Almost 30 years ago, an ambitious young developer named Rob Maguire created an audacious proposal for the greatest development project never built in downtown Los Angeles. Responding to a request from the Community Redevelopment Agency for a development plan atop Bunker Hill, Maguire put together a magnificent team – including most of the leading architects and planners of the day – and proposed combining a reconstruction of Bunker Hill's historic urban fabric with a few tall office towers.

The project was never built, but it wasn't long before Maguire set the tone for big-time development in L.A.

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.

When gasoline costs $5 a gallon, and diesel $6, who is going to buy a house in the exurbs?

With those fuel prices appearing inevitable within a year or two, I have been posing that question in casual conversations with people. Their answers is, well … no one.

In a follow-up to a report issued last year, the state controller's office has determined that K-12 school districts understated the amount of pass-through payments received from redevelopment agencies by $105 million in the 2005-06 fiscal year, and community college districts underreported by $8.2 million. The errors caused the state to backfill $17.8 million to K-12 districts and $3.9 million to the colleges that the state did not owe.

A $1.4 million award of damages to the owners of a San Bernardino adult cabaret has been thrown out by the state Supreme Court. In a unanimous ruling, the state high court said that an appellate court had answered the wrong question when it decided the City of San Bernardino was liable for Flesh Club's expenses and lost income during a 53-month period when the cabaret was shut down.

A water supply assessment provided by a water agency for a proposed development project is not subject to legal scrutiny until it becomes part of an environmental impact report, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled.

A fence atop an historic wall in the Hollywood Hills is not exempt from environmental review, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled.

The court found that the City of Los Angeles did not have enough evidence supporting the California Environmental Quality Act exemption to shift the burden of proof to project opponents. Rather, the court directed the city to conduct an initial study to determine the appropriate level of environmental review.

The campaign in Napa County over a ballot measure that would impose a 1% growth limit may be a microcosm of the entire Bay Area.

On one side are slow-growth advocates with the usual arguments about density, traffic, greedy developers and untrustworthy politicians. On the other side are developers with promises for creating housing in a very nice setting within a few miles of tens of thousands of jobs. In between are local government officials, who may end up arm wrestling with lawyers over who should review the project.

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.

My laptop battery started dying just as I noticed the huge bats somewhere around Barstow.

In the race for endorsements, the anti-Proposition 98 camp has lapped the competition. The question is whether the endorsements will make any difference in an election that is likely to see very low voter turnout.

Six. That's how many housing starts there were in the Marysville-Yuba City area in March.

This is an area with a population of more than 150,000 people, an area that has needed four digits to count annual housing production during recent years.

But in March 2008? Six housing starts. That's the definition of a real estate slump.