UC Irvine Urban Planning

“Heal the Bay Beach Clean Up”

2010-04-05T16:10:00.000-07:00

“Heal the Bay Beach Clean Up”

*Saturday April 17th, 2010 | 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM*

*Santa Monica Beach*

Join WTS-LA by participating in the “Heal the Bay Beach Clean Up” community
service event.

* 9am-10am - Continental Breakfast and Sign In for WTS-LA participants

Lot 1 North, 1550 Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica

* 10am-Noon - Heal the Bay Beach Clean Up

<
http://healthebay.org/calendar/eventdetails2.asp?event=2010_04_17_NBS>

Santa Monica Beach @ Tower 1550, 1600 Ocean Front Walk, Santa Monica

(see
http://healthebay.org/calendar/eventdetails2.asp?event=2010_04_17_NBS )

* Noon-1pm - Box Lunch for WTS-LA participants

FREE. Bring friends and family.

Please register on-line at http://www.wtsevents.org/chapter/la-area/ so we
can provide sufficient food and other goodies. A separate email address is
required for each person.

If you have questions or are unable to register on-line, contact Beth
Rolandson of the City of Santa Monica at Beth.Rolandson@SMGov.Net or
310-458-8298.

Summer Internships

2010-03-31T20:28:00.001-07:00

(I am forwarding this message I got..)

PolicyLink | Lifting Up What Works
(http://www.kintera.org/TR.asp?a=dhKNJ5ODI7LNIcI&s=5dLGJOOlGbIKKSPoFkG&m=ql
I3LkOWKlIbH&af=y)
Dear Clyde,

PolicyLink has a significant number of summer internships
(http://www.policylink.org/internships) this year, including one in
Washington DC and one in New York City as well as those in our Oakland
headquarters. Most, but not all, are for graduate students, and they cover
a wide range of subjects and disciplines, from health to transportation to
the use of social media for organizing. We hope you will look them over and
encourage your outstanding students to apply as soon as possible. The
internships are described on the PolicyLink website.

Thank you,

Victor Rubin

Private real estate firm buys O.C. Fairgrounds for $56.5 million

2010-01-14T11:18:00.001-08:00

Private real estate firm buys O.C. Fairgrounds for $56.5 million

Posted using ShareThis

Haiti Donations

2010-01-14T11:03:00.000-08:00

As you may know, the nation of Haiti has been devastated this week with deaths estimated to be 45,000-50,000.

There are some easy sources for which you can donate funds -- here is a brief list:
- Texting "Yele" to 501501 will donate $5 to the foundation Yele Haiti ($5 will be added to your next phone bill)
- Texting "Haiti" to 90999 will donate $10 to the Red Cross.
- You can also call 1-800-REDCROSS or visit www.redcross.org

The OC Red Cross cannot accept any physical goods right now, so the best way is money donations.

ZotWheels

2009-12-28T15:52:00.000-08:00

Membership is now open for UCI's bike sharing program, ZotWheels.

http://www.parking.uci.edu/zotwheels/main.cfm

L.A. homeowners fight the glare of digital billboards -- latimes.com

2009-12-28T15:49:00.001-08:00

L.A. homeowners fight the glare of digital billboards -- latimes.com

Posted using ShareThis

2009-12-15T09:34:00.001-08:00

The UC Irvine Urban Planning community is mourning the loss of our very own Malancha Ghosh (MURP 2009). Malancha passed away this past weekend. We ask that everyone please keep her and her family in your thoughts.

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Rethinking Green: Save the environment: Don't take transit

2009-12-14T12:15:00.000-08:00

Rethinking Green: Save the environment: Don't take transit

Goodluck in Finals Anteaters!

2009-12-07T08:35:00.000-08:00

Good Luck in Exams/Papers!!

We are developing a list of social activities for those that are going to be in the area for Xmas Break!! Hope you can join us!

-V.P's External & Internal

MURP Mentoring Volunteer Opportunity for Winter/Spring

2009-11-24T12:31:00.000-08:00

Natalie is working with an OC non-profit (Girls Inc) to set up a mentoring program with local high-school girls. The intent of the program is to encourage young people to think about what forces shape cities and the neighborhoods around them, through MURP facilitated workshops. The program will also introduce the girls to the discipline of planning and help them start thinking about college and their future careers. There will be an active component to the program as well. The girls will vote on some community activities that are important to them. Then the MURP mentors will attend those activities with the students and discuss the activities afterward.

Natalie is going to hold a meeting in early December, after the quarter ends, to start drawing together a curriculum (please send her your availability so she can choose the best meeting date). The workshops with the students will begin in the winter or spring quarter, depending on how quickly the curriculum can be put together.

This is a low-pressure involvement and a way to share the ideas you’re developing in your program with the next generation of involved citizens in the OC. You can be involved a lot or a little - whatever fits in your schedule. If you are interested in facilitating one workshop or just attending one community activity with the girls, that level of involvement is fine. Please contact Natalie if you’re even remotely interested so she can put you on her list and keep you in the communication loop. nataliea@uci.edu Thanks!

A side note: This program is not aiming to exclude the young men in the community. Girls Inc has well established ties to local schools. This was a more feasible route to go than to try to develop relationships with individual schools from the ground up. That’s the reason the program will focus on girls’ education. However, depending on how much you all want to be involved, the program has the potential to grow and include co-ed workshops as well.

Urban Oil Wells in Los Angeles

2009-11-19T09:05:00.001-08:00

UPSA Thanksgiving Potluck

2009-11-19T00:23:00.000-08:00

TUESDAY @ 6:00

Room SE 112

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Nov. 13th RBF Consulting Office Visit

2009-11-05T23:17:00.000-08:00

RBF Consulting

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Nov 14th APA Student Symposium

2009-11-05T23:15:00.000-08:00

more info here...

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MURPtastic TED TALK: Charter Cities

2009-11-04T16:07:00.001-08:00

From All About Cities:

"Why is it that in hundreds of cities around the world, average citizens can own and use cel phones every day, but don’t have electricity or running water in their homes? They have a new, 21st century technology, but not a late-19th century one. From this premise, Stanford University Economist Paul Romer develops an explanation, and then a solution in one of the most intriguing lectures I’ve watched in a long time."

http://www.chartercities.org/resources

LA Metro's Official Blog

2009-10-29T15:13:00.000-07:00

Please check out the official blog of LA Metro. It is called The Source and currently has up to date information on the new Gold Line extension opening November 15th.

http://thesource2.metro.net/

Planning Resources on Twitter

2009-10-28T10:15:00.000-07:00

Richard Florida (urbanist and economist)

LA Streets Blog (transportation news)

BLDGBLOG (architecture musings)

World Changing (green musings)

Next American City (planning magazine)

TransitRiderOC

blogdowntown

Transit Forum Nov. 12th

2009-10-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

High Speed Transit Forum
Design's Impact on High Speed Rail, Maglev Trains and Personal Rapid Transit

Thursday, November 12, 2009 6-8 P.M.
Brown Chapel, Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, California

http://www.designinnovationinstitute.org/transitforum.html

One of the most beautiful images I've seen in a while

2009-10-26T10:45:00.001-07:00

INHABITAT GREEN TALK WEBINAR with GAVIN NEWSOM, Wed. 12 pm, Rm. 306

2009-10-25T23:15:00.000-07:00

Conference Room 306 at noon. Bring lunch!

From Inhabitat:

CALLING ALL SAN FRANCISCANS & those of you who want to green your cities!

We’re interviewing San Francisco mayor GAVIN NEWSOM next Wednesday the 28th at 12pm PST, and we’re inviting YOU to join us next for this live webcast conversation with the country’s greenest mayor! Join us to find out more about groundbreaking energy projects, mandatory composting, and how San Francisco got to be the greenest city in the U.S!

As cities around the globe strive to become more sustainable, Mayor Newsom has led the charge in San Francisco towards cutting-edge transportation projects, groundbreaking initiatives in waste reduction, such as mandatory composting, and major advances in alternative energy. He’s also a forerunner in the race to be California’s next governor, which makes this a CAN’T MISS opportunity to talk with him about the future of the golden state! We’ll be interviewing Mayor Gavin Newsom next Wednesday at 12pm PST about all of these exciting projects and we want you to participate in the conversation, so sign up today!

We’ll be compiling a list of reader questions to ask Gavin, so if you have any queries about the policies, projects, and initiatives that stand to shape the sustainability of our cities, please submit them to us in the comments below, as soon as possible!

Upcoming Film Screenings

2009-10-22T17:31:00.000-07:00

The Orange County Film Society, in affiliation with the Newport Beach Film Festival, is screening two films next week that urban planners may find tantalizing:

8p,Wed., Oct 28
Documenting the City: Beijing
$10 online, Regency South Coast [map below]

Films, including documentaries, have done much to shape American and Chinese perceptions of each other. Beginning in 2006, USC and Beijing’s Communication University of China launched a program to have student filmmakers collaborate in exploring Los Angeles and Beijing. Each summer since seven students from one school have traveled to the other school and spent summer working with their counterparts to produce short documentaries on Los Angeles and Beijing as global cities. See samples of these films as USC professors Mark Jonathan Harris and Johanna Demetrakas and their students from USC present and comment the work following the screening.

View Larger Map

8p, Thurs., Oct 29
Infinite Space: The Architecture of John Lautner
Free, Orange County Museum of Art [map below]

In conjunction with The Moving Image: Scan to Screen, Pixel to Projection and H-Box, the Orange County Film Society is screening films about art, architecture, and design. This film traces the lifelong quest of visionary genius John Lautner to create "architecture that has no beginning and no end." His life was marked by innovation and inspiration, and finally monumental achievement.

View Larger Map

Leave a comment if you're interested and UPSA will arrange carpool.

Hollywood Community Studio Grand Opening 10/15

2009-10-14T07:59:00.000-07:00

The Hollywood Community Studio is a research and resource center dedicated to serving and planning with the local community of Hollywood. It is home to the Human Development Overlay Districtproject (HD-OD), which researches the physical and social changes taking place in Hollywood. The project also uses cutting-edge technology to create a multi-dimensional information base and portrait of Hollywood that will be accessible to the public. HD-OD is a project of the Environmental Simulation Center with funding from the Ford Foundation and local support by the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles.

Hollywood Community Studio

Hip-Hop's Effect on New York

2009-10-13T11:26:00.000-07:00

Joe Conzo gets misty eyed when he recalls his teenage years in the South Bronx.

In those days, taking pictures was his hobby - one which led to him photographing black and Latino youths dancing to a new type of music, with its own distinctive forms of dance and art. The scene would later be christened hip-hop.

LEED Gold Arc Award

2009-10-12T14:58:00.000-07:00

It’s UCI’s fifth new construction project to merit the U.S. Green Building Council rating

UC Irvine’s Anteater Recreation Center expansion has earned LEED NC Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high-performance green buildings. Gold certification is the second-highest rating possible, and “NC” signifies that the project met standards for new construction.

Expansion of the state-of-the-art sports and fitness complex was completed in September 2008, increasing the facility’s size from 89,000 square feet to 115,000 square feet, including 10,000 square feet for weight training, two additional activity rooms, a demonstration kitchen, and a wellness center with massage, exercise testing and Pilates reformers.

“Both functionally and energy-efficient, this new space seamlessly blends with the original building. This is a great addition to student life and a wonderful way to mark the Anteater Recreation Center’s 10-year anniversary in January 2010,” said Jill Schindele, director of campus recreation.

The project won LEED Gold certification for a number of green design and construction features, including:

Outperforming California’s Energy Code (Title 24) by 25 percent;
Obtaining more than 70 percent of the center’s electricity from renewable sources;
Using 43 percent less water (at least 96,000 gallons annually) than a conventional facility; and
Diverting 75 percent of construction waste (more than 200 tons) from landfills.

“I am delighted with this accomplishment and how well our efforts merge with UCI students’ recent Green Initiative for sustainable projects that reduce the campus’s carbon footprint,” said Manuel Gómez, vice chancellor for student affairs.

This is the fifth new construction venture at UCI to receive LEED Gold certification. Previously recognized were the Palo Verde II student apartments, the Anteater Instruction & Research Building, the Student Center and Donald Bren Hall.

“We are so pleased that our artfully and sustainably designed recreation center expansion has earned LEED Gold certification,” said Wendell Brase, vice chancellor for administrative & business services. “Our success in achieving this rating belongs to the many members of our community who gave their time, expertise and passion to this project.”

http://today.uci.edu/news/nr_leedgoldarc_090916.php

WTS-LA Upcoming Event

2009-10-11T09:32:00.000-07:00

WTS-LA upcoming Metro event “*Strategic Partnering for
Success*” at the City Club on Bunker Hill on October 29, 2009 from 5:30-7:00
pm.

Check out their website for more info

Dia De Los Muertos Event!!

2009-10-08T12:17:00.000-07:00

You have to rsvp!!

Saturday, Movie on the Lawn: The Dark Knight (PG-13) @ the Great Park

2009-10-08T08:17:00.000-07:00

This Saturday!

Free Admission.

Parking $8 (Carpool!)

Take your blanket...it's getting cold.

The Piano Staircase

2009-10-08T00:18:00.000-07:00

A very clever way to promote walking and ditch escalators.

First Fall Quarter UPSA Meeting!!

2009-10-07T11:05:00.000-07:00

Be there!

What: UPSA Meeting
Where: SE I ..it's the room next to the lab. You will hear Matt's loud voice (lol)
Why: Discuss cool stuff..like APA New Orleans. Social Events..and.Philanthropy (if you're into that)

When: TODAY at 5pm!

2010 National Planning Conference

2009-10-07T10:07:00.000-07:00

2010 National Planning Conference
Poster Presentation Proposal Submissions
Saturday, April 10 – Tuesday, April 13, 2010 • New Orleans

Deadline: October 13, 2009 (student members of APA)

Poster Presentations and Exhibits

Poster presentations highlight individual presentations on planning research, case studies, and planning projects. Members of APA and non-members of APA may submit poster presentation proposals. Student members of APA are invited to submit student poster proposals. Student posters are reviewed separately from general posters. All posters are displayed in the exhibit hall Saturday through Tuesday, with a special time on Monday for informal discussion with attendees.
APA members and APA student members should follow the instructions under "APA Members." Non-members may follow the instructions under "Non-Members of APA." Non-member students must submit by August 18 with the general poster proposals. Please read the instructions carefully.

Guidelines
Posters must be shaped for a planner and planning official audience. Here are some important tips:

Posters are educational and cannot be a promotion of a product, service, or organization.
Posters will focus on research, a case study, project, or program.
Posters are an ideal venue for single presenters or planning research.
Non-members should familiarize themselves with the APA and the work of planners before you submit; study the APA website.

10/2 Workshop!!!

2009-09-29T21:23:00.001-07:00

Being that the department's budget has been cut, class selection reduced..(greatly)..this is a great opportunity to get more technical information! ;)

**REMINDER** **Don't miss the first in the Professional Development
Series "NUTS and BOLTS" Workshops**

"Environmental Impact Assessment 101"
presented by John Kain, President, Urban Crossroads and Joan Kelly,
AICP, Managing Principal, BonTerra Consulting

Friday, October 2, 2009, 12:00 - 3:30pm
Social Ecology I, Room 306

WTS-LA Chapter Scholarship Opportunity

2009-09-25T18:35:00.000-07:00

WTS-LA SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITIES (the Orange County Chapter has something similar)

Seven College Scholarships + Qualification for International Scholarships

* $5,000, $3,000 for Graduates
* $5,000, $3,000 for Undergraduates
* $2,000 for a 1st or 2nd year Undergraduate
* $2,500 for a Graduate or Undergraduate
* $2,500 for Professional Development (Certificate Program)

REQUIREMENTS:

* Women currently enrolled in Undergraduate, Graduate Degree, or Certificate Program in a Transportation Related Field, such as Transportation Engineering, Planning, Finance, or Logistics.
* Student must be enrolled in a school in Los Angeles County or have residency in Los Angeles County
* GPA 3.0 or higher for undergraduates and GPA 3.5 or higher for graduate students.

APPLICATION DUE: Friday, October 2, 2009

Download scholarship applications from our website:
http://www.wtsinternational.org/Chapters.aspx?ID=6728

Rail Manufacturing Plant Coming to LA

2009-09-24T15:58:00.000-07:00

from the LA Times:

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority board today awarded a contract to the Italian firm AnsaldoBreda for 100 additional light-rail cars, clearing the way for a new rail manufacturing plant that the company has promised to build in downtown Los Angeles.

The decision was a victory for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has made green jobs a centerpiece of his agenda. He said the rail plant would serve as the southern anchor of his proposed clean technology corridor east of downtown.

Board members approved the $300-million deal on an 8-3 vote — with two members absent — after impassioned speeches by union workers who said many of their colleagues were out of work and losing their homes.

Art Leahy, the MTA's chief executive, had recommended against approval of the controversial deal. But at the last moment, AnsaldoBreda circulated an e-mail that provided additional financial guarantees from the firm's parent company, Finmeccanica.

—Maeve Reston at L.A. City Hall

Article Competition: Cultural Awareness and Diversity

2009-09-23T14:55:00.000-07:00

The Orange Section of California APA is awarding
$100 for an article on cultural awareness and
diversity! We are holding another competition
for the best original article regarding cultural
awareness and diversity in the planning
profession. The best article will be chosen
and published in the Orange County Planner
Newsletter and the winning writer will receive a
$100 gift card from American Express.
Cultural awareness and diversity in planning is
an important part of the planning profession.
According to our APA diversity initiative: The field
of planning is deeply rooted in advocating for
equity, reform, and justice in all communities.
APA and its members carry that tradition on
through innovative planning, programs, and
research designed to reflect America’s diversity.
If you would like to participate, write an original
article about why cultural awareness and diversity
is important to community planning or strategies
for outreaching to communities of diverse cultural
backgrounds for professional planners. Some
suggested topics that the article may be about:
Articles should be emailed no later than Thursday,
November 5, 2009, to Amy Thomas, AICP, Vice
Director of Membership at athomas@tustinca.org.

NY Times Post on New Phoenix Light Rail

2009-09-22T11:09:00.000-07:00

Among the many detractors — and they were multitudinous — who thought a light rail line in this sprawling city would be a riderless $1 billion failure was Starlee Rhoades, the spokeswoman for the Goldwater Institute, a vocal critic of the rail’s expense. “I’ve taken it,” Ms. Rhoades said, slightly sheepishly. “It’s useful.”

more here...

Oct. 3rd and 4th - Free Museum Day

2009-09-17T15:52:00.000-07:00

Many museums in LA and OC are having free admission on this weekend to promote our region's culture to the masses.

Full list of participants here

Oct 2nd - Environmental Impact Assessment 101

2009-09-17T15:14:00.000-07:00

The PPD Department will be beginning it's professional development series with a workshop on Environmental Impact Reports (EIR). This series of workshops is something that we as students have pushed for to serve as a complement to our classes. Not only will this be a great event but your attendance will show the department our appreciation for making this happen.

Speaking will be Joan Kelly, managing principal of Bonterra Consulting and John Kain, president of Urban Crossroads.

12pm - 3:30 pm, SE 307

Oct 3rd - Green Port Fest

2009-09-17T15:08:00.000-07:00

The Port of Long Beach is hosting a Green Festival on October 3rd.

Please see link for more details.

http://www.polb.com/community/portfest/default.asp

OC Restaurant Week Sept 13-19

2009-09-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

More than 100 restaurants across Orange County’s vast dining landscape are ready to dish up amazing food at fantastic prices during Orange County’s most anticipated culinary event.

From all corners of the county this foodie celebration provides OC locals the opportunity to indulge in a selection of specially priced prix fixe menus from over 100 of Orange County’s best Restaurants. These menus showcase some of the region’s most talented chefs who have personalized each menu to reflect their culinary style. The prix fixe menus are priced at $10, $15 and $20 per person for lunch, and $20, $30 or $40 per person for dinner.

The only thing to make for dinner during Restaurant Week is reservations! This is the time for food lovers to try new places, get groups of friend and dine out and just really enjoy a week of fabulous dining. Start planning your week of dining out.

more info here...

Pretend City

2009-09-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

Pretend City Children's Museum in Irvine

But where's the pretend blight, pretend hookers, pretend traffic of a real city? And the pretend chests of OC housewives?

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Panic on the Streets of London?

2009-09-02T14:27:00.001-07:00

As an attempt to reduce congestion, the city of London will turn on street lights in a certain area around town and film traffic for several weeks.

Doing so will supposedly cause more drivers to be more cautious.

more at NY Times...

LA Times ARTIC Critique

2009-09-01T14:07:00.001-07:00

The role that train travel plays in the American popular imagination is an increasingly contradictory one these days, somehow deeply nostalgic and symbolic of the future at the same time.

Getting from one city to another by train remains a thoroughly romanticized exercise — a humane relic of a more cosmopolitan and energy-efficient era in transportation. And yet trains have also become a key component of efforts by young planners, architects and politicians to re-imagine or revivify American urbanism, with separate piles of federal and state funds — in California’s case, nearly $10 billion — already earmarked for a network of new high-speed rail links.

more from LA Times...

Mobility 21

2009-09-01T14:04:00.000-07:00

Southern California is at a crossroads. We have a once-in-a-generation
opportunity to shape our transportation future, escape gridlock, protect our
environment and improve our quality of life.

However, without champions for transportation in the state and federal legislatures, and without a vision of how we can achieve this 21st century transportation network, we will be left with a system that does not meet our needs.

Sustainable, innovative solutions are on the horizon, funding reforms are being considered and regional cooperation is improving the way our transportation network serves residents and commerce alike. What’s missing is a groundswell of support for investing the needed capital and the flexibility for implementing these innovations.

On September 21, 2009 join transportation providers, businesses, elected officials and others to develop Mobility 21’s action plan to advocate for Southern California’s transportation future in Sacramento and Washington, D.C.

National Comm Garden This Week

2009-08-24T10:13:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6, 2009 - Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today encouraged Americans to connect with the land, the food it grows and their local communities by proclaiming August 23-29, National Community Gardening Week. A community garden is an opportunity to educate everyone about from where food comes, whether that is a Farmers Market or a garden, and is important to increasing generations of healthy eaters. Community gardens can be anywhere whether it is in the country, a city or a suburb. It can be one community plot or can be many individual plots.

more here...

Re: LA Times Article on OCTA

2009-08-20T10:53:00.000-07:00

Click here for article

This piece just lacks any real merit about transportation in Orange County. It basically restates the obvious: the state is in extreme peril fiscally and public transit in OC suffers in a down economy. Why not talk about the hiring of new CEO Will Kempton who leads by example by taking public transit to work. What about OCTA's ARCTIC initiative -- which has the potential to be a the primary nexus in Southern California mass transit and long range traveling with plans to connect to Las Vegas through high speed rail.

Just because LA Metro garners all the glitz and glamour of "subways to the sea" and "Look new turnposts! We're just like New York now right?" does not mean the rest of So. California transportation is going through a downward spiral. Everyone is hurting right now -- bad journalism just falls into the constraints of bad taste. Everyone knows that OC will be automobile-friendly for quite some time -- if better information, however, were passed along then maybe a few more people would realize that strides are being taken to improve major issues.

Research/Perspectives from UCI Planning Policy Design Faculty & Students

2009-08-18T09:52:00.000-07:00

Calling Skid Row Home:

UCI's Mike Powe studies ways to make Los Angeles district inclusive, viable community

"Mike is highly committed to conducting research that will guide policy and planning decision-making," wrote Kristen Day, UCI planning, policy & design professor, in a nomination letter for Powe. "He regularly moves beyond concern about issues to take constructive action."

By interviewing loft residents, the homeless, business owners, real estate developers, social service providers, Los Angeles officials and police officers, Powe hopes to identify the diverse demographics of Skid Row. He also is reviewing city policies, loft marketing materials and media reports to understand how the various interests coexist.

One way to improve the quality of life for all Skid Row residents, he says, is through more consistent services dealing with the neighborhood's trash. Often, trash ends up in the streets due to a simple lack of waste bins. And some social service agencies that deliver food to Skid Row leave the cleanup to residents.

"It's not as if the poor want to live with garbage strewn all over the sidewalks," says Powe. "There are simply not that many trash cans and even fewer people paid to empty them."

He wants to shape a future in which longtime Skid Row residents and loft dwellers work together for the common good.

"The area has the potential to develop into a sustainable, viable and diverse community," Powe says. "In such a neighborhood, people can live different lives but, ultimately, look out for each other."

In Los Angeles' Skid Row district, homeless camps, shelters and drug treatment centers share the streets with trendy restaurants and shops. Upscale lofts symbolize the neighborhood transformation underway in an area marked by poverty and blight.

This dynamic fascinates Michael Powe, UC Irvine planning, policy & design doctoral candidate, who heads a project to recommend development and policies to city officials and businesses that would foster economic diversity on Skid Row. This spring he won a $10,000 Public Impact Fellowship from UCI's Graduate Division that supports students whose research could have significant local, national or global benefit.

Research/Perspectives from UCI Planning Policy Design Faculty & Students

2009-08-18T09:48:00.000-07:00

For almost 20 years, Marlon Boarnet has studied the links between land use and transportation networks - research generally of interest only to policy wonks.

But the UC Irvine professor of planning, policy & design and economics noticed a change over the past year. "The nation is looking to planners for serious answers," he says. "There's a sense of urgency right now that I haven't felt in my entire career."

Boarnet relishes the current debate over how to use $787 billion in economic stimulus funds to improve U.S. roads and communities. In addition, efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions raise the prospect of rethinking the transportation system, he says.

To articulate some of the planning community's ideas, Boarnet recently co-wrote and edited Transportation Infrastructure: The Challenges of Rebuilding America, published by the American Planning Association.

In the mid-20th century, transportation planning meant building an interstate highway system to move people and goods around the country. Today, environmental and quality-of-life issues dominate the field.

"Given the current economic situation, infrastructure investment is a sensible short-term stimulus tool," says Boarnet, "but we need to be careful that programs are consistent with environmental sustainability."

He believes investing in crowded metropolitan areas should be a priority. "We need to build cities differently so people drive less and walk more," Boarnet says. Local incentives such as fixing sidewalks and offering rebates for electric vehicles can also affect mobility, he says.

Examples of smart land use and transportation planning, Boarnet says, include the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor of subway stations and mixed commercial/residential development in Arlington, Va., and the light-rail system and downtown redevelopment in Portland, Ore. Both projects have led to increases in pedestrian traffic and public transit use.

"The truth is that we don't have a lot of good examples, and each one is context-specific," Boarnet says. "We need to recognize the potential in areas like Irvine's Great Park or the Platinum Triangle in Anaheim for mixed commercial/residential development, and we should encourage cities to experiment with such concepts as neighborhood electric vehicles and car sharing."

Overhauling America's infrastructure will require patience, he cautions: "It takes a minimum of 30 years for transportation and land use planning to have an impact in communities."

But the time to start, Boarnet says, is now: "The current economic and environmental crises have focused people's attention, and hopefully one outcome will be a transportation system that is greener and more efficient and that responds to the needs of the future."

— Laura Rico, University Communications

Resurrecting the Rustbelt

2009-08-13T17:26:00.000-07:00

Last year, Forbes compiled a list of the ten fastest dying cities in the United States. Shockingly, they're sprinkled across the midwest. Seems like the mayors of those cities weren't too thrilled with having their municipalities relegated to intensive care, so they banded together to create Ten Living Cities. Wall Street journal reports on the double-quintet's meeting to save their cities:

Here's an idea for saving Rust Belt cities: Tell bloggers and radio stations to stop calling your town a basket case.

That was one suggestion from representatives of eight of the 10 cities labeled last year as America's fastest dying. They met at the Dayton Convention Center last weekend to swap ideas about how to halt the long skid that's turned cities like Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo, N.Y., into shorthand for dystopia.

Can't say all of their dialog was terribly productive or revelatory, but it's a start. One sound point they unanimously make: how you pitch a city is just as important as how you plan it.

APA LA Green Building Tour

2009-08-11T12:01:00.000-07:00

Mark your calendars for a free APA Los Angeles event: a walking tour of Green Buildings and Sustainable Development in Santa Monica on Saturday, September 19th.

Program: APA Green Building Tour
Date: Saturday, September 19, 2009, 10 AM, Starting at Santa Monica Pier

The walking tour will visit several green building sites in downtown Santa Monica. At each tour site, the City's Green Building Program Advisor will review the green features of the site including innovative technologies and design strategies. The City has an internal policy that all City buildings achieve LEED Silver certification. We will visit several LEED certified buildings and the tour will include an overview of LEED and other green building rating systems. The discussion will also include background on the City's green building code requirements, and how they work in concert with other elements of the Santa Monica Sustainable City Plan to promote high performance buildings, sustainable growth, and improved quality of life in Santa Monica.

The event is FREE to APA members and $15 for non-members. We are applying for CM credit for this event. You must RSVP for this event as space is limited. Please RSVP to Gabriela Juarez via email (gabriela.juarez@lacity.org) by Friday, September 11, 5 pm.

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Mayor Newsom in Orange County

2009-08-07T16:12:00.000-07:00

Please join OC Dems for a townhall and reception.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Come to the townhall and hear from Mayor Newsom about his plans to put California on a better track!

Orange County Town Hall

Tuesday, August 11

6:00pm

Santa Ana College - Johnson Campus Building

1530 W. 17th Street, Santa Ana, CA 92706

RSVP to rsvp@gavinnewsom.com or (415) 962-4532

For more information, please visit
www.gavinnewsom.com

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“Civil Disobedience Mobilizes People”

2009-08-07T07:19:00.000-07:00

Here's a great lecture PhD student Danny Olmos emailed me, Mike Davis. "For months it felt like the people of California held their collective breath, until state lawmakers hammered out a budget package that the Governor signed. Mike Davis held neither his breath nor his tongue. He talks about the economic crisis, Democrat lawmakers, and Left organizing."

Justice is Served!!

2009-08-07T07:17:00.000-07:00

Let us celebrate and continue working towards equality

Yesterday Sonia Sotomayor, a qualified Latina was confirmed to serve as Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. We are witness to history; let us seize this moment of celebration to acknowledge that our work is to ensure all of us are prepared to serve our country. Let us work to ensure all of our youth are educated so that our democracy is protected. And let us rejoice that another glass ceiling has been shattered for Latinas. The confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor should be a call to service and action for all of us to continue our work for justice and equality in the United States.

Possible Professional Report Topics

2009-08-04T17:32:00.000-07:00

We're in the thick of summer break--a great time to peel your body from the couch, turn off Entourage, and think about the Professional Report. You already spent 42 seconds drafting a half-assed proposal to Day, so another five minutes of deliberation while waiting for an oil change couldn't hurt. While you sort out an advisor and client, might I suggest a few notable topics that would be worth spending a few quarters slaving over? Or do you really care about digitizing Irvine's General Plan that much?

Possible Professional Report Topics

"LEED-OG: Greening the 'Hood"

"The Wire(less): Establishing Free Public Wi-Fi for the California
State Prison System"

"Why Can't We Be Friends? An efficient planning model for a single
Mixed-Use Pedestrian-Oriented Development housing the Mexican American
Museum, Museum of Tolerance, Native American Art Museum, Museum of
Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Huntington Library, and
California Science Center, in Victorville"

"A Cost Benefit Analysis for Replacing Diamond Signs on Carpool Lanes
with Various Emoticons ;)"

"Applying Chemical Engineering Principles for the Remote Detonation
of the Last Remaining Public Phones in Garden Grove"

"Not Just Another Brick in the Wall: Strategies for Creating a Wall
Dividing North and South Orange County Using Recyclable and
Biodegradable Materials"

"Morality Impact Analysis for Proposed Gentleman's Club in Lake
Forest"

"Where You At? A GIS Training Manual for Southern California Drug
Cartels"

"Relieving Traffic Congestion along the Culver/Newport Coast Drive
Corridor"

"A Framework for Achieving Historic Landmark Designation for Long
Beach*s Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles"

"Three People Like This: Strategies for Suppressing User Comments and
Ratings on Developer-Posted YouTube Videos and Facebook links."
_ _

In another post, I'll lay out some cool clients that wouldn't mind taking on such disparate topics (or at least agreeing to paste your photo on the "Company Outreach" section of their website). In the meantime, you might want to start asking around here, here, and here.

California Parks in Trouble

2009-07-31T10:56:00.000-07:00

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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Another List

2009-07-29T16:22:00.000-07:00

Up and coming Canadian cities

Best Cities for Singles

2009-07-29T16:18:00.000-07:00

Pretty obvious in my opinion:

http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/best-cities-for-singles-2009.html

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

2009-07-28T16:33:00.000-07:00

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.

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

2009-07-27T22:14:00.000-07:00

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

For the Aquatic Planner in You

2009-07-25T20:25:00.001-07:00

Dumpster Pool Party

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Going European Style

2009-07-14T22:34:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-14T22:32:00.000-07:00

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."

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

2009-07-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

(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

Very Interesting Irvine Article

2009-07-08T22:43:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-07-08T18:20:00.000-07:00

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.

OC Leaders chosen to lead the CAHSR Commission

2009-07-06T19:41:00.000-07:00

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!

President Obama: ''Honduras coup was not legal''

2009-06-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

Obama says Honduras coup illegal

US President Barack Obama has described the removal of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya as illegal.

His remarks came after left-wing Latin American leaders declared their support for the deposed leader, who was expelled by the military on Sunday.

In Honduras, pro-Zelaya protestors have been demonstrating in the country's capital, Tegucigalpa.

Mr Zelaya's removal followed a power struggle over his plans for constitutional change.

The BBC's Stephen Gibbs in Tegucigalpa says all day hundreds of pro-Zelaya protesters have been taunting the thousands of soldiers deployed around the presidential residence, accusing them of taking part in a "criminal coup".

The ousted president, who was in office since 2006, had wanted to hold a referendum that could have led to an extension of his non-renewable four-year term in office.

Expulsion condemned

Polls for the vote were due to open early on Sunday, but instead troops stormed the presidential palace at dawn, detained Mr Zelaya and flew him to Costa Rica.

The military, Congress and the Supreme Court in the Central American nation had all opposed Mr Zelaya's referendum.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (right) and Nicaragua's leader Daniel Ortega in Managua. Photo: 28 June 2009
We cannot allow a return to the past, we will not permit it
President Hugo Chavez

In pictures: President ousted
Profile: Manuel Zelaya
Q&A: Honduras crisis

Our correspondent says that even though the international community regards the exiled leader as the legitimate leader of the country, any comeback will not be easy.

Speaking after a meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, Mr Obama said Mr Zelaya remained the democratically-elected leader of Honduras.

And he said a "terrible precedent" would be set if the coup were not reversed.

Earlier on Monday, speaking in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez spelled out his opposition to the situation in Honduras.

"We cannot allow a return to the past. We will not permit it," Mr Chavez said.

He spoke after talks with Mr Zelaya, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.

'Voracious elite'

After turning up in Costa Rica on Sunday, Mr Zelaya called his ouster a plot "by a very voracious elite, an elite which wants only to keep this country [Honduras] isolated, in an extreme level of poverty".

In Tegucigalpa protestors defied a curfew order between Sunday night and Monday morning, imposed by Mr Micheletti.

As Speaker of Congress, Mr Micheletti had been the next in line to the presidency. His swearing-in was greeted with applause in Congress.

In a speech, he said that he had not assumed power under the "ignominy" of a coup d'etat.

The army had complied with the constitution, he said, and he had reached the presidency "as the result of an absolutely legal transition process".

Congress said he would serve until 27 January, when Mr Zelaya's term had been due to expire.

Presidential elections are planned for 29 November and Mr Micheletti promised these would go ahead.

Coup in HONDURAS!!!!!!

2009-06-28T19:09:00.000-07:00

I did not think coups happened now a days..apparently that's not the case in third world countries..like just happened in Honduras!! What is frightening is the Honduran coup connection with Hugo Chavez and we all know he feels about the US!!

Here's a recap of what happened:

As of 11:15am Sunday June 28, 2009, Caracas time, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was speaking live on Telesur from San Jose, Costa Rica. He verified that soldiers entered his residence in the early morning hours, firing guns and threatening to kill him and his family if he resisted the coup. He was forced to go with the soldiers who took him to an air base and flew him to Costa Rica. He has requested the U.S. Government make a public statement condemning the coup; noting that no statement would indicate its compliance.

zelaya said that he has not resigned and that until his term ends in 2010 he remains president of Honduras. The Honduran Foreign Minister and the ambassadors to Honduras from Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua were detained by the military. The ambassadors, after suffering physical mistreatment by the military, were reportedly set free but the Foreign Minister, Patricia Rodas, remained in military custody.

Call the White House comment line at (202) 456-1111
Upload a message to the President at http://www.whitehouse.gov./contact/
Call the State Department comment line at (202) 647-4000

This is an excellent recap of the events:

OBAMA’S FIRST COUP D’ETAT
President Zelaya of Honduras has just been kidnapped
By Eva Golinger 28 June 2009

Caracas, Venezuela - The text message that beeped on my cell phone this morning read “Alert, Zelaya has been kidnapped, coup d’état underway in Honduras, spread the word.” It’s a rude awakening for a Sunday morning, especially for the millions of Hondurans that were preparing to exercise their sacred right to vote today for the first time on a consultative referendum concerning the future convening of a constitutional assembly to reform the constitution. Supposedly at the center of the controversary is today’s scheduled referendum, which is not a binding vote but merely an opinion poll to determine whether or not a majority of Hondurans desire to eventually enter into a process to modify their constitution.

Such an initiative has never taken place in the Central American nation, which has a very limited constitution that allows minimal participation by the people of Honduras in their political processes. The current constitution, written in 1982 during the height of the Reagan Administration’ s dirty war in Central America, was designed to ensure those in power, both economic and political, would retain it with little interference from the people. Zelaya, elected in November 2005 on the platform of Honduras’ Liberal Party, had proposed the opinion poll be conducted to determine if a majority of citizens agreed that constitutional reform was necessary. He was backed by a majority of labor unions and social movements in the country. If the poll had occurred, depending on the results, a referendum would have been conducted during the upcoming elections in November to vote on convening a constitutional assembly. Nevertheless, today’s scheduled poll was not binding by law.

In fact, several days before the poll was to occur, Honduras’ Supreme Court ruled it illegal, upon request by the Congress, both of which are led by anti-Zelaya majorities and members of the ultra-conservative party, National Party of Honduras (PNH). This move led to massive protests in the streets in favor of President Zelaya. On June 24, the president fired the head of the high military command, General Romeo Vásquez, after he refused to allow the military to distribute the electoral material for Sunday’s elections. General Romeo Vásquez held the material under tight military control, refusing to release it even to the president’s followers, stating that the scheduled referendum had been determined illegal by the Supreme Court and therefore he could not comply with the president’s order. As in the Unted States, the president of Honduras is Commander in Chief and has the final say on the military’s actions, and so he ordered the General’s removal. The Minister of Defense, Angel Edmundo Orellana, also resigned in response to this increasingly tense situation.

But the following day, Honduras’ Supreme Court reinstated General Romeo Vásquez to the high military command, ruling his firing as “unconstitutional’ . Thousands poured into the streets of Honduras’ capital, Tegucigalpa, showing support for President Zelaya and evidencing their determination to ensure Sunday’s non-binding referendum would take place. On Friday, the president and a group of hundreds of supporters, marched to the nearby air base to collect the electoral material that had been previously held by the military. That evening, Zelaya gave a national press conference along with a group of politicians from different political parties and social movements, calling for unity and peace in the country.

As of Saturday, the situation in Honduras was reported as calm. But early Sunday morning, a group of approximately 60 armed soldiers entered the presidential residence and took Zelaya hostage. After several hours of confusion, reports surfaced claiming the president had been taken to a nearby air force base and flown to neighboring Costa Rica. No images have been seen of the president so far and it is unknown whether or not his life is still endangered.

President Zelaya’s wife, Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, speaking live on Telesur at approximately 10:00am Caracas time, denounced that in early hours of Sunday morning, the soldiers stormed their residence, firing shots throughout the house, beating and then taking the president. “It was an act of cowardness”, said the first lady, referring to the illegal kidnapping occuring during a time when no one would know or react until it was all over. Casto de Zelaya also called for the “preservation” of her husband’s life, indicating that she herself is unaware of his whereabouts. She claimed their lives are all still in “serious danger” and made a call for the international community to denounce this illegal coup d’etat and to act rapidly to reinstate constitutional order in the country, which includes the rescue and return of the democratically elected Zelaya.

Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela have both made public statements on Sunday morning condeming the coup d’etat in Honduras and calling on the international community to react to ensure democracy is restored and the constitutional president is reinstated. Last Wednesday, June 24, an extraordinary meeting of the member nations of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), of which Honduras is a member, was convened in Venezuela to welcome Ecuador, Antigua & Barbados and St. Vincent to its ranks. During the meeting, which was attended by Honduras’ Foreign Minister, Patricia Rodas, a statement was read supporting President Zelaya and condenming any attempts to undermine his mandate and Honduras’ democratic processes.

Reports coming out of Honduras have informed that the public television channel, Canal 8, has been shut down by the coup forces. Just minutes ago, Telesur announced that the military in Honduras is shutting down all electricity throughout the country. Those television and radio stations still transmitting are not reporting the coup d’etat or the kidnapping of President Zelaya, according to Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas. “Telephones and electricity are being cut off”, confirmed Rodas just minutes ago via Telesur. “The media are showing cartoons and soap operas and are not informing the people of Honduras about what is happening”. The situation is eerily reminiscent of the April 2002 coup d’etat against President Chávez in Venezuela, when the media played a key role by first manipulating information to support the coup and then later blacking out all information when the people began protesting and eventually overcame and defeated the coup forces, rescuing Chávez (who had also been kidnapped by the military) and restoring constitutional order.

Honduras is a nation that has been the victim of dictatorships and massive U.S. intervention during the past century, including several military invasions. The last major U.S. government intervention in Honduras occurred during the 1980s, when the Reagain Administration funded death squads and paramilitaries to eliminate any potential “communist threats” in Central America. At the time, John Negroponte, was the U.S. Ambassador in Honduras and was responsible for directly funding and training Honduran death squads that were responsible for thousands of disappeared and assassinated throughout the region.

On Friday, the Organization of American States (OAS), convened a special meeting to discuss the crisis in Honduras, later issuing a statement condemning the threats to democracy and authorizing a convoy of representatives to travel to OAS to investigate further. Nevertheless, on Friday, Assistant Secretary of State of the United States, Phillip J. Crowley, refused to clarify the U.S. government’s position in reference to the potential coup against President Zelaya, and instead issued a more ambiguous statement that implied Washington’s support for the opposition to the Honduran president. While most other Latin American governments had clearly indicated their adamant condemnation of the coup plans underway in Honduras and their solid support for Honduras’ constitutionally elected president, Manual Zelaya, the U.S. spokesman stated the following, “We are concerned about the breakdown in the political dialogue among Honduran politicians over the proposed June 28 poll on constitutional reform. We urge all sides to seek a consensual democratic resolution in the current political impasse that adheres to the Honduran constitution and to Honduran laws consistent with the principles of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.”

As of 10:30am, Sunday morning, no further statements have been issued by the Washington concerning the military coup in Honduras. The Central American nation is highly dependent on the U.S. economy, which ensures one of its top sources of income, the monies sent from Hondurans working in the U.S. under the “temporary protected status” program that was implemented during Washington’s dirty war in the 1980s as a result of massive immigration to U.S. territory to escape the war zone. Another major source of funding in Honduras is USAID, providing over US$ 50 million annually for “democracy promotion” programs, which generally supports NGOs and political parties favorable to U.S. interests, as has been the case in Venezuela, Bolivia and other nations in the region. The Pentagon also maintains a military base in Honduras in Soto Cano, equipped with approximately 500 troops and numerous air force combat planes and helicopters.

Foreign Minister Rodas has stated that she has repeatedly tried to make contact with the U.S. Ambassador in Honduras, Hugo Llorens, who has not responded to any of her calls thus far. The modus operandi of the coup makes clear that Washington is involved. Neither the Honduran military, which is majority trained by U.S. forces, nor the political and economic elite, would act to oust a democratically elected president without the backing and support of the U.S. government. President Zelaya has increasingly come under attack by the conservative forces in Honduras for his growing relationship with the ALBA countries, and particularly Venezuela and President Chávez. Many believe the coup has been executed as a method of ensuring Honduras does not continue to unify with the more leftist and socialist countries in Latin America.

Transportation Reauthorization

2009-06-18T21:16:00.001-07:00

Oberstar: No Delay for Transportation Bill
R.G. Edmonson | Jun 19, 2009 1:15AM GMT
The Journal of Commerce Online - News Story

House transport leaders reject Obama bid to delay reauthorization 18 months

Leaders of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee vowed June 18 to push forward with a new surface transportation bill despite a call from the Obama administration to put the process on hold for 18 months.

Rep. James L. Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the transportation committee, declared the proposed delay “unacceptable.”

“That puts a Damocles sword of uncertainty over the future of transportation,” Oberstar said at a news conference to introduce a detailed outline of a bill he hopes will overhaul nation's transportation policy and restructure the Department of Transportation. Committee work on the Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009 will begin next week.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood proposed delaying the launch of a new six-year transportation spending bill during a meeting with Oberstar on Wednesday. In lieu of a new bill, the administration would support existing programs at their current level.

A delay would cause states to steer federal money, including the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, into small transportation projects instead of bold, multi-year efforts that would improve the infrastructure, Oberstar said.

“Delay causes uncertainty, will restrict the scope of projects, and when the stimulus money runs out, states will have to act under their 80-20 programs,” Oberstar said. “We have the prospect of creating 6 million new jobs over the six years of this program, or lose a million jobs with delays.”

Oberstar said that forming transportation policy is within Congress' purview. He left the door open for further negotiations on the bill with the DOT and White House.

“We are an independent body of government co-equal with the executive branch, and its partner,” Oberstar said. “If that partnership is going to change the future of transportation, they have to come and talk to us.”

“We are committed to work together in a bipartisan fashion. We are ready to go forward together come hell or high water,” said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., the ranking Republican on the transportation committee.

Mica stressed the importance of the bill for jobs creation, and said the administration's apparent unwillingness to move forward is not a impediment.

“Never underestimate Oberstar and Mica,” Mica said. “They underestimated us on water resources. My administration underestimated us on passage of Amtrak reform."

Last year Congress overwhelmingly voted to override President Bush's veto of the Water Resources Development Act, which authorizes Army Corps of Engineers projects ranging from channel dredging for ports, to flood control in upland rivers. Mica noted it was only the 107th time in history that
Congress has approved a bill over a presidential veto.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the subcommittee on highways and transit, denounced the administration's delaying tactics. He said every day of delay means another day that the government denies the public the transportation system it deserves.

“Now the administration is saying the status quo is just fine,” DeFazio said. “A D-minus transportation system is good enough for us.”

DeFazio said that members of Congress facing re-election in 2012 would be unwilling to adopt legislation to overhaul “a department that's dysfunctional, that delivers process, not product.” He predicted that instead of 18 months, it could take up to four more years before Congress would take up transportation reform again.

Contact R.G. Edmonson at bedmonson@joc.com.

Political Turmoil in Iran

2009-06-18T08:52:00.000-07:00

Iran has seen political unrest since the results of the election last week. The conservative president, Mahmoud Ahmadinjad, was declared the winner of Friday's election with 63 percent of the votes. Iranian leaders have failed to halt the second day of massive protests in the streets of Iran. Protesters are protesting the results of the elections claiming there was fraud involved in the voting process. Supporters of the opposition presidential candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi want a recount. Supports gathered in a line a mile long marched mostly in silence carrying signs and asking, "Where is my vote?"

On Monday, hundreds of thousands Iranians joined the largest public demonstration since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Seven protestors have been killed many uncensored images have been broadcasted around the world through various websites. The dire situation in Iran had received international attention. In Washington, President Obama is concerned about the election in Iran but said that it would be counterproductive to meddle in the disputed election. The government of Iran is trying to limit damage by cracking down on electronic media by threatening to block social mediums such as twitter and facebook, arresting many journalist, ordering foreign journalist not to report on the streets and sending many of them home. Supporters of President Ahmadinejad about 10,000 of them marched through Tehran chanting, "Rioters should be executed!" On Tuesday, many websites posted a video that purported to show the death of a student in Isfahan in a shooting by a pro-government militia members. Moreover, other videos showed bleeding demonstrators from Tehran after the large protest on Monday. The government has continued its violence against its citizens protesting the election. The government arrested more than 100 politicians and activists on Sunday. Some have been released. The supreme religious leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met with the four presidential candidates urging unity and peace but did not address the protestors' demands for a new election.

The situation in Iran is difficult for the establishment to admit to the fraud because it would undermine the legitimacy of the government. There is no legal solution to the dilemma. Even the national football team has shown its support despite it being controlled by the government. During the game with South Korea the national football team, demonstrated their surprised defiance by wearing bright green ribbons supporting the oppositional party.

The turmoil has turned into a struggle over the balance of power in Iran. The fight for power is a symbolic struggle taking place on the streets of Tehran. Opposition supporters are defiant and have flouted the government's warning to have silent protests. Mr. Ahmadinejad's appeal has been to the mass poor and he has built a strong base and relationship among the military. Critics fear that he will turn Iran into a medieval Islamic-esq place and a militant North Korean environment. Which is highly conflictual since most of Iran is a diverse, sophisticated, and modern society. Iran has a a long complicated history in its leadership and it is unlikely for it to be easily and quickly resolved.

What should Iran do? Have re-elections? Should the International community get involved?

Gentrification Exposed

2009-06-15T16:56:00.000-07:00

I am a huge, die-hard, bleed purple-and-gold Laker fan. Any victory amounts to joy in my eyes, so as you can imagine, Sunday night was that multiplied over and over. With that said, what I saw last night in Downtown Los Angeles amidst a time of celebration was appalling and ridiculous.

It was refreshing to see the streets of the (still) redeveloping downtown filled with pedestrians and, in general, sentiments of a lively urban atmosphere. That novelty quickly wore off, however, when I witnessed a swarm of young male Laker “fans” loot a convenience store. Several minutes later, I walked by a flaming trash bin and a damaged and broken-into Acura TL.

These things were already expected given the nature of the 2000 championship victory which I remember being more absurd. However I thought of the bigger picture as LAPD mobilized on the corner of Olive and 8^th – gentrification.

Did gentrifying cause this? Or would more gentrification prevent this kind of behavior?

As one may know, the demographic of those participating this night were not of the same realm in which the South Park neighborhood is targeting as residents. Many of these individuals clearly crossed the (literal and figurative) boundaries of the 110 and 10. I am not saying rowdy behavior is always typical of South LA residents, but flooding the streets this night also happened in West Hollywood on Santa Monica Blvd – were stolen Gatorade bottles being thrown at squad cars over there? Probably not.

What I am trying to understand is that Staples Center, LA Live and the LA Lakers are world class elements meant to signify the character of a world class city. They are physically present within the outskirts of the most Tenderloin-esque part of town. The Lakers are meant for everyone. Everyone does embrace this team as any city should – it is their amenities that do not embrace the surroundings. The Lakers are an amenity to the city as whole, but their amenities are not for everyone.

Part of the reason these amenities exist are because this team provides a solid socioeconomic foundation for them. Furthermore, it is quite an anomaly for people who support the team to then have the desire to destruct what is there. I gathered a sense that people realize this and react accordingly. Unfortunately, this is spatial inequality that still exists and must be addressed.

Nostalgia

2009-06-10T12:51:00.000-07:00

Simply awesome:

Zack Morris returns

Job Tips for Recent Graduates and New Planners

2009-06-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of APA

* Read APA's Career Development pages, which offer a comprehensive review of the planning profession.
* Contact the administrator of your college planning program administrator and all of your planning instructors. Ask them for help and referrals. Your alma mater's planning program has a vested interest in seeing that its grads get jobs because placement is a measure of student assessment and achievement.
* Before you start looking for a full-time position, try to build up a well rounded body of experience — which is attractive to potential employers — by working at several varied internships and at least one short-term job.
* Take advantage of the networking opportunities and other resources offered by your local APA chapter.
* Post your resume for free at Jobs Online. Interested employers can see it once they have posted a vacancy. Note: This service is available to APA members only.
* Every APA National Planning Conference offers an onsite Job Connection service in addition to sessions, facilitated discussions, workshops, and even mobile workshops for new planners. Several of these programs at the 2009 conference in Minneapolis focused on careers and jobs. One of them — the Career Planning Roundtable — was recorded in a Digital Capture format and may be purchased online for $40. Consider attending the 2010 National Planning Conference in New Orleans.
* Get your foot in the door of a municipal planning office or consulting firm by temporarily volunteering your services.
* Start out in the zoning administration program of a planning department.
* Take a long view of your career and plan to obtain AICP certification in addition to your master's degree.
* Above all, be realistic and strategic. Your dream job may be an Environmental Planner in Hawaii, at a salary of $100,000, but until such a position becomes available to you, spend your time gaining a variety of professional experiences and developing key skills.

Year One Almost Done- Mission Accomplished

2009-06-03T11:33:00.000-07:00

In September, when I started the Masters of Urban and Regional Planning program, I felt like I was in a crisis mode almost immediately. It seemed that through some poor choice of my own I had entered into a field that prepared students to be municipal planners or work for private consulting firms, and while I am not opposed to either of the two, neither one was ever something I thought of as a goal. I came into the field of planning because I wanted to study the intersection of environmental and social justice issues, because I don't think green movements are sustainable unless they are actually available as solutions to even the poorest people in the world. As I started taking my classes and learning about planning as a field I though that perhaps this program would have been better suited for someone who wanted to be a transportation planner or a land use planner, and I certainly didn't fit into the category.
I started talking to past graduates of the program and asked them what they thought I should do in order to make the program work for me. They suggested that I get in contact with OCCORD (Orange County Communities Organized for Responsible Development) and talk to them about the community organizing efforts that they do around the Platinum Triangle in Anaheim. This turned out to be a perfect connection for me, and I started to broaden my own view of planning as something that could range from municipal planning to community based planning efforts that occur within organizations like OCCORD. Both my experience working with them and my exposure to new teachers with different views helped me to expand my understanding of planning. Also, as I began to look at community based efforts as very much linked to planning I talked about these things often among my colleagues, because I felt that by continutally reminding others that planning was bigger than the city, then perhaps I could influence others who were struggling like I was.
During the Spring Quarter (which is currently ending) some students got together and initiated a class called Critical Urbanism. The students were the teachers in this class, coming up with the readings and course material. We talked about issues of race, class, and gender in planning. We also focused heavily on community based and radical planning efforts that worked to change the system rather than to uphold it. The twenty people in the class had different opinions, but were all of the same mind that something in planning needs to change in order to address critical issues that we often either don't think of as planning, or that city planning departments don't address.
Yesterday the class hosted its final project- a colloquuim called Planning in Crisis: Critical Urbanism in Action. The event consisted of three panels, each of which contained different speakers that could address ciritcal planning issues from a different perspective. We had community based planners/organizers from OCCORD and Latino Health Access. We had students from UCI, UCLA, and UCI that were talking about the efforts being made on their campus to address critical planning issues. We also had a panel where students and practioners talked about the collaboration of planning academia in addressing real world problems, and how some of their projects in the past have gone.
The event was a hit! The Department Chair among other faculty was extremely impressed by the event commenting that the speakers were very much on topic and everything ran very well. I heard rumors that the Department Chair really wants to publicize the event on the department's website because it went so well. Students were excited to make connections with radical planners in the community and on different campuses. Conversations were had among students from all three campuses regarding how we could connect in the future in order to work towards critical planning efforts.
For me, the event was so important because it was truly a benchmark of how far I have come within this program in just one year. I started off as a frustarted student, considering whether or not I belonged here, and ended as a student who felt like I had really accomplished something on campus. I feel like the first and most important think that I accomplished was the alliance of many like-minded students in the program. I also feel like in some ways because of my insistence on looking at planning outside of the box, I have helped my colleagues to do so as well. Thirdly, I feel like this group of students who views critical planning as important just established themselves on campus and earned the respect of the department through the event yesterday. So yeah- I feel really excited about this accomplishment and how this first year started on a rocky note and ended on a great one. I am hoping that this process can be continued into my experience as a second year in the program.

A Photo Essay -- Planning in Crisis

2009-06-03T08:02:00.000-07:00

the Latino experience is already 'a part of the fabric of U.S. society

2009-06-02T21:47:00.000-07:00

by Hector Tobar (Los Angeles Times)

June 2, 2009

I made a pilgrimage to Compton last week in search of wisdom, to a little storefront with bars over the windows and a liquor-grocer next door.

Sonia Sotomayor, the Supreme Court nominee, set me off on this quest with her oft-repeated observation that "a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male . . . "

Southern California is home, arguably, to more wise Latinas than any other place in the United States. The only Latina in Obama's cabinet (Labor Secretary Hilda Solis) is from here. And I personally know dozens more, starting with my mother, my wife, my mother-in-law and assorted professors, activists and sharp-minded stay-at-home moms.

But Judge Sotomayor was referring, specifically, to the law. So I thought I should go find a smart Latina attorney and ask her if she thought that was true. Does American jurisprudence look different from a Latina woman's eyes, and if so, what does she see in the United States that a wise "white male" does not?

Until recently, Luz Herrera, 36, ran a solo law practice in Compton. She was born in Tijuana to Mexican parents and raised in heavily Latino neighborhoods of unincorporated West Whittier. But she'll be the first to tell you that her background alone didn't make her wise. Neither, she says, did Harvard Law School, from which she graduated in 1999.

"I learned to think like a lawyer there," she said of Harvard. "I learned how to be a lawyer here. That's what Compton gave me."

For much of the last seven years, Herrera was the only full-time, Spanish-speaking lawyer with an office in Compton, a community with more than 50,000 Latino residents. She was more than a lawyer, she said, to many of her clients, most of whom were working people who needed a bit of "hand holding" along with a legal brief or two.

What Sotomayor can bring to American justice, Herrera told me, is something that Herrera longs for every day: the understanding that the Latino experience is already "a part of the fabric of U.S. society" and that this truth should be reflected in our legal system.

I first read about Herrera in the Los Angeles Daily Journal in March. Columnist Martin Berg called a visit to her Compton offices "a little jolt of hope and inspiration" in the gloom of an economic crisis that's hit the legal community hard.

Herrera traveled from West Whittier to Stanford, and then from Stanford to Harvard to Compton, because she's a proud Latina. Her journey is one of those American stories that reminds us that American wisdom is, by definition, a book written by people of many different colors, faiths and outlooks.

"I went into law because I wanted to represent people from my community," said the daughter of immigrants, who graduated, as I did, from Pioneer High School in Whittier.

Hard work took Herrera to Harvard, where the grads, she said, think of their law degrees as "golden tickets." Herrera cashed in too, with a six-figure salary right out of law school. But during two years as a "corporate drone," she never entered a courtroom.

In law school she had discovered that the traditional path for Mexican American legal warriors -- civil-rights litigation -- wasn't her passion either. She wanted to do work that put her in touch with regular working people.

So in 2002 she set up a solo practice in the offices of a retiring attorney in Compton. Like Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Herrera hung up her shingle and took on the kinds of cases that typically are the bread and butter of small-town attorneys -- divorce and child custody, bankruptcy, probate and real-estate transactions.

"I was scared and I was learning as I went along," she said.You might think of Compton as part of the big city, but in the eyes of the legal community, it's in the boondocks, Herrera said. "People think that if you're working here, you must not be a good lawyer."

But legal wisdom came, she said, in the unglamorous unfolding of cases in the satellite courthouses of Compton and Long Beach. And also in the East Los Angeles Small Claims Court, federal Bankruptcy Court and too many other places to mention.

Many of her clients were people like her own immigrant parents -- entrepreneurial, with some money to pay for a lawyer, but distrustful of the law.

There were a lot of people, she said, who were "freaked out" by the legal process. Often they ignored the summonses and legal documents that arrived in their mailboxes, hoping that the problems would just go away.

In this place some of her fellow law-school graduates looked down on, she saved people's homes and rescued their businesses.

"I thought, 'This is what I was meant to do,' " she said. "It's been a coming home."

At first, she said, she was surprised by the "sheer number" of people calling her office. Eventually, she began to see a truth about working-class Southern California that a lot of other people in the legal community either don't see or prefer not to talk about.

"There's only a system [of legal representation] for the well off, and for the very, very poor," Herrera said. Legal Aid helps the poorest people -- but your average middle or working-class family would have to go into debt to pay the $300 hourly fee typically charged by many lawyers.

Herrera has become a leading voice in the "low bono" movement for affordable legal services. These days, she's winding down her private practice and opening a new nonprofit in Compton called Community Lawyers. She runs it with three other Latinas on her board, and together they hope to help change the way legal services are provided to Los Angeles County's working people.

"Ninety percent of the population needs a new model for legal services," Herrera said. She sees Community Lawyers as an "incubator" that will bring attorneys to places like Compton at rates residents can afford.

Herrera and attorneys like her are fighting to keep the people of Compton and places like it from being priced out of the U.S. legal system. They're trying to breathe new life into the principle known as equality before the law.

That's why she finds it so thrilling that a "Nuyorican" may be on the cusp of joining the highest court in the land.

"Latinas aren't any less American than anyone else," said Herrera, who also teaches at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego.

Diversity on the Supreme Court isn't about putting tokens on the bench. It's about reflecting a new America that already exists all around us.

Go to the traffic courts of Huntington Park, to the small claims court of East Los Angeles, and you will find people who long for American justice. They carry the simple hope that the courts and the laws belong to them too.

hector.tobar@latimes.com

Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Times

Planners Out & About: Passion Pit

2009-06-01T21:41:00.001-07:00

The Cambridge based band indie-electronic band stopped by the always enjoyable Glass House this past Saturday night in Pomona. Passion Pit, for the few who do not have the internet, have received much buzz prior to the release of their debut LP Manners this year.

It's always great to see a band live up to the hype as Manners delivers an infectious and very literal brand of skinny boy dance-party fun. To kick off their set was "Make Light," the first track off the new LP and features a hook and keyboard-line (both) nothing short of major.

Other highlights included a bouncy and very engaging rendition of the quintessential Passion Pit jam (if there was one) "Sleepyhead" and ending with what will most likely be remembered as one of the all-time summer jams of '09, "The Reeling."

A short set withstanding, Passion Pit will be making kids dance and smile for quite some time. I am hoping the nature of Michale Angelakos falsetto-on crack vocals do not limit this band from reaching further potential than it has already shown. Their sound seems as if it may have been trialed and errored before -- but in actuality it is completely and innocently original.

(photo courtesy of Jalapeno's Flickr pool)
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Judge Sotomayor Nominated for U.S. Supreme Court

2009-05-26T11:21:00.000-07:00

As a member of the Latina minority group I am pleased to congratulate the Obama Administration for its nomination of the first Latina to the U.S. Supreme Court, federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor. At an estimated 20 million, Latinas make up a significant and growing portion of the U.S. population. I'm glad on the efforts of the Obama Administration's to ensure our representation on the nation’s highest court.

Over the next few months Judge Sotomayor will undergo confirmation hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee before being voted on by the entire senate. Please express your support of her nomination by sending a letter to:

Senator Patrick Leahy, Vermont
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
433 Russell Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Fax: (202) 224-3479

Senator Jeff Sessions, Alabama
Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee
335 Russell Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510 -0104
Fax: (202) 224-3149

Judge Sotomayor’s legal career has included not only criminal prosecution and commercial litigation, but also academia and appointment to the federal bench at the age of thirty-eight. For the past ten years, her intellect, integrity, and consensus-building have made her a highly respected jurist on the Second Circuit. She taught for over nine years at the New York University School of Law and at Columbia Law School, and has been a mentor to hundreds of attorneys and students as a member of the Puerto Rican and the Hispanic National Bar Associations.

Special Thanks to HOPE.ACT.VOTE for passing the information along, you can visit them at www.latinas.org!

CA State Supreme Court Upholds Prop 8!

2009-05-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/05/california-supreme-court-upholds-prop-8-gay-marriage-remains-banned-in-state.html

Fellow planner, Louis Zhao, forwarded this information straight from off the press, the California State Supreme Court ban's gay marriage, but according to the article those who got married will be allowed to remain married. What's going on in California?? Our economy is in the dump...so is this going to create a scramble for gay couples to get married before the rule goes into effect to try and stimulate the wedding market?

Truly, that issue is minor compared to the bigger issues that the ruling brings forward, and that's the issue of equality. Several of my post, specifically the "unity" post makes a case for a coalition among those disadvantaged communities to come together and fight for the cause of gaining equality. People need to understand, that once that rights of one man are taken, that only opens up the gateway for the rights of other people to be taken away.

Today, the Supreme Court has taken away the right of people to get married. What will be next?

"State of Paralysis" by Paul Krugman

2009-05-25T23:00:00.000-07:00

If you click on the link below, you will read Krugman's recent Oped piece from the NY Times, where the main point is a question:

California, it has long been claimed, is where the future happens first. But is that still true? If it is, God help America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/opinion/25krugman.html?_r=2

His criticism consist on California's political process and on the Republican party becoming quite the extremists. California, the up till recently (or since the last time I checked) was still ranked the 7th largest economy in the world. What the heck happened? I'm glad to read articles, that are also questioning that same question...but really, people are hurting but not voting..we had a horrible election turn-out.

http://www.sacbee.com/1232/rich_media/1869262.html?mi_rss=Interactive%20Graphics

The link above breaks down the percentage of voters by county. In Orange County, less than 400,000 people voted and the majority of the voters voted NO on the propositions. I'm not sure what the total population is of the county, but I'm sure Anaheim and Santa Ana not combined has more than that number.

Apathy in politics during recession is a bad combination...

Planners at the LA Marathon

2009-05-25T21:46:00.000-07:00

Review: Pike Bar & Fish Grill (Long Beach CA)

2009-05-24T21:52:00.000-07:00

Located on 4th St. aka Retro Row in Long Beach, this bar can best be described as a that one pair of dirty Chuck Taylor's in your shoe collection -- you know when paired with any outfit, you instantly look cool. 4th St. itself has a Seattle Capitol Hill-esque vibe with scattered boutiques embedded on a quaint urban streetscape and faint whispers of "gentrification." The crowd also reminiscent of the CH audience but definitely with a Long Beach twist -- the flannel shirts were just loose enough to know that you weren't anywhere else than the good ole' LBC.

Drinks were well priced (two Sierra Summer Brews amounted $9) and the music this particular night was stellar. Although on his way to a nice vacation in San Quentin, Phil Spector's Wall of Sound made its presence known on two mismatched turntables and a room full of good intentions. Somehow this era of music fit the bar's coastal-diner interiors and flourished when paired with a pint of hoppy goodness.

As a product of neighborhing city Lakewood and a fan of all things "hip," having the Pike right in my backyard is a welcome feeling. To some extent, a bar like this made favorite spots in Downtown LA and Silverlake a little bit farther and Long Beach a little bit closer.

Pike Bar & Fish Grill

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"Unity" in the Urban Planning Profession

2009-05-18T17:53:00.000-07:00

Whites are the most overrepresented ethnicity, and Hispanics the most underrepresented, in the Chapter area and in all three sectors (private, public and non-profit)

- Quote from APA’s Ethnic Diversity in Planning Profession Study (2001)

How do I come to grip that I am part of an ethnic group that is the least represented in the planning profession but yet, is the fastest growing population and in some places is the majority?

Latinos, African-Americans, Asians, Women, Gays-Lesbians, Jewish, Arabs, the list is endless of the different sectors in our community that are marginalized and unite amongst themselves to shield themselves against oppressors. I speak for myself, when I say that I have joined ethnic organizations because that is the group that I am most comfortable. Also, they are people who relate to my experiences. The idea that possibly a White women has gone through my same struggles has never crossed my mind. How do I reconcile the concept that there are other women going through my same struggle that do not share my culture when we live in a country that has its roots in segregation? Whether segregation has been legal or not, the truth is that it has been ingrained in the American society since its inception and is apparent even to this day.

The marginalized are forced to form enclaves amongst themselves, but I now question whether the separation of groups is the most efficient method of achieving equality? Diversity is desirable, and this country will never be able to rid itself of diversity because that is the core of our foundation, so then why do we continue to form barriers among one another? Everyone’s experience is unique and needs to be acknowledged and respected. We need to begin by acknowledging the fact that there are many people with the same struggles, and in order to create change we need to accept the fact we all strive to achieve the same goal and in realizing that, we need to help one another in the process. Achieving unity is a difficult task, one which our country fought a civil war for, so then, it is possible and hopefully it will not take another civil war to achieve that.

We need to revive the momentum of unity and create an environment where everyone is acknowledged and respected and only then can we begin to achieve equality in the planning world and so forth. I’m proud of my cultural ancestry, but of all I am proud to be an American and what it stands for and I believe if we all truly believe that then the struggle to achieve unity among all minorities is half done. Being a planner consists of bringing your own experiences to the workplace and in doing so, the planner is automatically biased towards their own experiences, which is why diversity in the planning profession is essential to create unity, understanding, and achieve equality among all.

PSO - LACMA Trip Sunday!!!

2009-05-14T20:57:00.001-07:00

Don't forget LACMA trip this Sunday, meet @ 1 pm on-campus!

LA Ranks Most Overpriced

2009-05-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

Thanks to bloated housing prices, lofty living costs and unemployment rates among the highest in the nation, the Los Angeles metro area tops our list of America's Most Overpriced Cities.

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Sorry here is the link to my earlier post..

2009-05-12T21:59:00.000-07:00

Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbSRCjG-VLk

Things to Do in LA Before You Die

2009-05-12T20:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.carolineoncrack.com/2009/05/12/100-things-to-try-in-la-before-you-die/

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Cirque Du Soleil at the Great Park in 2010

2009-05-12T16:09:00.000-07:00

This is great news for the Park as well as the Orange County region. This should attract the whole region and bring to the forefront the actual existence of the Great Park to the masses. Kudos to the GP commission for bringing in such a high profile event to the area.

OC Register

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LA's SB 1818 Under Fire

2009-05-11T09:52:00.000-07:00

On April 13, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Thomas McKnew Jr. abrogated parts of LA’s SB 1818 ordinance, which compels local governments to craft their own rules rewarding density bonuses to developers who include a percentage of affordable housing units in residential projects. Former LA planning commissioner Jane Usher, who recently stepped down, had been an outspoken opponent of the measure.

In some cases, the LA ordinance provided bonuses 300 percent greater than those mandated by SB 1818. The ruling prevents the city from approving projects with density bonuses that exceed state law.

more from The Architect's Newspaper...

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Cuts Hurt Kids

2009-05-10T22:21:00.000-07:00

The folks at Cuts Hurt Kids have set up this interactive map to show where parents, teachers, students, and community members are working in protest of Los Angeles Unified School District budget cuts, including teacher layoffs. The map plots points of action, locations, as well as links to stories, images, and videos related to LAUSD's budgetary woes and how the cuts will affect the community at large. Have something to add to the map? Let Cuts Hurt Kids know.

Thanks to LAist

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Aliso Viejo and Tustin Make Forbes List

2009-05-08T09:45:00.000-07:00

Forbes Magazine's list of America's Top 25 Towns to Live Well landed the City of Tustin a spot at #21 and Aliso Viejo at #16. Factors taken into account included median income, average commute and per capita of small businesses.

more at OC Register...

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Reggae Event in OC this FRIDAY!!

2009-05-07T18:52:00.000-07:00

LA Eats: A List

2009-05-07T10:47:00.000-07:00

A list of my favorite LA area restaurants compiled for a friend:

Tere's (mexican) - melrose and cahuenga
-- homemade tortillias, flavorful chicken
Cha Cha Cha (cuban) - melrose and virgil
Langer's (deli) - alvarado and 7th -- downtown
-- pastrami, french roll, russian dressing, crinkly fries, AHHHHH
Papa Cristo's (greek) - pico and normandie
India's Oven (indian) - beverly and poinsettia
Sokondong (korean) - vermont and olympic
-- best tofu soup in k-town hands down
Mario's (peruvian) - melrose and rossmore
Joan's on Third (bakery/deli) - 3rd St. just east of la cienega
Cobras and Matadors (tapas) - beverly and the grove drive
-- great date spot
Red Lion Tavern (german) - glendale and silverlake blvd

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OC Mud Run & Eco Fest

2009-05-06T21:02:00.000-07:00

Good Green Fun!

July 18, 2009 - Irvine, CA

Join us for our inaugural Orange County Mud Run, on the grounds of the Hidden Valley Park, behind the Wild Rivers Water Park in Irvine, CA. This private park features a central shaded seating area, large amphitheatre, and lagoon. You’ve never seen a venue like this! We’ve commandeered the entire park to bring you a great off-road obstacle course and fun-filled Eco Fest and Expo.

Course obstacles include: The Mud Troth • Tunnel Crawls • Mud Pits • Tire Obstacles • Cargo-net Lagoon Crawls • Climbing Walls • And much more! Click here to check out the course map and details.

Here's the site people: http://www.ocmudrun.com/index.html

Don't forget to take pictures! :)

Part II: Committee to Defend Academic Freedom @ UCSB

2009-05-04T20:06:00.000-07:00

The saga continues, Professor Robinson continues his fight to defend his right for freedom of speech. It is interesting to see some very conservative newspapers covering this issue..below is a link to a Fox news coverage..and earlier a biased story (pro-Israeli) story came out in the LA times last week. The article covers the details of of the controversy, but if you want more coverage I would recommend going to this website: http://sb4af.wordpress.com/, a group of students in defense of freedom of speech have created this blog.

If freedom of speech is to be limited in a university institution (a place that is supposed to be provoke critical thinking), then what can we expect to happen in the rest of society? Are we to become so submissive that will let the dominant society take away our rights to freedom of speech. This is America, a country I'm proud to be from because of what it stands for, but if something like curtailing our rights were to happen, then I'm not so sure that this country can claim to stand for freedom.

Below, is a link to the article mentioned:

California Professor Probed After Sending E-Mail Comparing Israelis to Nazis

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518824,00.html

Million Tree Challenge

2009-05-04T14:03:00.000-07:00

Just what we all need: One more social networking site to sign up for, one more profile to make, quirky picture of ourselves to upload, badge to import to our blog. Except Irvine-based Greenwala is a social networking site that gives something important back to the world with each new member.

The site has launched a Million Tree Challenge, and they pledge to "plant a tree for every new member who joins this year, with a goal of creating a million-member community engaged in the green revolution." The site's founder, Rajeev Kapur, says he wants to see the site "exceed one million members by the end of this year," and that the membership's "legacy will be the steady growth of one million planted trees combating deforestation of the rainforests around the world."

The site, which launched last fall, aims to network people "who help others live a greener lifestyle by sharing their knowledge, green experiences and actions with friends, family and the world. Greenwala members can read expert articles, post comments and blogs, join or start groups, find new friends and more." If that's you, sign up and be part of the million trees added to the earth. (thanks to LAist)

Reversal of Fortune in El Monte

2009-05-03T13:41:00.000-07:00

The boy found it hard not to think about getting bonked with a baseball as he played a game of catch with his father in a park in El Monte. It was early in the evening, but in the fast-fading light, Jose Rocha, 9, said the baseball looked like a wad of paper.

"It's kind of hard to see it," the boy said in Lambert Park.

Anxious to find savings as city coffers take a hit, El Monte turns off half the lights in all its parks.

"We used to play till 8," the boy's father, also named Jose, said. "Not anymore."

In El Monte, the fear these days is about backsliding

more from LA Times...

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May Day, Immigration Marches - The Changing Face of the U.S.

2009-05-01T16:37:00.000-07:00

Recently, in theory class, the question that was brought up was how planners can plan for ethnic communities? As I sit here and read about immigrant activists getting out in the street to rally for an immigration reform, I think back on that question that is becoming so pressing, especially in the Southern California region. How can future planner's plan for ethnic communities, and should we even be planning for them, should they not be integrating into mainstream America? What is mainstream America? Is that the suburban community of Irvine? Also, another issue that comes up with that, is that America is an immigrant community made up of many ethnic communities. Not only am I minority that goes through identity issues daily, but now I'm a confused planner, that wants to integrate the different ethnic cultures that exist but also feels that immigrants should be integrating into the American lifestyle.

Is there a solution? I think there are great successful examples of integrating culture into the neighborhoods. Such examples can be seen in most of the major cities in the U.S., like Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, D.C. all hosting Chinatowns..Little Italy..and so forth. Integrating culture into mixed used neighborhoods can make them not only vibrant but great business ventures.

LA Field Trip Sunday May 17th

2009-05-01T10:17:00.001-07:00

An Affordable Salvation

2009-05-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: April 30, 2009

The 2008 election ended the reign of junk science in our nation’s capital, and the chances of meaningful action on climate change, probably through a cap-and-trade system on emissions, have risen sharply.

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Paul Krugman

Go to Columnist Page »Blog: The Conscience of a Liberal

Times Topics: Greenhouse Gas Emissions

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But the opponents of action claim that limiting emissions would have devastating effects on the U.S. economy. So it’s important to understand that just as denials that climate change is happening are junk science, predictions of economic disaster if we try to do anything about climate change are junk economics.

Yes, limiting emissions would have its costs. As a card-carrying economist, I cringe when “green economy” enthusiasts insist that protecting the environment would be all gain, no pain.

But the best available estimates suggest that the costs of an emissions-limitation program would be modest, as long as it’s implemented gradually. And committing ourselves now might actually help the economy recover from its current slump.

Let’s talk first about those costs.

A cap-and-trade system would raise the price of anything that, directly or indirectly, leads to the burning of fossil fuels. Electricity, in particular, would become more expensive, since so much generation takes place in coal-fired plants.

Electric utilities could reduce their need to purchase permits by limiting their emissions of carbon dioxide — and the whole point of cap-and trade is, of course, to give them an incentive to do just that. But the steps they would take to limit emissions, such as shifting to other energy sources or capturing and sequestering much of the carbon dioxide they emit, would without question raise their costs.

If emission permits were auctioned off — as they should be — the revenue thus raised could be used to give consumers rebates or reduce other taxes, partially offsetting the higher prices. But the offset wouldn’t be complete. Consumers would end up poorer than they would have been without a climate-change policy.

But how much poorer? Not much, say careful researchers, like those at the Environmental Protection Agency or the Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Even with stringent limits, says the M.I.T. group, Americans would consume only 2 percent less in 2050 than they would have in the absence of emission limits. That would still leave room for a large rise in the standard of living, shaving only one-twentieth of a percentage point off the average annual growth rate.

To be sure, there are many who insist that the costs would be much higher. Strange to say, however, such assertions nearly always come from people who claim to believe that free-market economies are wonderfully flexible and innovative, that they can easily transcend any constraints imposed by the world’s limited resources of crude oil, arable land or fresh water.

So why don’t they think the economy can cope with limits on greenhouse gas emissions? Under cap-and-trade, emission rights would just be another scarce resource, no different in economic terms from the supply of arable land.

Needless to say, people like Newt Gingrich, who says that cap-and-trade would “punish the American people,” aren’t thinking that way. They’re just thinking “capitalism good, government bad.” But if you really believe in the magic of the marketplace, you should also believe that the economy can handle emission limits just fine.

So we can afford a strong climate change policy. And committing ourselves to such a policy might actually help us in our current economic predicament.

Right now, the biggest problem facing our economy is plunging business investment. Businesses see no reason to invest, since they’re awash in excess capacity, thanks to the housing bust and weak consumer demand.

But suppose that Congress were to mandate gradually tightening emission limits, starting two or three years from now. This would have no immediate effect on prices. It would, however, create major incentives for new investment — investment in low-emission power plants, in energy-efficient factories and more.

To put it another way, a commitment to greenhouse gas reduction would, in the short-to-medium run, have the same economic effects as a major technological innovation: It would give businesses a reason to invest in new equipment and facilities even in the face of excess capacity. And given the current state of the economy, that’s just what the doctor ordered.

This short-run economic boost isn’t the main reason to move on climate-change policy. The important thing is that the planet is in danger, and the longer we wait the worse it gets. But it is an extra reason to move quickly.

So can we afford to save the planet? Yes, we can. And now would be a very good time to get started.

UC Irvine Urban Planning

“Heal the Bay Beach Clean Up”

Summer Internships

Private real estate firm buys O.C. Fairgrounds for $56.5 million

Haiti Donations

ZotWheels

L.A. homeowners fight the glare of digital billboards -- latimes.com

Rethinking Green: Save the environment: Don't take transit

Goodluck in Finals Anteaters!

MURP Mentoring Volunteer Opportunity for Winter/Spring

Urban Oil Wells in Los Angeles

*****UPSA Thanksgiving Potluck*****

Nov. 13th RBF Consulting Office Visit

Nov 14th APA Student Symposium

MURPtastic TED TALK: Charter Cities

LA Metro's Official Blog

Planning Resources on Twitter

Transit Forum Nov. 12th

One of the most beautiful images I've seen in a while

INHABITAT GREEN TALK WEBINAR with GAVIN NEWSOM, Wed. 12 pm, Rm. 306

CALLING ALL SAN FRANCISCANS & those of you who want to green your cities!

Upcoming Film Screenings

Hollywood Community Studio Grand Opening 10/15

Hip-Hop's Effect on New York

LEED Gold Arc Award

It’s UCI’s fifth new construction project to merit the U.S. Green Building Council rating

WTS-LA Upcoming Event

Dia De Los Muertos Event!!

Saturday, Movie on the Lawn: The Dark Knight (PG-13) @ the Great Park

The Piano Staircase

First Fall Quarter UPSA Meeting!!

2010 National Planning Conference

10/2 Workshop!!!

WTS-LA Chapter Scholarship Opportunity

Rail Manufacturing Plant Coming to LA

Article Competition: Cultural Awareness and Diversity

NY Times Post on New Phoenix Light Rail

Oct. 3rd and 4th - Free Museum Day

Oct 2nd - Environmental Impact Assessment 101

Oct 3rd - Green Port Fest

OC Restaurant Week Sept 13-19

Pretend City

Panic on the Streets of London?

LA Times ARTIC Critique

Mobility 21

National Comm Garden This Week

Re: LA Times Article on OCTA

Research/Perspectives from UCI Planning Policy Design Faculty & Students

Research/Perspectives from UCI Planning Policy Design Faculty & Students

Resurrecting the Rustbelt

APA LA Green Building Tour

Mayor Newsom in Orange County

“Civil Disobedience Mobilizes People”

Justice is Served!!

Possible Professional Report Topics

California Parks in Trouble

Another List

Best Cities for Singles

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

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

For the Aquatic Planner in You

Going European Style

Obama Paints a New Vision for Nation's Urban Policy

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

2009 Board

Very Interesting Irvine Article

Climate FAIL..Not much has changed there YET!

OC Leaders chosen to lead the CAHSR Commission

President Obama: ''Honduras coup was not legal''

Coup in HONDURAS!!!!!!

Transportation Reauthorization

Political Turmoil in Iran

Gentrification Exposed

Nostalgia

Job Tips for Recent Graduates and New Planners

Year One Almost Done- Mission Accomplished

A Photo Essay -- Planning in Crisis

the Latino experience is already 'a part of the fabric of U.S. society

Planners Out & About: Passion Pit

Judge Sotomayor Nominated for U.S. Supreme Court

UPSA Thanksgiving Potluck