It's been 20 years since California elected a governor with a strong interest in planning and development.  And next week's gubernatorial election appears to present a pretty significant choice in the state's approach to these issues.

Despite her occasional right-wing rhetoric, Meg Whitman is unlikely to bend in a radical direction. She may suspend AB 32 and focus on job creation, but she's likely to focus on green jobs. She's also likely to try to streamline the California Environmental Quality Act, though it's hard to know � with a Democratic legislature � how likely she is to succeed.

The entire California planning world now seems to revolve around combating climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But Proposition 23 – a long-term suspension of the state's climate-change law – is on the ballot this fall. The proposition is behind at the polls – but if it passes – will that be the end of SB 375, Sustainable Communities Strategies, greenhouse gas emissions analyses in environmental impact reports, and the whole industry that has been built up around climate change planning? 

At about 10:30 this morning, I stepped out of my office a block from Main St. in Ventura to get a cup of coffee. Almost immediately, I noticed something different.

The parking lot on Oak Street, usually two-thirds empty in the morning, was mostly full. And the on-street parking spaces along Oak and Main Street, which are mostly occupied on a typical morning at this time, were mostly vacant.

Amid budget shortfalls and a development drought, California cities and counties have stopped planning.  But they haven't stopped coding. 

Form-based code fever is still in full force throughout California. From north to south, cities – and, occasionally, counties as well – are using a good portion of their meager planning money to create form-based codes. Sometimes these codes are being created citywide, but more often they are focused on downtowns, older corridors, dead mall sites, and other locations designated for higher density or mixed-use development.

My nephew and his wife recently had their second child, and they are following a well-worn path from the city to the suburbs.

Four years ago, childless and carless, they lived the urban life in the fashionable Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Cleveland Park. Child No. 1 pushed them four miles out, to the expensive inner Maryland suburb of Bethesda, where they bought a cozy two-bedroom condominium that had been converted from an apartment. Then, a couple of months ago, Child No. 2 pushed them another 12 miles farther out – beyond the Beltway – to Rockville, where they bought a four-bedroom, 2,200-square-foot house.

As CP&DR's Senior Editor Paul Shigley pointed out last week in his blog, retiring Chief Justice Ronald George of the California Supreme Court gained a well-earned reputation as a centrist and a unifier. 

Now that the California Air Resources Board has released its draft targets for greenhouse gas emissions reduction under SB 375, it's time to do some math. What follows is nerdy and a little dense, but it's important – and planners need to be able to follow the bouncing ball on 375. 

The bottom line is that the math doesn't yet add up – and that's because what AB 32 calls for and what California's regional planning agencies think is realistic don't line up with each other.

A couple of weeks ago, Shelley Poticha, the Obama Administration's point person on smart growth, gave a high-profile talk to a big Urban Land Institute crowd in Los Angeles. Her message, plain and simple, was that it's time for what she called "alignment." 

With state and local government revenues shrinking throughout California, planners are increasingly looking to the federal government – and especially transportation funds – to pay for local planning efforts, especially if they involve infill and transit-oriented development efforts. But the two major possible sources of funding – the transportation reauthorization bill and the climate bill – are both stalled with little hope of passage anytime soon.

The climate bill has been caught, at least for the moment, in the crossfire of the immigration debate. So let's get back to that later and focus instead on the bill that ought to have no trouble passing: the transportation reauthorization bill.

Veteran planning and architecture journalist Josh Stephens has been named editor of California Planning & Development Report, the state's leading independent publication covering land-use planning issues. Stephens will replace Paul Shigley, who is stepping down after 11 years as editor to focus on other writing projects.