CA's embattled high-speed rail project will soon need at least $7 billion in order to move forward. No one knows where the money will come from. KCRA reports.
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SJ's tax-happy business bloc (Mahan, Mulcahy, Casey) might want to pay attention to a growing tax revolt in LA County, as citizens push back on a homelessness levy that's making life less affordable and not delivering on its promises. U.S. Sun reports.
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The Org for Economic Co-operation and Development explains how the online platform “Better Reykjavik” allows citizens to vocalize, debate, and amend hundreds of ideas. Another plus: city leaders end up with prioritized lists with varied, nuanced perspectives. Could Bay Area cities try a similar strategy?
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In every other state, options are severely limited by geography and climate. In California, they’re limited by politics. Edward Ring explains in National Review (excerpted and edited for brevity).
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Sure, it's easy to read about politics—but harder to discuss them with folks who may disagree (especially in the Valley's hyper-polarized culture!). Entrepreneur Vera Strauch educates, below, on why we're naturally prone to avoid discomfort—while exhorting us to leave the anxious “mental couch” for connectedness, meaning, and lasting change.
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For decades, New Urbanist orthodoxies in Santa Clara County railed against single-family-home suburban development and enforced a densification orthodoxy. The result: massive social inequities, skyrocketing homelessness, and a massive population exodus to more enlightened states. Even The NYT acknowledges the mistake.
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SJ and SF city gov'ts may endlessly swirl over small-scale and scattershot homelessness solutions, but Kern County and City of Bakersfield get to "functional zero" faster than any other CA city with quick, focused, and at-scale programs that work across gov't entities. From Community Solutions.
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Former Los Altos mayor Anita Enander breaks down CA's Regional Housing Needs Allocation process, and what she considers indefensible calculations and harmful rigidity. Enander thinks cities like SJ could better address community needs without RHNA's req'ts. An Opp Now exclusive.
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A proposed bill backed by SJ Mayor Mahan and Sen. Blakespear that would've required counties to step up and help pay for and run homelessness shelters got derailed by the powerful, who ask for "more discussion" and kicked the can down the road by a decade. Axios reports.
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In part 2 of an Opp Now exclusive, Families & Homes SJ president Sandra Delvin and past Los Altos mayor Anita Enander discuss why they're dubious of proposed SB79—and what SF's housing situation might warn us about densification.
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In a recent YouTube video, transit bro Alan Fisher joins the critiques of the VTA extension’s single-bore tunneling approach, which is more expensive (and less accessible) than traditional twin-bore. Contra Costa Taxpayers Association’s Marc Joffe breaks down the data—and the troubled future of BART SV Phase II—in this Opp Now exclusive.
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No parking minimums. More zoning exemptions. Are SJ Council's attempts to make it easier to develop housing truly solving affordability issues—or driving up costs? An Opp Now exclusive Q&A on zoning, densification, and the builder's remedy, with Families & Homes SJ president Sandra Delvin and past Los Altos mayor Anita Enander.
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