Oakland’s open streets program has become a national model. Not because they got everything right, but because they got started and keep getting better.
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There are things we can do right now to make California less vulnerable to megafires. So why aren’t we doing them?
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2020 has thrown one challenge after another at our cities. Here are 5 effective strategies local leaders are using to adapt and respond.
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An incredible video from 1906 San Francisco—colorized and digitally remastered—depicts a time when streets were truly available for every type of user.
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The “growth machine” is too big to fail. What if it fails anyway?
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The fallout from the pandemic is spurring a housing re-shuffling in San Francisco. And not just from people fleeing the city—but people moving to the city and within the city.
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Extend the "open streets" and sidewalk dining revolution to include a fair shake for the smallest of small entrepreneurs.
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It’s an article of faith among many that big and tall buildings don’t belong around small and short buildings. But does this idea actually stand up to scrutiny?
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The trajectories of two local shopping districts—a mall built in the mid-80s, and a historic downtown—provide an object lesson on the power of the “chaotic but smart” approach to growing a city.
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In some ways, Caltrain was in a better financial position than other public transit agencies. But the pandemic—and a political turf war—have thrown its future into jeopardy.
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L.A.’s freeways—like urban freeways in many cities—have a shameful past. They’re making the city financially weaker in the present too. So what should their future be?
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New legislation to address California’s statewide housing crisis looks a lot more like successful efforts in Oregon and the city of Minneapolis. It also looks a lot more like a Strong Towns approach.
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A cautionary tale from the superheated housing market of San Francisco.
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A wealthy Bay Area suburb is resisting new development. This is raising questions not just about California’s housing crisis, but about who gets to decide a city’s housing future.
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California has the nation’s worst housing crisis. It’s also the place mired in the worst gridlock when it comes to how to respond to it.
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A street cart, food truck, or pop-up stall is the lowest possible bar to entry for an entrepreneur with a dream. As this kind of retail blossoms in our cities, let’s make sure we don’t kill the golden goose by imposing too much order on a phenomenon that thrives on a little bit of chaos.
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For many, Los Angeles embodies car-culture—and the suburban-style development, freeways, traffic jams, and pollution that go with it. But it didn’t have to be that way. Turns out, LA was never designed to be a car city.
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Are we treating the symptoms of the housing crisis, or the underlying disease?
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Eight years ago redevelopment agencies were abolished in California. Are they making a comeback...and, if so, is that a good thing? In the final podcast of 2019, Chuck Marohn is joined by Steven Greenhut and Mike Madrid for a roundtable discussion on the resurgence of these controversial agencies.
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Commuter rail stations in the San Francisco Bay Area should be some of the most valuable land in the region (and by extension, the world). So why are there so many parking lots and one-story buildings right next to them?
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