Land Use
Feds Downgrade Monterey Shale Oil Reserves by 95.6%
LA Times op-ed highlights increase in trains transporting oil into California
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is reducing its previous estimate for technically recoverable oil in California’s Monterey Shale from 13.7 billion barrels of oil to just 600 million barrels of oil—a dramatic 95.6 percent reduction. Has the oil industry been chasing rainbows in search of illusive “black gold” Monterey oil? For years, the oil …
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CONTINUE READINGOf Corn and Climate
Trouble may be brewing in the corn belt.
We continue to gain a better understanding of the impacts of climate change, which are sometimes subtle and unexpected. Two articles in Science report significant new research. The first report comes from two researchers at the University of Illinois. Corn, like other plants, needs to pull CO2 from the air for photosynthesis. But the same tiny …
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CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’s Infill Backlash
It’s here, and it needs to be addressed
For environmental and economic reasons, we want jobs and people to move back to our cities. People living in cities pollute less because they don’t drive as much and tend to live in smaller homes. Economically, they can save a lot of money on transportation and energy costs, while thriving neighborhoods can create cultural and …
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CONTINUE READINGQuantifying Environmental Justice (& Injustice) in California–An Update
California Improves an Already-Powerful Environmental Justice Analytical Tool
A year ago, I wrote about an important environmental justice initiative pioneered by the California Environmental Protection Agency and its subsidiary entity, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. That 2013 initiative, titled CalEnviroScreen, divided up the State of California by zip code, applied 11 environmental health and pollution factors, assessed each of the state’s …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat Steve Jobs Could Teach Us About Land Use and Transit Planning
Lessons for making urban spaces great from the celebrated entrepreneur
Steve Jobs died in 2011, but his life experience, as related by biographer Walter Isaacson, offers some important lessons for today’s transit and urban development practitioners. I just finished reading the biography and was struck — like many others — by what a notoriously awful person he was to those around him. Part of the …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Missing of Summer Lawns*
It’s Time to End the Wasteful Practice of Irrigating California’s Residential Landscaping With Fresh Water
What a difference a drought makes. Once upon a time, a fundamental attribute of home ownership in California and the American West was an expansive, verdant lawn surrounding private homes, townhouses and apartment complexes. Indeed, some communities have historically imposed permit conditions or adopted local ordinances mandating the inclusion and maintenance of lush, healthy lawns …
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CONTINUE READINGGoing, Going, Gone
Despite it’s depressing subject, Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction is a great read. She travels around the world, from a “hotel” for endangered frogs in Panama to an outdoor biodiversity experiment in the Peruvian rainforest to an endangered rhino’s rectal exam in Cincinnati. Yet, there’s no denying that the topic is a downer. The title implies that we …
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CONTINUE READINGWill Regulatory Takings Always Be A Mess?
Takings law is a legal quagmire. It’s likely to stay that way.
I recently reread an article that my late colleague Joe Sax published exactly fifty years ago. It’s a striking piece of scholarship, all the more impressive so early in his career. But one particular statement made a particular impression on me: “Nevertheless, the predominant characteristic of this area of law is a welter of confusing …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Perils of Rail Transit and Democracy
How Decentralized Decision-Making Can Screw Up Rail Planning and Implementation
Americans seem to love democracy but hate many of the results. We want governmental power to be decentralized, whether it’s across three federal branches or with local control over sometimes regionally oriented land use decisions. But when the inevitable compromise that is required to get majority approval means a less-than-perfect result, from Obamacare to budget …
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CONTINUE READINGAre Californians Finally Getting Out of Our Cars?
If Something Looks Too Good To Be True, Then It Probably Is
It looks like a miracle: Californians aren’t depending quite as heavily on cars for commutes and errands as they did a decade ago, according to a new survey by Caltrans. Although driving is still by far the most dominant mode of transportation across the state, accounting for about three-quarters of daily trips, researchers say a …
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