Seattle-based planner, architect and journalist Mark Hinshaw identifies a back-to-the-urban-core trend, in which people who have rejected suburban uniformity are choosing to live instead in dense, diverse urban environments. He explains his findings and theories in an interview with CP&DR.

A whole new set of stormwater regulations is about to wash over cities and counties, especially in Southern California. At first blush, these new regulations may seem most onerous on new development, which will probably have to meet very demanding onsite detention and water quality standards. But it might also mean retrofitting older urban neighborhoods – and using existing parks and other open spaces, including cemeteries, to help water quality in those neighborhoods.

The eminent domain legislation sponsored by the League of California Cities and the California Redevelopment Association (CRA) died on the floor of the Assembly this week when Republicans voted against the measure.

Although the sponsors of ACA 8 and its author, Assemblyman Hector De La Torre (D-South Gate), made a late change to add protections for houses of worship, Republicans refused to budge. Because the measure was a constitutional amendment, it needed a two-thirds vote in the Legislature (meaning some GOP members in both houses) before going on the ballot next year.

With lawsuits, referendums and an economic slowdown, it's been a rough few weeks for large-scale development projects. Some updates:

The 14,000-housing-unit Placer Vineyards project has been hit with at least three lawsuits. Sutter County, environmental groups and a citizens group filed the court actions over various impacts of the proposed 5,000-acre project in unincorporated Placer County, just across the line from Sacramento County. Litigation was anticipated, although Sutter County's lawsuit over traffic came as a bit of a surprise.

When people think of downtowns, they often think of huge cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. But anybody familiar with California knows that the big city downtowns are the exceptions. By and large, California is a state of mid-sized cities, and some of the most delightful urban places are the smaller downtowns. Often in older cities, these districts are manageable, pleasant and, very often these days, in the midst of a strong renaissance.

Prior to visiting a series of planned communities in and near Southern California's San Fernando Valley, I envisioned them as they were depicted in Greg Hise's book, Magnetic Los Angeles — suburban enclaves dotted with single-family homes, cars lining the wide curvilinear streets, children walking hurriedly to school. I almost expected my vision to blur slightly and force my surroundings to take on hues of white and black, matching the old photographs which told the story of the Valley's birth to a number of postwar self-contained suburban communities.

To succeed in the 21st Century, do cities really have to be cool, as Richard Florida argues? Or do they have to be uncool, as Joel Kotkin insists? Maybe they have to be both.

A few years ago, a little-known academic named Richard Florida turned the economic development world upside down by publishing a book called The Rise of the Creative Class. In a nutshell, Florida's argument was that to be successful today, cities have to be cool.

It's no secret alternative energy and sustainability are hot topics. There are all kinds of ingenious ideas to harness "green energy" through wind, hydro, thermal and solar sources, but did you ever think about harnessing energy from the movements of crowds? Some guys at MIT seem to think people can move trains instead of trains moving us.

The fight over fair-share allocations of needed housing within the Southern California Association of Governments region is on. At least two cities have filed lawsuits and numerous others are reportedly considering their legal and political options.

California's greenhouse gas reduction bill – AB 32 – has received worldwide recognition as cutting-edge policy on global warming, not least because Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has chewed up a lot of carbon flying around the world promoting it. Back in Sacramento, however, the hard part is just beginning: Deciding how to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state.

The City of Stockton intends to take back control of its water, eleven redevelopment agencies fail to correct major audit violations, a federal court judge throws out approved initiative that prohibits the dumping of out-of-county sewage sludge, and The owners of the 216-acre Wavecrest development site in Half Moon Bay agree to sell to POST.

San Marcos is suffering from a syndrome. (We're talking metaphors here, gentlemen; no need to call the process server.) The name of the ailment that afflicts this attractive, upscale suburb north of San Diego could be called Nowhere in Particular Syndrome. The symptoms include the lack of a center, coupled with a sense that one could be nearly anywhere in America—anywhere, in fact, that suffers from the same anonymity.