Around the globe, many cities are experiencing a housing affordability crisis. There are few places this crisis is more pronounced than San Francisco and Los Angeles. California’s strict land use regulations hinder us from producing enough housing, particularly infill development, or new buildings on vacant or underutilized land in the urban core. Yet, with 200,000 units in the pipeline, the…
Confronting suburban poverty – or celebrating suburban resilience?
Suburban poverty is in the headlines again these weeks after the publication of Brookings researchers Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube’s new book,Confronting Suburban Poverty in America, which augments previous empirical work with fascinating case studies. But with the suburban poverty rates hovering around 11 percent, relative to 21 percent in cities, the question arises: is it suburban poverty or resilience that…
Redevelopment is dead, long live revitalization!
Following Governor Brown’s recommendation, the Legislature’s joint legislative committee has voted to eliminate redevelopment in California. Without redevelopment, planners lose a key tool to revitalize cities by targeting investment to disadvantaged neighborhoods, creating jobs and building affordable housing. Yet, eliminating the policy also creates an opportunity for California to think much bigger about how to revitalize our cities. Redevelopment is…