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Friday, April 03, 2009

Afternoon number crunching

Smart Growth in Athens (Credit: Demographia)

Demographia just released the fifth edition of its World Urban Areas & Population Projections. With 14,940,000 people, Los Angeles is the world's 13th largest urban area—defined as “a continuously built up landmass of urban development. … the lighted area that can be observed from an airplane at night.”

By 2030, Los Angeles ranks 15th (overtaken by Seoul and Shanghai), with a population of 18,945,000 and an annualized growth rate of 1.14%. Also by 2030, Jakarta pulls ahead of Tokyo by nearly 3 million people for the number one spot.

With 65,600 people per square mile, Hong Kong is the world’s most densely-populated urban area. Ten times denser than LA, with half the population … No surprise there, but did you know Los Angeles’ urban area is denser than New York City’s?

Download the report here. Note: PDF format; 3MB.

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Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Tuesday Hotsheet at 3 a.m.


JM, Poppies, Scott & Alvarado Meridian, 2.26.08


Joseph Mailander a guy in laelsewhereemail

From this perch: Hillary in three of four. The real Roger Simon nails her strategy: the victim who victimizes.

When it comes to the City, jurors hand make-up money out like cotton candy at the fair: now those poor white firefighters who were punished for hazing that poor black firefighter also get absurd million-dollar judgments. Now almost all of them---victim and perps alike---are a million plus richer for their involvement in a prank that wouldn't even make the paper on a college campus. Can't wait until the Latino guy sues for not being victimized enough to be a part of any lawsuit.

Doing its level best to protect itself from answering to curious taxpayers, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's office not only blew the defense of the City's deep pockets but then went the extra mile and declined all comment on the case.

You're so busted: Self-published books look a bit better this morning as the second work of fiction masquerading as fact in a month is recalled by a mainstream publisher. This one involved a Valley girl with a top-drawer family pedigree who faked living la vida loco with gangbangers in South LA for the sake of scoring a contract with Penguin.

If you missed the earlier incident, about a woman who claimed she was raised by wolves during the Holocaust, here's a good account.

CityWatch has a great piece regarding rumblings on repealing SB 1818, the State bill which turns affordable housing into a slush fund for developers. Shills use SB 1818 to bilk cities of billions (yes, billions) even while doing so little to create truly affordable housing. The Mayor of Los Angeles and his hand-picked, career-beholden Planning Chief, Gail Goldberg, (a woman with no knowledge of Los Angeles whatsoever prior to her appointment) have been the top performing prime offenders in the State. Most Councilpeople have also been complicit in handing over the City from the People to the Few, while rendering the streets unparkable and the lawns unplayable, all for the sake of letting developers rake cash off of a few crappy units per mega-development that do nothing to make housing afforable for anyone but the tiniest handful of lottery winners.

Money quote from the piece: "In fact, right now – throughout our city - sleeper cells of developers and architects are designing massive, neighborhood busting complexes of the type you and your neighborhood council – mistakenly – thought your community plan protected you against."

And the problem performance of yet another out-of-town Antonio appointment, Ed Boks, is the subtext of this piece by Rick Orlov, who informs his readers that the Animal Reg has let animals stand in the cold rain without adequate protection, and at last spent $118,000 (of $50,000,000 the voters pledged to them) to give the critters an adequate rainfly at last.

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Thursday, February 28, 2008

Morning quick hits from the "RED SPOT INSTITUTE"

Morning quick links to stories of interest.

Lincoln Heights community showed up in "MASS" to state their opposition to the Las Villas Project". But after hearing from many, a few, in the early hours of this day decided not to overturn the approval of the controversal project. To the people in Lincoln Heights, your version of "PEOPLE POWER" is just the start in returning political decision making to the citizens, not the likes of Ed Reyes and the LHNC.

The "Weekly of Record" dedicate "column feet" to the density debate, ie. "Zev vs. Antonio" Preview of 2009?

They also don't think much about the new "BARKER LAW". Poor Pee Wee loses his "wee wee" due to Big Government. New recruits for ALF?

Pico and Olympic draws the line of congestion at Fairfax. Lawsuits on the way? They sure are.

The "Sniper" takes aim at the Mayor regarding MTA, Puppy Love, and that City Council "number cruncher" who regales in panning the Mayor's budget proposal.

Waste at the "BOARD OF CHILD INDOCTRINATION" ie. LAUSD? Now something about padding timecards for work in the "PEOPLES ENCLAVE OF MT. WASHINGTON".

FREEDOM, FREE SPEECH, AND FREE ENTERPRISE!!!

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Thursday, February 14, 2008

LA City Council Approves "Density Bonus" After Vigorous Debate And Against Janice Hahn's Wishes


LA City Council approves new "density bonus" bonanza
by Zuma Dogg (because I didn't see any coverage in LA Times today)

I didn't see anything about this in the LA Times, but it kinda hit ZD as the biggest thing to hit the City of Los Angeles in years when it comes to traffic, density (and lack of infrastructure to accommodate the density) that will be created by the new "density bonus" that Los Angeles City Council is now offering to developers after yesterday's approval. (Since it wasn't passed unanimously, it will come back for one more vote/second reading, next Wednesday, but expect a final approval. )

Click here for Item 45 from the LA City Council Agenda from 2/13/08 to see the heated debate between Janice Hahn, CM Tom LaBonge and CM Bill Rosendahl vs Eric Garshady and the rest of his developer puppet-masters. In all my time following the council meetings, this was about the most lively debate, yet -- as opposed to the usual dog and pony show, non-debate. (It actually didn't pass unanimously. Hahn, LaBonge and Rosendahl voted "no".) You have to make it past CM Reyes who opens the debate, and will put you to sleep, but it picks up into a great reality show-style actual debate.

CM Wendy Greuel informed the public that, "I feel the reason we have the traffic today is because there is not enough affordable housing near where people work." (Near transit hubs.)

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO OF JANICE HAHN, WHO FILLED IN FOR ZD WITH HER ANTI-GARCETTI PUBLIC COMMENT ON THIS ISSUE.


zumadogg@gmail.com

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