Why Building More Freeways Makes Traffic Worse, Not Better

To Ease L.A. Gridlock, We Need Improved Mass Transit and Smart Urban Planning

In 1865, British economist William Stanley Jevons wrote an influential essay entitled “The Coal Question.” Today his insights are interesting to me not as they relate to coal, but rather as they relate to me sitting in the legendary traffic of the 405 freeway in Los Angeles during my morning commute.

Jevons’ observations on coal also have something to say about the Oshiya (train pushers) who squeeze every last person onto subway cars in Tokyo, and about Governor Andrew Cuomo’s recent declaration of a transit emergency for New York’s famed subway …

By Jerry Nickelsburg | August 1, 2017

In the Amazon Jungle or a California Subdivision, Sometimes Less Infrastructure Is More

Using Localized “Min-Frastructure” Prevents Costly Runaway Urban Sprawl

By Roger Sherman | May 2, 2017

The need for more infrastructure is one of the few areas of genuine bipartisan consensus in the United States. But my experiences working in two rapidly urbanizing regions outside this …

The South Los Angeles Future Will Be Shared

In a Stronghold of African Americans and Immigrant Integration, New Identities Emerge Rooted in a Sense of Place as Much as Race

By Manuel Pastor | July 7, 2016

The typical story of neighborhood change, often called ethnic succession, is one in which an incoming ethnic group “takes over” and wipes away the past. But that does not capture …

Who Gets to Represent a Richer South L.A.?

A Place of Possibility Shouldn’t Remain a Pawn of the Establishment

By Jorge Nuño | July 7, 2016

There is more opportunity in South Los Angeles now.

You can see it in the houses, in the development, in the grocery stores finally arriving, in the people who—as I did …

Don’t Believe the L.A. Transit Hype

Slow and Cheap, the New Expo Line Will Dash Your Commuting Dreams

By Joe Mathews | June 2, 2016

I wish this were a happy column about the advance of California public transit.

I wish I could report that my own life is better now that I ride the brand-new …

Rent Control Is a Kludge, Not an Answer, for Affordable Housing

California Embraces Complex Formulas to Dodge the Hard Work of Actually Fixing a Problem

By Joe Mathews | March 31, 2016

Rent control won’t solve California’s enormous housing problems. But that’s not stopping many Californians from pursuing rent control policies in their hometowns.

2016 threatens to become the Year of Rent Control, …

urban planning