Insight

The San Joaquin Valley will likely lose a considerable amount of farmland to urbanization over the next 40 years no matter what policies the region adopts. However, different policy scenarios can substantially reduce the amount of farmland loss, according to a new report that I helped prepare for the Public Policy Institute of California.

Are the stars aligning on growth policy in Sacramento, for better or worse? It feels a little funny to be writing this story yet again. I have been writing it for 16 years, yet the state growth policy universe has changed little. This time, though, there might be something to it. >>read more

The day after he was elected to a second term, President Bush conducted a press conference in which he highlighted four issues as the cornerstones of his second-term domestic policy agenda: tort reform, education, the tax code, and Social Security. This list is hardly surprising. But for the planning and development community in California, the list is notable for what is lacking: environmental policy.

California's population growth never seems to change much - a half-million more people per year, give or take. But where all those people come from and what the growth means for the future of the state are always changing.

There is no more peculiar animal in California housing than the mobile home park. It's a place where residents own their dwelling but rent the land on which the dwelling is located. The dwelling is theoretically moveable, but it's not going anywhere. So the landlords and the residents are stuck with each other -- and in a constant struggle that involves government regulation, property rights and California's sticky affordable housing problem.There is no more peculiar animal in California housing than the mobile home park.

Now that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has received the California Performance Review, what will he do with it? This massive report is thousands of pages long and contains about 2,500 individual recommendations. Many are no-brainers, some are clearly from some interest group's agenda, and a few conflict with each other.

The average home price in California topped $400,000 in June. This news stimulated the now-familiar headlines about how even beat-up tract homes from the ’60s have become unaffordable for middle-class families. It’s getting to the point that a six-figure income does not guarantee homeownership. >>read more

There is little question that, in most parts of California today, the idea of “smart growth” is winning the political battle. The land-rich areas of the Inland Empire and the Central Valley remain suburban holdouts, but in most of the ret of the state, the core ideas – higher-density housing, mixed-use development, and even improved transit service – are gaining political acceptance. >>read more

According to the state Department of Finance, California had 532,000 more residents at the end of 2003 than it had at the beginning. This has been going on for quite a while in California. What is changing is where and how people live. In some parts of the state, we are seeing a return to old suburban patterns. Yet in other ways, we are seeing a continuing transformation of California into an urban society. >>read more

Many years ago, overwhelmed by the sheer size of the numbers involved in modern society, humor columnist Russell Baker suggested that we should replace all numbers greater than 10,000 with the word "lotsa." As in, McDonald's has sold lotsa hamburgers. Social Security entitlements involve lotsa money. A war requires lotsa missiles. These days, a house in California costs lotsa money. Inevitably, the planning system gets blamed for the mess. >>read more

There's no denying it anymore: California has entered the infill age. Suburban development still continues apace, especially in the Central Valley and the Inland Empire. But most of the state is engaged in the process of adding more residents to existing neighborhoods and existing urban areas - and trying to find good ways to add more houses and shops to those neighborhoods as well. What all this means is that design and context are important.

To many urban planners, the "mixed-use" development project is a kind of Holy Grail, a development that combines residential units with commercial space into one seamless project where people can both live and work. Although other ideas are also important to planners seeking to create urban-style places - specifically, higher-density housing and development oriented around transit stops - the mixed-use concept often seems the most compelling.

The economy may be a little sluggish, but housing prices throughout California have not stopped going up. So it's not surprising that cities and counties throughout California appear to have developed a new interest in "inclusionary zoning" programs, which require housing developers to set aside 10% to 20% of their units for low- and moderate-income residents.