Friday, July 31, 2009

California Parks in Trouble

State parks officials and nonprofit organizations scrambled Wednesday to find funding and possibly new corporate sponsors to keep as many as 100 parks and beaches open after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger slashed an additional $6.2 million out of the state parks system.

more from LA Times...

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Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Bacelona- El Carmel and Tres Turones- Why Planning Seems so Different in Barcelona




A lot of the things we have done in my classes so far has been going to see presentations that are done by municipal organizations who are in charge of the revitalization of certain areas in the city. They have told us about their plans for changing neighborhoods and improving them to make housing conditions, services, and transporation better for certain areas. One of the groups told us about 20 times that they were trying to design their city so that there would be diversity between the young people, older people, families, and the disabled. They feel that this integration is very important and makes for a healthy community. I think in a lot of these neighborhoods it's required that about 30% of the housing be public housing, which has controlled prices and ia subsidized heavily by the government. It's not a very rare thing to have really low income people living next to those who are middle class, and many private developers who own buildings are required to have public housing and controlled prices in their buildings to a certain extent by the government who pays them to do so. It's incredible to me and to others that no one protests this social housing, because in California when people try to put up affordable housing units people tend to be very upset and show up at city council meetings expressing the fact that having affordable housing in their backyards will bring crime and cause property values to drop. It's kind of amazing here that people from different income levels are able to live together in the same building without their being protest for the tenants that are not receiving help via social housing programs that have been established and funded by the government- it's a total contrast.

The pictures here are taken in an area of the city called El Carmel. It has a very difficult topography, and because it is on the outskirts of the city many people immigrated to that area and erected houses with their own two hands in order to have a place to live. (The pirate flag picture is from an area where many building were erected by the people who inhabit them, rather than by professional developers.) Because they were constucted in this manner the city doubts the safety of them. Also many of them are very very small and have poor ventilation and there are doubts about the health of living in such places. The city has a major renovation plan that will put in a new main street and has also put in several elevators and escaltors to help people reach their homes that used to require them to climb steep hills. As a result of this construction projects and also as a result of tearing down a lot of the unsafe housing people are displaced. However the city never displaces people and leaves them without a place to go. It is the law that they must be guaranteed housing in the same area, and if they chose not to be relocated they are given a lump sum of money. The brick building in the city is an example of new construction at the top of three newly installed escalators that climb the hills for you, where many people were relocated when their houses were removed in order to make such improvments to the neighborhood.

I think that the unique thing about this renovation in El Carmel is the fact that the improvements are being made to this area in order to improve the lives of the people who live there. I think that the kind of development I am used to seeing in S. Cal cities has to do with making improvements to the city in order to bring in more business and to push things along economically or even for better transporation purposes. So if they have to build public transport or a freeway through a very poor part of a city they give people money and they expect them to find a place to move to, as where here the improvements that they are making are not to bring in revenue for the city, but in this neighborhood especially they are made to help the people already living there, and if the city does have to claim eminent domain over your house or property they don't just hand people money and expect them to figure out where to go, they actually faciliate new housing facilities for the displaced.

The only thing that is suspect is that fact that so far we have talked to far more municipal workers than residents, so its hard to tell what the attitudes of the people living in these neighborhoods really is. Are they happy with the renovations? Do they feel that it is ultimately helping them or that the government is interfering to much by chasing them out of their houses into new places? Do they feel like they are being bought out or are they satisfied with the compensation and services that the city provides? When talking to those from the municipality I get these feeling that the city governments here really are doing great things for their residents, but I am excited to get out into the field next week and hear a different perspective on things. At this point, all I know is that the city's approach to working with neighborhood residents here seems to be very different from what I have seen in Orange County. Municipalities work closely with neighborhood associations in ways that appear to really impact positive changes that containa great deal of input from the residents. It's difficult for me to accept this concept after working with residents in Anaheim who are practially begging the city to accept their input. It seems that there is great benefit to the many Socialist municipalities in Barcelona- at least from the perspective of the residents who seem to have much more say in what goes on than I have seen in my experiences in Anaheim.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Water demand in Los Angeles reaches a 32-year low, DWP says

One official says the drop shows that the new water restrictions are working. Others report falling demand as well.

By Nicole Santa Cruz and David Zahniser
July 28, 2009

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power reported Monday that water demand reached a 32-year low for the month of June, dropping 11% compared with the same period in 2008.

Jim McDaniel, the senior assistant general manager of DWP's water system, said hard work by ratepayers is paying off. Though experts said June was on average 4 degrees cooler than normal, McDaniel attributed the low demand to the new water restrictions.

"You don't see those kinds of reductions just due to weather," he said.

The restrictions limit the use of sprinklers to 15 minutes a day on Mondays and Thursdays. No watering is allowed between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

The DWP released the data days after lawmakers complained that the water-saving rules are killing lawns and gardens.

Councilman Greig Smith proposed that DWP customers be permitted to use their sprinklers for up to eight minutes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.

"The twice-a-week restrictions are turning people's lawns brown, which hurts home values in our neighborhoods," he said.

Smith made his proposal Friday, the same day the council agreed to let golf courses, colleges and other large property owners water any day of the week as long as they reduce water consumption by 20%.

In Long Beach, consumers used 9.4% less water in June compared to 2008. The once-green lawns in that city have seen better days since the city imposed restrictions in September 2007, said Matthew Veeh, acting director of government and public affairs with the Long Beach Water Department.

That plan, which is monitored by citizens, restricts residents to a schedule where they can water three times each week, with a limit of 15 minutes depending on the irrigation system.

"People's lawns are definitely not looking too great at this point," Veeh said.

Instead of water-hogging grass lawns, he suggested people should consider drought-resistant landscaping, with native California plants that require less water.

June was 18.8% below the department's 10-year average from 1998 to 2007. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which supplies water to 26 agencies including Los Angeles and Long Beach, saw demand drop as well.

Compared to a six-year average from 2003 to 2008, usage in June was down 14%, the lowest since June of 2003, said Armando Acuna, a spokesman for MWD.

nicole.santacruz@latimes.com

david.zahniser@latimes.com

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Going European Style

Newport Beach foundation will offer bike-sharing in Orange County.

By Pat Brennan

Orange County Register (7/13/09)

A Newport Beach foundation will become the first to offer "European style" bikesharing in Orange County,allowing users to grab a bike at one bike station and leave it at another.

The program, meant to cut greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, begins with plenty of fanfare this weekend, with events scheduled in Newport on Friday-Monday.

"We’re trying to work with different communities to reduce the carbon footprint and traffic issues," said Alan Brandenburger, founder of the non-profit Brandenburger Foundation. "It’s a green community, kind of forward thinking on the environment, and that is what it’s all about."

The foundation is partnering with the Bixi Bike System, which has set up a similar system in Montreal.

The foundation hopes eventually to set up many bike stations around Newport, with the mobile kiosks holding seven bikes each. One demonstration station will be setup this weekend.

Users must run a credit card through a card reader to pay fees, although 30 minute rides are free. After that, fees range from $1.50 for the second 30 minutes to $6 for the fourth 30-minute period and each 30-minute period beyond that. The price increases to encourage people to use the bikes only for short increments of time.

They can also purchase 24-hour access for $5, a 30-day subscription for $28, and a 1-year subscription for $120. Memberships will be available on the program’s web site.


The bikes are automatically locked when the front wheel is placed in a dock at the bike station. Punching in a code triggers a green light and releases the bike.


The foundation will hold events to introduce the bikes at Newport Beach City Hall on Friday, Balboa Pier on Saturday, Newport Pier on Sunday and the Orange County Transportation Authority bus depot at Fashion Island on Monday morning, then at Newport Elementary School in the afternoon.

Obama Paints a New Vision for Nation's Urban Policy

By Robin Shulman
Addressing a White House urban affairs summit on Monday, President Obama called for the "reinvention" of America's cities and metropolitan areas and vowed to spark a public conversation to create a "new, imaginative, bold vision" for urban policy.

The speech was Obama's first as president dedicated to urban issues, a subject he called "near and dear to my heart."

He promised to send Cabinet members across the country this summer to engage Americans toward the creation of a national urban agenda, and he announced, for the first time in 30 years, an intensive interagency review to take a "hard look" at how federal policy impacts urban areas.

The summit was the first indication that the White House might back its newly created Office of Urban Affairs with the kind of muscle that Obama suggested during his campaign. That goal, introduced before the economic collapse, would reverse decades of federal disinterest in cities.

The meeting convened dozens of policy experts, along with mayors, county officials, governors and a half-dozen agency heads to discuss how the federal government can help build competitive, sustainable and inclusive urban areas.

Obama noted that he has lived almost all his life in cities, including studying in Los Angeles, New York and Cambridge, Mass., and founding his political career in Chicago.
But he said that he defined "urban" as not just inner cities, but also their surrounding suburbs, asserting that there is no longer a divide between the two.

"Even as we've seen many of our central cities continuing to grow in recent years, we've seen their suburbs and exurbs grow roughly twice as fast," said Obama. "It's not just our cities that are hotbeds of innovation anymore, it's our growing metropolitan areas."

He said he would send members of his Cabinet and the Office of Urban Affairs to look at innovations in cities around the country to elevate as best practices.

Obama noted Denver, for its plans to build a public transit system to handle the city's anticipated growth; Philadelphia, for its urban agriculture; and Kansas City, which has weatherized homes and built a ecologically minded transit system in one low-income neighborhood.

The president also said he has directed the Office of Management and Budget, the Domestic Policy Council, the National Economic Council, and the Office of Urban Affairs to review federal policies impacting urban areas, in terms of infrastructure, transportation, housing, energy, sustainable development and education.

Obama acknowledged that the economic crisis has caused four out of five American cities to cut services, and 48 states to face the prospects of budget deficits in the coming fiscal year. But he said the federal government must do more than just help cities weather the current economic storm -- it must figure out ways to "rebuild them on a newer, firmer, stronger foundation."

He also presented a comprehensive effort to build sustainable communities, led by the secretaries of the Departments of Housing and Urban Development and Transportation, and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

"For too long, federal policy has actually encouraged sprawl and congestion and pollution, rather than quality public transportation and smart, sustainable development," said Obama.

He said that developing housing, transportation and energy-efficiency should "go hand in hand."

Monday, July 13, 2009

Barcelona, Urban Planning, Historic Preservation, Roman (Gothic) City



We have started learning about the history of Barcelona, and one thing we learned is that because of its location it was not a major Roman city to start out with, and to make a long history short, there was a centralled walled-in Roman city. Under Spanish rule (I believe) it became larger but was heavily fortified with Spanish military and walls around the city to limit development, because the Spanish government was worried that it might be a revolutionary threat because of the differences in the Castillian and Catalonian kingdoms.

When the city became more properous, it began to develop more, but it could not develop outside of the set borders (yet) so it developed very narrow streets and was built up high. It was very dense. Living conditions became very stratified and the lower classes lived next to the bourgeosise who decided to revamp their city's history by investing lots of money into restoring what is now considered to be the Gothic part of the city...

What we learned today is that a majority of the buildings, walls, etc in the Gothic part of the city were not in the same places they are today when Barcelona really was a Roman city. Things were rearrange, building surfaces and walls were moved brick by brick to create plazas and beautiful squares to recreate the Roman history of the city... The church that is pictured above is an intesting case because it was never finished during the period it was built in, so when Barcelona started to prosper and money came into the city Barcelonians with money researched the period quite a bit, and made the outside of this Cathedral a model example of the type of architecture and design that they wanted the building to look like...

This brings up interesting questions about what is authentic and what is not, but more importantly, why a city would chose to re-CREATE this historical part of the city, which was not entirely true to real history. The lecturer today talks about how this recreation of history is a way to create cultural community and identity. In doing to the Catalonians and Barcelonians can emphasize the history that they care to, and not emphasize what they would rather forget. I suggested that it was the commercial creation of history for tourism, however it was suggested to me that the Barcelonians really needed the re-creation of this historical identity for themselves as much as it is something nice for tourists to look at... I wonder what other kinds of historical preservation movements do the same thing. How much of the history that we see is authentic, and what was researched and restored to look more periodic in order to highlight the parts of history that we want to be prominent in our cities?

As things progress I hope to learn more about the Cataloian identity that has been created in this region of Spain. Also, Barcelona is apparently one of the best models of modernist planning that has ever existed, which I am supposed to learn about tomorrow.

Interesting stuff, and great times in Spain.

2009 Board


(proper picture forthcoming)
Matt // president

Hometown
Lakewood, CA

Undergraduate School and Major
UC Riverside. Applied Mathematics.

Favorite City
To live and die in LA, it’s the place to be

Coffee or Tea
Coffee with a cigarette. Jasmine green tea to start off the day.

Currently Playing on iPod
Amazing how I listened to the Velvet Underground’s self titled LP for the first time this week. Splendid it is.

Last Item Purchased
Blockbuster video: American Graffiti, Zack and Miri

Least Favorite Planning Terminology
NIMBYism

Best Thing About Southern California
Lakers, Venice Canals, Hollywood Hills, Orange County beaches, the food, the people, going 80 on the 405 at 1 in the morning and a shitload of sunshine


Lucy // vp of external affairs

Hometown
Santa Ana, CA

Undergraduate School and Major
UCSB, Political Science

Favorite City
Guadalajara, Mexico

Coffee or Tea
COFFEE!!

Currently Playing on iPod
Manu Chao

Last Item Purchased
food...sangria..and stuff to make sangria

Least Favorite Planning Terminology
IDK LeCorbusier??

Best Thing About Southern California
King Taco!


Daniel // vp of internal affairs

Hometown
El Monte, CA

Undergrad school and major
UCI, Environmental Analysis and Design

Favorite city
Los Angeles

Coffee or tea
Tea

Currently playing on iPod
Michael Jackson- Human Nature

Last item purchased
Lunch

Least favorite planning terminology
Gentrification

Best thing about Southern California
Lakers!


Cheri // secretary

Hometown
Los Angeles, CA. Beverlywood to be specific :D

Undergrad school and major
UCLA. Art major. Want to buy a painting? I need the money :D

Favorite city
New York City. Awesome food and excellent public transportation outweighsangry and blunt people.

Coffee or tea
Coffee. Industrial strength.

Currently playing on iPod
The Killer's album Sam's Town. I can't get enough of it.

Last item purchased
An avocado bacon cheeseburger with fries and an iced tea. It was worthevery penny.

Least favorite planning terminology
Covenant. All I think about is witches and goblins. Don't know why.

Best thing about Southern California
The weather. Just wonderful


Sean // treasurer

Hometown
Alhambra, CA

Undergraduate School and Major
Cal Poly Pomona, English Lit

Favorite City
Paris to visit, Los Angeles to live

Coffee or Tea
Coffee, black.

Currently Playing on iPod
Don't have one..

Last Item Purchased
Flight of the Conchords Season 2 dvd

Least Favorite Planning Terminology
"Planning to Action"

Best Thing About Southern California
The food

Maha // communications co-chair


Hometown
BFE, Ohio

Undergraduate School and Major
The Ohio State University International Studies

Favorite City
Paris

Coffee or Tea
cafe au lait

Currently Playing on iPod
Okkervill River

Last Item Purchased
Waterloo Bridge dvd

Least Favorite Planning Terminology
high density, mixed-use, sustainability

Best Thing About Southern California
360 Days of Sunshine and Yogurtland


Ata // communications co-chair

Favorite City
Anything white.

Coffee or Tea
Anything black.

Currently Playing on iPod
Yellow House.

Last Item Purchased
I'm in the red.

Least Favorite Planning Terminology
Green.

Best Thing About Southern California
Pink's.

Ata ul Malik Khan studied Agent Orange and brownfields at Claremont McKenna College. He's pretty blue most of the time.


Sara // philanthropy co-chair

Hometown
Pa'auilo, Hawaii

Undergraduate School and Major
University of Oregon, Comparative Literature.

Favorite City
Kealakekua, Hawaii

Coffee or Tea
Tea.

Currently Playing on iPod
I have no iPod. But if I did, it would be playing Jason Aldean or Miranda Lambert

Last Item Purchased
Airline tickets to Canada

Least Favorite Planning Terminology
New new urbanism

Best Thing About Southern California
Theme parks. And things to do after 9pm.


Rosalinda // social chair

Hometown
Los Angeles, actual L.A. L.A.

Undergraduate School and Major
UC DAVIS: Native American Studies and Spanish

Favorite City
Have not toured the globe enough to determine this

Coffee or Tea
Water, but after running around Mexico City and dodging rain, coffee would be nice

Last Item Purchased
A ticket to ride Mexico City's metro

Least Favorite Planning Terminology
Cap and trade

Best Thing About Southern California
Los Angeles, The Pretty and the Gritty


Jessica // events chair

Hometown
Irvine, CA

Undergraduate School and Major
UCI, U.S. History and French

Favorite City
Paris - tons of parks and museums, and the nicest subway sustem I've ever seen

Coffee or Tea
Both...and hot chocolate too!

Last Item Purchased
I am a classical music nerd. :-P

Least Favorite Planning Terminology
Friedman

Best Thing About Southern California
Laguna Beach, Disneyland, PCH, the Getty, the food, and the weather

Shannon // philanthropy co-chair
Bonny // philanthropy co-chair
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Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Very Interesting Irvine Article

Jaci Woods is having trouble getting her neighbors to sign up for her WatchMail crime e-mail alerts. There's simply not enough crime in Irvine to warrant interest in dispatches about car burglaries, purse snatchings and stolen electronics.

Woods and her husband moved to Irvine from Virginia in 1971, the year the fledgling Orange County suburb incorporated, back when just a few thousand families were settling into sparkling new homes surrounded by ranch land. But the real estate broker worried that someday, as Irvine grew, it would succumb to big-city problems: overcrowding, traffic, noise, and escalating crime. But it hasn't.

more at the LA Times...

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Climate FAIL..Not much has changed there YET!

Developing Nations Rebuff G-8 on Curbing Pollutants
Jason Reed/Reuters

President Obama and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France during a round table session at the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, on Wednesday.

L’AQUILA, Italy — The world’s major industrial nations and newly emerging powers failed to agree Wednesday on specific cuts in heat-trapping gases by 2050, undercutting an effort to build a global consensus to fight climate change, according to people following the talks.

As President Obama arrived for three days of meetings, negotiators for the world’s 17 leading polluters dropped a proposal to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by mid-century, and emissions from the most advanced economies by 80 percent. But both the G-8 and the developing countries agreed to set a goal of stopping world temperatures from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.

The discussion of climate change was among the top priorities of world leaders as they gathered here for the annual summit meeting of the Group of 8 powers. Mr. Obama invited counterparts from China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico and others to join the G-8 here on Thursday for a parallel “Major Economies Forum” representing the producers of 80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases. But since President Hu Jintao of China abruptly left Italy to deal with unrest at home, the chances of making further progress seemed to evaporate.

The G-8 leaders were also grappling with the sagging global economy, development in Africa, turmoil in Iran, nuclear nonproliferation and other challenging issues. On Friday, Mr. Obama planned to unveil a $15 billion food security initiative by the G-8 to provide emergency and development aid to poor nations.

The failure to establish specific targets on climate change underscored the difficulty in bridging longstanding divisions between the most developed countries like the United States and developing nations like China and India. In the end, people close to the talks said, the emerging powers refused to agree to the specific emissions limits because they wanted industrial countries to commit to midterm goals in 2020, and to follow through on promises of financial and technological help.

“They’re saying, ‘We just don’t trust you guys,’ ” said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group based in the United States. “It’s the same gridlock we had last year when Bush was president.”

American officials said they still had made an important breakthrough because the G-8 countries within the negotiations agreed to adopt the 2050 reduction goals, even though the developing countries would not.

And they said a final agreement with developing countries, including China and India, to be sealed on Thursday would include important conceptual commitments by the emerging powers to begin reducing emissions and to set a target date. Now negotiators will have to try to quantifying those commitments in coming months.

While the nations mapped out a general agreement to limit global temperature change, there remained differences between the level of commitment from developed and developing nations. The G-8 draft statement would have the major industrial powers “recognize that global emissions should peak by 2020 and then be substantially reduced to limit the average increase in global temperature to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.” The statement by the developing countries would be less definitive, however, saying that scientific consensus supports such a goal.

Mr. Meyer said temperatures have already risen by 0.8 degrees and will likely rise by another 0.6 degrees just based on pollution already in the air, meaning that embracing the 2-degree goal would require major steps starting almost immediately.

While briefing reporters on Wednesday morning, Michael Froman, Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser and chief G-8 negotiator, declined to specify what would be in the two agreements, but said they would signal important progress heading toward a United Nations conference in Copenhagen in December to craft a worldwide climate change treaty.

“Our view is that it represents a significant step forward in terms of adding political momentum on the key issues to be dealt with in the U.N. process,” Mr. Froman said, “but that there is still a lot of work to be done and these are difficult issues and the negotiators will be meeting going forward to try and resolve them.”

European leaders and environmental activists have placed great hope that Mr. Obama would become a powerful new leader in the struggle against climate change after succeeding President George W. Bush, who long resisted more aggressive measures sought on this side of the Atlantic for fear of the economic impact. At a previous Group of 8 meeting, Mr. Bush agreed to a 50 percent cut in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 but not to an 80 percent reduction in those produced by industrial countries like the United States. With Mr. Obama’s support, the House recently passed legislation intended to curb emissions, although not by nearly as much as the Europeans want. And China is another challenge.

“Europe wants avant-garde legislation but China is putting up resistance, which I sampled yesterday during my one-on-one with the Chinese president,” Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, the G-8 host, told reporters Tuesday evening.

China, India and the other developing nations are upset that commitments to provide financial and technological help made during a United Nations conference in Bali, Indonesia, in 2007 have not translated into anything more tangible in the interim.

Mr. Meyer estimated that the United States, Europe and other industrial nations need to come up with $150 billion a year in assistance by 2020 to help develop clean-energy technology for developing countries, reduce deforestation that contributes to rising temperatures and help vulnerable nations adapt to changes attributed to greenhouse gases.

Elisabetta Povoledo contributed from L’Aquila, Italy, and John M. Broder from Washington.

Monday, July 6, 2009

OC Leaders chosen to lead the CAHSR Commission

That's one way to look at the news that the California High Speed Rail Authority board has a new chair and vice-chair, and they're both from Orange County. According to the press release:

the Board elected Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle to be its
chairman, replacing Judge Quentin L. Kopp who had served two terms as chairman.
Former California Assemblymember Tom Umberg was elected vice-chairman


Pringle is the former Speaker of the State Assembly, where he represented part of
Orange County for eight years during the 1990s. He was first elected Mayor of Anaheim
in 2002 and is widely recognized for his expertise in economic development, land use
planning, transportation and government finance reform. He also serves as a board
member of the Orange County Transportation Authority. “I have long believed in the value and benefit of a high speed rail system for our great state, and to be elected as chairman of the California High Speed Rail is an honor,” said Pringle. “We have a lot of work to do on the state and federal levels, but by working together great things can and will happen. This is an exciting time for high-speed rail and I look forward to future progress.”

Tom Umberg is an attorney with the law firm of Manatt, specializing in federal and state policy and regulatory matters. He was selected as one of the “Best Lawyers in America”in the field of commercial litigation. In 1995, He was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles and Orange County. Umberg was appointed Deputy Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy in 1997. He served three terms in the California Legislature, most recently between 2004 and 2006. In the state Assembly, he chaired the Environmental Safety and the Elections and Redistricting Committees.

Congrats to both Orange County leaders, we hope they will push for Orange County's role in further pursuing mass transit options!