CP&DR

Invisible Class Speaks Up About Downtown L.A.

Aug 1, 2001

Deals, Downtown planning, Los Angeles County, Morris Newman, Vol. 16 No. 08 Aug 2001

Here is a twist on the familiar story of neighborhood groups negotiating with developers: The two sides did not limit their discussion to traffic congestion. On the table were a surprisingly wide array of social and environmental concerns, including hiring guarantees, wage levels, job safety and affordable housing.

Housing and Transit Coexist in Mountain View

Jul 1, 2001

Morris Newman, Places, Vol. 16 No. 07 Jul 2001

Commuter rail has a perception problem. If everybody wants to live near to a train, nobody wants to live directly on the line. Trains are dangerous, noisy, kick up dust and push down the price of homes bordering the rails — or so we believe. Fear and misunderstanding of the impacts of commuter rail, in fact, have led to some very volatile politics among homeowners, and that, in turn, has led to some unfortunate planning decisions.

Local Control Falls Through the Doughnut Hole

Jun 1, 2001

Deals, Morris Newman, Vol. 16 No. 06 Jun 2001

If you do not care about either law or land use, there is much to laugh at in the story of how Majestic Realty used the state Legislature as a club with which to beat the City of Redlands.

San Bruno Builds a Neighborhood for BART

May 1, 2001

BART, Morris Newman, Places, Vol. 16 No. 05 May 2001

The railroad has been a force in American urbanism since the Iron Horse first pushed its way across the Western prairies and mountain ranges. Many Western towns, including Laramie and Cheyenne in Wyoming, were founded by the Union Pacific Railroad during the late 1860s on its drive to complete the Transcontinental Railroad. In other cases, small towns like Omaha, Nebraska, became big cities almost overnight, when thousands of men who worked for the railroad poured into town, followed by the peop

San Jose, CSU Cooperate for Joint Library

Apr 1, 2001

Deals, Morris Newman, Vol. 16 No. 04 Apr 2001

The average person thinks of government as having a monolithic character. If she does not know better, she believes that different government agencies are merely the Vishnu-like arms of one great, unified body. But the opposite is true. Government is, in fact, a cluster of little bureaucracies. Each governmental agency, and each department inside that agency, and each division that department, has its own agenda. Call it the Will to Power. Call it the Imp of the Perverse. Whatever you call it, t

Long Beach Takes Long Way to Donwtown

Mar 1, 2001

Morris Newman, Places, Vol. 16 No. 03 Mar 2001

It seems natural, at first glance, that Long Beach would want to promote its waterfront as a resort destination. The city has miles of continuous oceanfront in a region that is starved for open views of the Pacific. Yet efforts to create a visitor-friendly waterfront have been a protracted agony of collapsed hopes and stalled-out development projects.

District Considers Public Housing for Teachers

Feb 1, 2001

Deals, Morris Newman, Vol. 16 No. 02 Feb 2001

We were driving up the coastal area of hilly San Mateo County, just north of Silicon Valley, when we saw something ahead on the shoulder of the road. When we got a little closer, we saw it was a middle-aged man wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches. He was holding up a sign: "WILL TEACH SCHOOL FOR HOUSING." While this story is fictitious, the need for affordable housing for teachers in the Bay Area is very real. Several school boards, including those in San Francisco, San Jose and M...

Mixed-Use Building Brings Life to Burbank

Jan 1, 2001

Morris Newman, Places, Vol. 16 No. 01 Jan 2001

The Swiss Army knife is the ideal present for boys, especially those from nine to eleven years old. That's the age when every boy believes that all he needs to be a consummate survivalist is his natural pluck and one of those elegant, red, compact tools bouncing jauntily on his belt. Far from a mere blade, even a fake version of the Swiss Army package contains a pair of scissors, a nail file with a screw-driver tip, tweezers and a toothpick. With a tool like this, you could fight off ...

Vallejo Scores a Housing Coup

Dec 1, 2000

Deals, Morris Newman, Vol. 15 No. 12 Dec 2000

Cognitive science has taught us that a human being cannot keep more than seven things in its mind at any given time. That figure, of course, does not apply to local governments in California, which appear unable to focus on more than one thing at a time. Perhaps we should set up a charitable organization for cities suffering from the condition known as Single-Purpose Agenda Syndrome (SPAS). I can see television ads right now featuring a bureaucrat, in short sleeves and pocket protector, looking b...

Avila Beach: Folks Plan a Town

Nov 1, 2000

Morris Newman, Places, Vol. 15 No. 11 Nov 2000

When a disaster destroys your home, there are basically two responses. You can choose to start afresh, and build an entirely new house. Or, you can rebuild the house you had before, brick by brick, because it was familiar and because you loved it. That was the dilemma facing Avila Beach, an unincorporated community San Luis Obispo County, which found itself with the rare opportunity of rebuilding after a near-total demolition. The community's decision says much about both planning and the human di...

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