In some ways, Christine Essel could not have come into her new job at a worse time – or from a more unexpected background. The new CEO of the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, Essel had previously led Paramount Pictures' government affairs team. She is one of few executives to cross over from Tinsletown to the gritty streets of urban Los Angeles. Those streets, in CRA/LA's 32 project areas and 128 active projects, may get even grittier thanks to the state's $2.1 billion transfer of redevelopment funds this past spring.

When the San Fernando Valley portion of the City of Los Angeles attempted to form its own city in 2002, one of five names nominated for what would have been the nation's sixth-largest city was "Camelot." This for a region most famous for being the vapid home of Valley girls.  

Although Measure F (CP&DR Insight Vol. 16 No. 10 Oct 2001) failed on both sides of the hills that separate the Valley from the rest of Los Angeles, nearly a decade later a far less grandiose, but perhaps more pragmatic, solution has emerged to give a unified voice to the Valley and some of its neighboring cities. 

It's a saga straight out of the Rust Belt: auto giant closes its factory, laying off nearly 5,000 auto workers, and leaving behind an aging structure and contaminated site of 370 acres. Businesses throughout the region, which supply parts to the factory, also take a hit. 

To this day, the State of Kentucky forbids the sale of alcohol on election days. This momentary dry spell – which hearkens back to frontier times – is meant to encourage sober voting and discourage bribery via alcohol, turns a legal substance into something illegal for the public good.

On Election Day in California this November, quite the opposite might happen.

The San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League are trying to punt themselves out of creaky Candlestick Park and into a shiny new home in Santa Clara. Whether political winds will carry them roughly 35 miles to the south to the City of Santa Clara or whether they'll be blown back to the line of scrimmage now depends on the voters of Santa Clara. 

As the popularity of motor sports, especially stock car racing, blossomed during the late 1990s and 2000s, a number of would-be race track developers and local government officials in California pursued high-speed economic dreams. However, actually building a race track in California has proven to be far more difficult than proposing a track and even winning development entitlements.

There is no evidence that California's enterprise zone program – the state's largest economic development effort – has increased jobs in program areas, according to a Public Policy Institute of California study. "Our main finding is that, on average, enterprise zones have no effect on business creation or job growth," PPIC researchers Jed Kolko and David Neumark wrote.