PLANNING WATCH / PLAN-IT LOS ANGELES

The California Cargo Cult Shilling for Real Estate Speculators Dick Platkin, CityWatchLA , September 24, 2020 PLANNING WATCH -The South Pacific cargo cults are gone, but we have plenty of modern cults, and the one I regularly encounter is the Supply-and-Demand cult. Like the Cargo Cult, (photo above: Mock Cargo Cult P-52 airplane built on Melanesian Island) which built mock airplanes to lure back the riches left by Japanese and Allied flyers during WWII, our modern cultists imagine that zone changes are the market magic the will create real estate fortunes. It will not only make investors and their champions rich, but also solve the worsening housing crisis and turn car habituated Angelenos into regular bus and subway riders.  We can dismiss the Cargo Cults as an imaginative effort by Neolithic communities to

Climate Change Denial Runs Deep at LA’s City Hall By Dick Platkin, CityWatchLA, September 17, 2020 PLANNING WATCH - Sly climate change deniers have learned how to appear more “woke” than Donald Trump and his anti-science supporters .   These dapper deniers don’t call climate change a Chinese conspiracy, propose raking leaves in forests, or claim public policy should ignore climate science.  Instead, at LA’s deep blue City Hall climate analysis, change mitigation, adaptation, and monitoring is not just on the back burner; it is falling off the stove. In fact, no climate change initiatives are underway despite last week’s record heat wave, LA worst air since 1993, and uncontrolled wildfires on the entire West Coast.  In City Hall’s insulated world, climate disruption happens elsewhere, even when you can se