Arrived

Panama is great, I won 8 games of ping pong in a row!

Prep

Leaving for Panama tomorrow night and I have a million things to do.

Sports

Tommy Lasorda once said the first thing he inspects in a baseball prospect is his hands.

Today I found out why I never liked playing football; my hands aren't large enough to properly throw an NFL size ball. I purchased a Jr. High ball for today's church game and had a much better time.

To Turin, Italy

Congratulations to Michelle Kwan. I'm rooting for her (and not just because she is the spokesperson for East West Bank).

Sports Car?

I'm a Lamborghini Murcielago!

You're not subtle, but you don't want to be. Fast, loud, and dramatic, you want people to notice you, and then get out of the way. In a world full of sheep, you're a raging bull.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

Celebrate

Some think that I jumped off the Coldplay bandwagon as soon as they got big. I don't believe it. To me, songs like Brothers and Sisters, which is currently playing, sound so much more special than anything released after Parachutes.

Today Matt and I took Dad out to celebrate retirement. We toasted to pensions and ate steaks.

First Impressions

Excellent review of the new Strokes album.

Presumably in an attempt to prove their musicianship, it also features many showboating guitar solos, of the high-pitched widdly-woo variety. Even deployed sparingly, the widdly-woo guitar solo is an acquired taste. Liberally slathered over everything, it's enough to drive you round the twist. By the time you reach Red Light, an otherwise charming glam shuffle entirely subsumed beneath a sea of widdly-woo, you're ready to inflict fatal widdly-wounds.

My take? Kinda sloppy, but I like it. Granted, I've only heard it once through and that was after Matt's bday dinner at Aileen's apartment, when I was ready to pass out. Room on Fire is still my favorite, which of course is conventionally thought to be the less impressive release.

Baseball GM

Theo quit. Theo is back. The Red Sox are whole but the media has gotten it wrong. Everyone keeps writing about his relationship with owner John Henry or team president Larry Lucchino. The real story is how much is Theo now making? I think the original offer was three years, $4.5 million. Always follow the money.

BUT

Some things stay the same. For example, I am thinking about the implications of how old I will be next year. I obsess about my upcoming age so much I forget how old I really am.

Blog

I'm rather busy these days. I can hardly think straight normally and my life is steadily shifting in all new, all different directions. Fun. This is lucky for all of you because the likelyhood that I will write more embarrassing blogs has gone way up.

UCLA Extension

Attended and was very impressed with the day long Land Use Law Conference.

Strategic Plan

Hm. So far no newspaper coverage of the Strategic Plan Harbor Commissioner workshop last night. It's just as well I suppose.

Podcasts

Podcasts are awesome. NPR's Which Way LA interviewed the Port's Board President today and new Planning Department Director on the 9th. If you have a chance, check them out.

Happy MLK Day

Busy day ahead. Looking forward to going to campus to pick up my books.

Chinese Nannies?

Someone awesome sent me this very amusing article on Chinese nannies. Apparently, some people are preparing for China's anticipated economic dominance in rather unique ways.

For this reason the "Chinese nanny" is now chic in New York's wealthier circles -- to the extreme annoyance of French governesses, who are finding it hard to defend their traditional dominance over Manhattan's nurseries against competition from the Far East.

Maybe I should consider a career change.

The in-demand nannies from Beijing or Shanghai can easily earn $100,000 per year with the right references -- $60,000 more than their colleagues from Old Europe, who used to be so popular. Not only do they need to speak fluent English and Mandarin, they also need to manage the complicated lifestyles of their young pupils.

Hm. Given that I can barely order at a Chinese restaurant, maybe I'll stay in Urban Planning.

Small Lot Design Competitions

In response to LA's Small Lot Subdivision Ordinance, passed back in 2004, cityworksLosAngeles.org is introducing an architectural competition for creative examples of housing based on smaller lot sizes. Registration ends February 1, 2006.

Didn't Portland already do this? I know because my cousin Carmen worked on one of the winning designs (see page 2, #1224).

Kelo

The Planning Report interviews John Shirey, who gives an interesting defense of Kelo and redevelopment in general. He notes that while the political response to limit eminent domain includes proposed California legislation, the Kelo ruling didn't expand eminent domain as it is currently constituted in California.

So, it would have been better for us, as it turned out, if the Court had overruled the Connecticut Supreme Court’s decision and thrown out the use of eminent domain for economic development purposes without a finding of blight. That decision would have been written up in newspapers and broadcast on TV news shows as a loss for New London and a victory for the opponents of eminent domain, but such a narrow decision would not have affected us in California. As a result, there wouldn’t have been the adverse public reaction and, consequently, we wouldn’t be seeing all of these proposals in the United States Congress and the California Legislature to overturn the use of eminent domain.

The "backlash legislation" he references is SCA 15, which as described by Mr. Shirey, doesn't sound like a good idea. Personally, I'm ok with eminent domain of extremely blighted sites that are eventually owned and run by the private sector. Having these sites acquired and only run by government might make things worse.

Everyone's Optimistic

Kathryn Maese of downtownnews.com is optimistic about Planning Department.

But I wonder if this is really true:

Under the new plan, six people have already been hired, with 14 others expected to join the department by month's end.

Ontology

It was only the first day of school, but I had such a wonderful time at the USC Metaphysics class yesterday. I've long been a fan of Professor Dallas Willard's books so getting the opportunity to attend his course is quite a thrill.

Careers

MSN has a list of Excellent, Good, Fair and Poor jobs for 2006. I'm not too keen on putting much stock into it - Urban Planning wasn't even included - but I couldn't help but notice what made tops on the Poor list:

Attorney. If starting over, 75 percent of lawyers would choose to do something else. A similar percentage would advise their children not to become lawyers. The work is often contentious, and there's pressure to be unethical. And despite the drama portrayed on TV, real lawyers spend much of their time on painstakingly detailed research. In addition, those fat-salaried law jobs go to only the top few percent of an already high-powered lot.

Many people go to law school hoping to do so-called public-interest law. (In fact, much work not officially labeled as such does serve the public interest.) What they don't teach in law school is that the competition for those jobs is intense. I know one graduate of a Top Three law school, for instance, who also edited a law journal. She applied for a low-paying job at the National Abortion Rights Action League and, despite interviewing very well, didn't get the job.

Whatever.

New Position!

I'm honored to be appointed as Public Information Officer to the Los Angeles Section of the American Planning Association.

A major part of my duties will be responding to questions so if you want to know more about LA-APA, I'm your man.

New Director

Congratulations to S. Gail Goldberg on being appointed the new Director of Planning. She is an excellent choice. Ever since my days at UCSD, I've been impressed with San Diego's planning efforts.

Name Change

Trial on the Angel name change begins today. Maybe the drive to an Angel game might get reduced in about 10 years.

USC Loses

And Trojan fans mourn.

In retrospect, would Norm Chow have made a difference?

Mulholland Drive

I used to staff a Mulholland plan so I'm naturally interested in seeing this exhibit:

As part of the special Mulholland 150th anniversary celebration, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is mounting a unique exhibition featuring artifacts and memorabilia showing the life of William Mulholland. The exhibition is located at the LADWP’s headquarters building located at 111 North Hope Street, Los Angeles on the lobby level. The exhibition will be open from September 9, 2005, Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Planning Department

LA Observed has the story and Jay provided the link. City of LA Planning Department is hiring.

The release provides an interesting glimpse at future priorities for the department, including an LA River plan and reinstating the Transportation Planning and Code Studies Units. Sounds great to me. These are indeed promising times for planners in LA.

Family

The January, 2006 Planning magazine has an article on "The Redevelopment Revolution: Mixed use comes to the suburbs."

While I'm excited for the projects described (especially the huge project near Angels Stadium, the Platinum Triangle), I feel a tiny bit of concern when I read this:

The market for these projects includes young singles, married couples without children, and empty nesters..."

Density is great but I often feel as though families are not properly considered in planning discussions.

Development is obviously reacting to demographics and the market. Even so, I would prefer for planners to include the needs of families. This includes type of housing, surrounding land uses, open space and public institutions. And that doesn't necessarily mean suburban track homes, either. I'm confident that creative options can be designed for families that want to live in density.

Because creating vibrant, entertainment heavy cultural spaces is good, but I don't want to lose sight of what I view as a greater good - the caring and fostering of our society's future generations.

There's a long way to go before our development patterns in LA become an issue for families, which is good. But you know us planners, we're always thinking ahead.