Posts

Why is homelessness still growing in the U.S., including in Los Angeles?

By Dick Platkin*, CityWatchLA, October 10, 2023 Planning Watch: Despite a friendly press, LA’s Mayor Karen Bass, like her mayoral predecessors and public officials in other cities, offers homeless programs that cannot hold back the continued growth of the unhoused, overcrowded, and rent-gouged. For some this growth of homelessness is an opportunity to politically blame the crisis on X, Y, or Z. For still others it is a golden opportunity to profit from speculative real estate investments. But these opportunist responses make the underlying causes of the housing crisis worse. Local officials, like Mayor Karen Bass, as well as her counterparts in other cities, have been dealt an extremely bad hand. But they then play this bad hand very poorly. Mayor Bass and the Los Angeles City Council are members of a large club whose nostrums, especially upzoning, make the housing crisis worse, not better. While the underlying causes, especially the lack of low-priced housing and gro

Two-thirds of Angelinos expect another 1992-type uprising. This is why

Two-thirds of Angelinos expect another 1992-uprising. This is why. https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php/cw/los-angeles/24501-another-los-angeles-uprising-two-thirds-of-angelenos-expect-it

LA Mayoral Candidates in LA Mum on the Climate Crisis -- For them it is the cost of doing business.

Despite compelling evidence for global and local climate change, the mayoral candidates in Los Angeles could care less. This is why. https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php/cw/los-angeles/24257-why-la-s-mayoral-candidates-are-so-mum-on-the-climate-crisis

Housing Crisis Worsens, while LA City Council turns to LAPD for political back-up

The Los Angeles City Council is unable to act on homelessness, other than making the rich richer through up-zoning and then dispatching the police to the resulting homeless encampments. https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php/cw/los-angeles/23606-housing-crisis-worsens-while-la-s-city-council-turns-to-lapd-for-political-backup?fbclid=IwAR249453vDO1g1n6oODc9IkvbfVGtHLAkf4UwZxzKk84hXwk9ILcSwmAHbc

Year in review: 2021

2021 was a good year for the gentrifiers in the Los Angeles region. For everyone else, not so good. https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php/cw/los-angeles/23433-la-s-2021-planning-year-in-review-is-the-glass-mostly-full-or-mostly-empty

2021 - LA's planning year in review

Big city planning departments, like LA’s, have abdicated their broad role. Instead they limit themselves to regulating private real estate projects, while ignoring infrastructure and the climate crisis. https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php/cw/los-angeles/23433-la-s-2021-planning-year-in-review-is-the-glass-mostly-full-or-mostly-empty

Planning Watch for September 16, 2021

The housing crisis – in LA and elsewhere -- results from deliberate decisions at all levels of government. https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php/cw/los-angeles/22565-a-12-step-program-to-create-a-housing-crisis