What Is a Fun Palace?

How a Once-Defunct Idea for Community-Driven Joy Springs to Life Every Year

This piece publishes alongside the Zócalo/Los Angeles Times program “Would Parliamentary America Have More Fun?,” tomorrow, Friday, February 23, at 7 PM PST. Register here to attend in person or online.

For one weekend in 2014, my local community and I came together and took over Brockwell Lido, an outdoor swimming pool in South London. We put on an entirely free weekend of arts, culture, and science events for our community. There were kayaks in the swimming pool, shadow puppetry, cheerleading, scientists talking about the effects …

by Amie Taylor | February 22, 2024

Why Does California Hate Public Participation?

Real Civic Engagement Requires Both Money and Robust Infrastructure

by Joe Mathews | March 11, 2019

Los Angeles is a city of more than four million people. And in its next budget, it might—I repeat, might—launch an Office of Civic Engagement to help all residents better …

The National Partisan Nastiness Is Now Poisoning Local Politics

A Former Ventura Mayor Says Washington’s Ideological Warfare Is Making Municipal Governing Uglier, Harsher, and Harder

by William Fulton | July 24, 2018

Not long ago, a homeless man wandered into a restaurant on the ocean promenade in the city of Ventura, California, and stabbed to death a young man who was eating …

From the Wreckage of the ’92 Riots, a Better Los Angeles Rises

After 25 Years, a More Diverse, Civic-Minded City Is Embracing Its Shared Destiny

By Roberto Suro and Gary Painter | April 27, 2017

Luxury condominiums compete with foreign banks on the new skyline of Koreatown. On a Saturday night, 20-somethings crowd the sidewalks, huddling around food trucks, circling in and out of karaoke bars, …

Grow up, Sacramento!

Why California Needs Its Central Valley Cities to Step up to Civic Adulthood

By Joe Mathews | February 9, 2017

Are you finally growing up, Sacramento?

I pose that question not to our state government but to the real Sacramento, by which I mean the Sacramento Capital Region. It’s a query …

How to Reclaim Broken Public Places

From Dirty Streets in Bangalore to a Ragged River in L.A., Revival Requires Community

By Marianne Krasny | January 6, 2016

How do you revive a broken place?

That’s a question that I have pondered for more than 15 years, visiting and reading about places broken after long slow declines—from vacant lots …

civic engagement