Well, local governments around California finally got their wish: The staff at the state Department of Housing & Community Development that reviews housing elements has been cut to the bone. So what does this mean about state review of housing elements – and, by extension, state law about housing elements as well?

Normandy Beach, NJ -- We have a situation at the Jersey Shore. I don't mean Jersey Shore and I don't mean The Situation. 

I'm referring to the actual Jersey Shore. Here, along the state's 110-mile coastline a sense of imprisonment overpowers the hedonism. It's the same in many other East Coast states. 

Early in her account of the development of San Fernando Valley, Laura R. Barraclough describes an 1880s-era photo that captures the wholesome spirit of what would become Los Angeles' great bedroom community: "Captioned 'Lankershim's best product,' [it] showed several hundred white children standing in a field, grinning at the camera." 

Jeff Spicoli and Moon Unit Zappa, they are not. 

Julius Shulman's most famous image-in which disaffected young women in cocktail dresses float above Los Angeles-marks the end of the American experiment as well as does any other gesture in arts and letters. The steel-and-glass jewelbox embodies the equal measures of disappointment and satisfaction that come with a destination reached. After all those decades of toiling across the frontier conclude at the Pacific, the American landscape is complete, its architecture is refined to its sparest elements. 

A ballot initiative to remove parking meters from downtown Ventura has been knocked off the November ballot by a Ventura County Superior Court judge. 

While the Tea Party movement has been trying to "take back America" on the national stage since the election of Barack Obama, Tea Party activists have also turned their attention to taking back California – and, specifically,  Senate Bill 375, the 2008 law that seeks to combat climate change by promoting density in the state's metro regions. 

Sociologist Frederik Polak once said that "the future may well be decided by the images of the future with the greatest power to capture our imaginations and draw us to them, becoming self-fulfilling prophecies."  The organizers the Rethink/LA, an eponymous group consisting of some of the city's creative intelligentsia, seem to agree. The exhibit, on display through Sept. 4 at the Architecture+Design Museum,present bold visions of a future Los Angeles that should challenge the thinking and capture the imaginations of most Angelenos.

California's redevelopment agencies have won a minor, but far from permanent victory, in their effort to shield a total of $1.7 billion in tax increment funds from the state. 

Assessments for services traditionally funded by property tax have faced an uphill battle after the passage of Proposition 218, the 1996 voter initiative that requires the local governments and special districts to seek voter approval for any proposed new or increased assessment before it could be levied. That hill has gotten steeper in the wake of a recent decision. 

The process of planning for affordable housing in California just got, inadvertently, more affordable. 

Among the many cuts that Gov. Jerry Brown enacted in his effort to balance the budget  is a $1 million hit to the Department of Housing and Community Development Building Equity and Growth in Neighborhoods Fund. That fund supports the department's housing element review activities; with roughly 20 staff members, the housing element review staff will be effectively cut in half. 

Attorney General Kamala Harris took the unusual measure of pre-emptively voicing her official opposition to the lawsuit that was filed two weeks ago to overturn the budget bills that force redevelopment agencies to either disband or pay a total of $1.7 billion in "remittances" to the state. The suit was filed by the California Redevelopment Association and the League of California Cities in the state Supreme Court; the petition calls on the court to declare the actions unconstitutional in light of Prop. 22.

A thorough analysis of building codes and local ordinances applicable to seismic hazards provides the substantial evidence necessary to uphold a city's revised environmental impact report, the First District Court of Appeal ruled in Oakland Heritage Alliance v. City of Oakland.