offices staring at desktop monitors.

Loath as I am to make grand pronouncements, I think Bay Meadows, the 83-acre project in San Mateo, is possibly the best plan I've seen for a transit oriented development. 

CP&DR is pleased to co-host a launch party for Next American City's new online magazine, Forefront. This event will take place in conjunction with the American Planning Association's Annual Conference in Los Angeles. 

What: Next American City's Forefront launch party

When: 5pm - 7pm, Sunday, April 15

Where: Wuho Gallery, Hollywood

RSVP: RSVP@americancity.org

We hope to see you there!  For more information, please see flyer: 

You know when you're driving east on Interstate 10, past downtown Los Angeles, and all you can see ahead of you is the jumbled horizon of rooftops, trees, and overpasses? That is, according to the latest Census figures, the true face of density. Don't let any skyscraper-dwelling, subway riding Chicagoan, New Yorker, or Philadelphian say anything different. 

Chances are the typical high-level urban planner, someone who has been through graduate school, secured a good job, and put in the years to rise to a position of authority, lives what might be considered a conventional lifestyle. He or she is probably married, probably has a house, and probably lives among the same. >>read more

Perhaps more quickly than anyone would have thought, the California Legislature is already considering a collection of bills designed to both smooth the process of dissolving redevelopment agencies and to introduce new tools that cities can use in redevelopment's absence.

As cities wrestle with the process of dissolving their redevelopment agencies, Assembly Bill 1585 (Perez) has been advancing through the state legislature. AB 1585 is designed to clean up many of the holes and ambiguities in AB X1 26, the budget bill that mandated the dissolution of redevelopment agencies and includes the provisions for liquidating their assets. 

SAN DIEGO -- Seeking to make up for lost redevelopment funds, the City of San Diego has decided to require downtown developers to pay processing fees for the first time in decades. But it remains to be seen who will process the permits and get the money – the city's planning department or the city's nonprofit downtown redevelopment entity, the Centre City Development Corp.

Google may have revolutionized our understanding of geography, but so far the world's leading internet company hasn't revolutionized the geography of commuting. So as Google contemplates its first major "campus," the City of Mountain View is looking to innovation – the coin of the realm in the Silicon Valley – to help Googlites get to work. Even if it means building a rail system that transports individual commuters around town in little capsules.