A Little City Takes on the Big Job of Building Housing and Infrastructure

La Verne, Population 32,000, Is First to Try California’s Newest Redevelopment Tool

Officials in La Verne, a small city of 32,000 in east Los Angeles County, don’t like to be on the leading edge in establishing new policies. La Verne certainly doesn’t want to be a player in the big statewide debates over housing and transit. And the city didn’t set out to make itself a proving ground for the best new tool California communities have to transform themselves.

But La Verne is about to become a California leader anyway.

That’s because this city—for its own reasons—has formed one of California’s first EIFDs. …