Southern California Counties Among Nation’s Most Vulnerable to Natural Disasters
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s new National Risk Index has calculated that Los Angles is the county most in danger for natural disaster, in terms of how often disasters strike, how vulnerable the population is socially, and how well the metropolis is able to bounce back. Los Angeles County scores in the “very high risk” category for earthquakes, riverine flooding, and wildfires. With the entire county exposed to earthquakes, the monetized value of property and lives at risk is $73 trillion. Expected annual losses due to all type sof disasters in the county amount to $1.4 billion. Neighboring Riverside County and San Bernardino County are also in the top ten riskiest places, with similar risk factors. The index is new in that it calculates the toll in ways that go beyond frequency to take into account the high cost, in fiscal and other ways, low-frequency--but devastating--natural disasters incur. (not much else here). The index’s three least-risky places are Loudon County, Virginia; Chattahoochee County, Georgia; and the City and Borough of Wrangell, Alaska. (Related CP&DR coverage.)
UCSF Seeks Major Expansion of San Francisco Campus
The University of California at San Francisco, a graduate campus dedicated to medicine and life sciences, has reached an agreement with the city to boost the housing, transit, and jobs programs that are part of its massive Parnassus campus expansion plan. UCSF will build 1,263 new housing units for students, faculty, and staff, which would more than double the school's entire housing stock in the city. By 2050, 40 percent of those units will be affordable for people making less than 120 percent of the area median income,. The commitment is an increase from UCSF's earlier proposal to build 762 housing units. UCSF wants to build 2 million square feet across new buildings, including a new hospital that will replace a facility that doesn't meet the city's earthquake safety code, and turns away thousands of patients per year due to limited capacity. If approved, construction is expected to start in 2023. The university will also contribute around $20 million for transit improvement, add 4,680 jobs, and the school will seek to hire local residents for 30 percent of entry-level positions.
UC Berkeley Assesses Segregation in Bay Area
UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute released a report that seeks to identify the most segregated and integrated cities in the San Francisco Bay Area. One conclusion is that intra-municipal segregation (segregation of the residents from the larger region) is more apparent in large cities with racially identifiable areas, like Oakland. But smaller, more racially homogeneous cities, like Lafayette, segregated their residents from people of different races through municipal boundaries and exclusionary policies, resulting in inter-municipal segregation. This, the authors conclude, is the form of segregation which predominates and results in extreme racial isolation in the diverse Bay Area region. A clear pattern the researchers found were that an inordinate number of the most segregated cities in the Bay Area are smaller cities that are more than 85 percent white in Marin County. But the most segregated city in the Bay Area is East Palo Alto: a historically Black community created from redlining and racial exclusion that limited where Black families could live in the region.
Quick Hits & Updates
Urban planning and data science academic Karen Chapple has been named the new director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto, where she will continue to amplify the school's successes in helping cities and regions grow sustainably as they face increasingly complex challenges. Chapple's research focuses on inequalities in the planning, structure and governance of regions in the U.S. and Latin America, with a focus on economic development and housing.
The San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments has commissioned a $1.5 million study to create a roadmap for mass transit in the region. Expected to start next year and be completed by September 2022, the study arose from the Metro board's decision earlier this year to not pursue a proposed State Route 60 light rail alignment for the Eastside L Line extension.
Thanks to a 15-city partnership, the municipalities and other public agencies in the South Bay region of Los Angeles County will have access to a 1 GB fiberoptic network for $1,000 per month--half the cost of commercial rates. The new South Bay Fiber Network (SBFN) came out of a 2016 economic development initiative, following the exodus of South Bay companies that citied insufficient broadband infrastructure among their reasons for moving.
The Berkeley City Council approved the Adeline Corridor Specific Plan - a document that lays out an ambitious vision through 2040 to reshape the South Berkeley area near Ashby BART with an estimated 1,500 housing units, commercial space, and permanent homes for cultural institutions like the Ashby Flea Market and the Juneteenth Festival. Broadly, it hopes to address the political and economic factors that displaced thousands of minority residents after the construction of Ashby BART in the 1960s.
Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Liane Randolph to chair the California Air Resources Board. Most recently, Randolph served as commissioner on the California Public Utilities Commission. She will be the first Black chair of the board, and will bring experience from her work on projects to reduce greenhouse gases in new buildings, as well as to formulate rules to help California transition away from using natural gas.
A long-awaited hovercraft feasibility study for the San Francisco Bay was delivered to the Water Emergency Transportation Authority. The preliminary findings were that hovercraft are technically feasible to operate on San Francisco Bay, but didn't find significant advantages for the smaller crafts over their larger counterparts for emergency service duties, for example, or in terms of air quality benefits until all-electric fleets come to the market.
Oracle Corp. is the latest tech giant to announce that it will move its headquarters from California to Texas, joining the ranks of Tesla and HP Enterprise, two companies that recently announced their exodus. In a press release, Oracle signaled that its move from Redwood City to Austin is predicated on a large number of employees being able to continue to work remotely.
Metropolitan Transportation Commissioner planners have backed off a mandate that would have large companies make their workforce remote three days out of the work week. Instead, the commission approved a plan that calls for big companies to have 60 percent of their employees take sustainable commutes by 2035. Regional planners are under pressure to meet state mandates that require the region to cut emissions 19 percent by 2035 or lose $100 million in transportation funds as soon as 2022. (See related CP&DR coverage.)
Apartment landlords are suing the City of Santa Monica, claiming a measure the council passed in September that bans short-term rentals is "arbitrary, capricious, and lacking in evidentiary support." It alleges Santa Monica is violating the California Coastal Act, and separately the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause because it hurts tenants affected by COVID who may be looking for short term rentals.
The Palmdale City Council approved the Palmdale Transit Area Specific Plan that will customize the planning process, land use, and zoning regulations for future transit-oriented development around the proposed downtown California High Speed Rail station. The transit center would have bus transportation, a north-south high speed rail line, a potential east-west high speed rail line and the Metrolink station coming in to one location.
