LOS ANGELES -- For all the efforts that California has expended to embrace regional planning, it turns out that regional planning may already be outdated. 

Is the era of smart growth over?

Not exactly, but a group of panelists at the American Planning Association conference in Los Angeles suggested Sunday that we may be moving past the 2000-era concept of what smart growth is – and into a new era that combines managing growth, placemaking, climate change, demographic change, and the need for economic growth.

The last time the American Planning Association held its national conference in Los Angeles, the Lakers were playing in Inglewood, the only trains to serve Union Station were Amtrak, and the only people who spent the night downtown were homeless or business travelers. Today, attendees of the 2012 APA National Conference - to be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center April 14-17 - will find everything from light rail to lofts to Staples Center. A lot has changed in Los Angeles since 1986.

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