California has, since the ’70s, had some of the strictest environmental laws in the country, but urbanists have recently been frustrated by what are known as CEQA lawsuits, named after the 1970 California Environmental Quality Act that serves as the basis of the challenges. CEQA battles have … [Read more...]
Is O’Toole right that California is too dense to matter?
Remember my response yesterday to Randal O'Toole's Cato article on parking, when I said that I could easily write a three-part series? Not a joke! (Though I might spare you and leave the trilogy unfinished. Maybe.) Today, I'd like to take on O'Toole's comments on California, which he argues is … [Read more...]
Links
1. Maps of sprawl and gentrification in Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, and Boston. At first the picture looks bleak for cities, but Jesus – even downtown Detroit is growing! (More here.) 2. A real, live Texan (just kidding – he lives in Austin) replies to O'Toole on parking. 3. Why aren't (more) … [Read more...]
Links
1. Systemic Failure praises Gov. (again) Jerry Brown's efforts to do away with California's redevelopment agencies and "enterprise zones" (there's a euphemism if I've ever heard one), which the author claims promote autocentric development with public funds. He then cites a few examples of … [Read more...]
Long weekend links
1. The NYT utterly humiliates itself with a story on how difficult it is for a kid straight outta college from "a prominent Portuguese banking family" to rent a $2,500/mo. studio in a Chelsea coop for less than 12 months. Sounds like the perfect posterchild for Sheldon Silver's rent control … [Read more...]
LaHood’s revealingly stupid reply to the WaPo’s HSR criticism
The WaPo earlier this week ran an editorial against California high-speed rail, and on Friday ran a response from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. As the dedicated anti-California HSR blog High-Speed Train Talk says, the letter does a pretty good job of summing up everything that's wrong with … [Read more...]
California’s Water Resources vs Development
There are some good articles out there this morning, I want to share them with you... Rationalitate - California developments halted over water While the knee-jerk libertarian reaction might be disgust, I think the markets are probably ruined by the government, and current pricing isn't what … [Read more...]
Somin: Causes of the Defeat of Prop 98
Ilya Somin at Volokh - Causes of the Defeat of Proposition 98 There were two major causes of Prop 98's defeat. One was the sponsors' mistake in combining the popular cause of restricting eminent domain with a far less popular phaseout of rent control. The second and more unusual cause of 98's … [Read more...]