SMa.r.t. Column: Ode to the Future of My City
How sad it is to journey to Santa Monica and I can’t find it.The open blue sky hides behind canyon walls.I look for glimpses of sun and sea, but they are also hard to find.Instead […]
SMa.r.t. Column: Fantasyland Is Not Limited to Theme Parks
By now, most residents have heard of Santa Monica’s 8,895-unit overall mandate and the 6,168-unit affordable housing subset. This general magnitude of Santa Monica’s mandated housing numbers has been floating around for almost 3 years […]
SMa.r.t. Column: Why Native Gardens?
Voltaire said it best at the end of his 1759 novel Candide: “We must cultivate our own garden”. This simple phrase has special meaning today as the ecological noose tightens with brownouts (1/4 of our […]
SMa.r.t. Column: We’re All Wet – Not!
Don’t you think that if you heard, or read, statements from controlling government agencies that said you were threatened by a health hazard if the threatening condition was allowed to continue unabated, and the same […]
SMar.t. Column: Has the Promenade Turned a Corner?
In large complex systems with dynamically balanced forces, it’s paradoxically often hard to tell when something has actually happened, For example, when did the British Empire start to crumble? What was the first sign of […]
SMa.r.t. Column: A Tale of Two Cities
The City of Santa Monica is surrounded on three sides by the City of Los Angeles. Therefore, while the jurisdictions are different, the development processes, pressures and outcomes are very similar. This article by a […]
SMa.r.t. Column: It’s Time to Look at the Facts of Santa Monica’s Housing History
The Narrative: Santa Monica’s decades-long housing construction “shortage” The Narrative endlessly repeats the refrain that for decades Santa Monica has built almost nothing. The implication is that residents should feel guilty about “selfishly” wanted to […]
SMa.r.t. Column: The Mansionization of Santa Monica
Editor’s note: This column originally appeared in print in 2016. In the 1980s, Santa Monica’s single family zoning code was rewritten and modified to prevent the “mansionization” of small homes on small lots, from being […]
SMa.r.t. Column: The Sound of Silence Is Big & Tall
All too often these days we find ourselves wondering how we could have been so correct about so many planning issues that we have written about over these last nine years, and yet so frequently […]
Affordable Spaces for Small Business
Los Angeles County recently proposed a program providing financial incentives for certain “Legacy” family businesses in their original historical location. They have been facing financial hardships for a variety of reasons like COVID, gentrification, and […]
Sweet Laurel Bakery Will Not Reopen in Palisades, Closes Santa Monica Pickup Spot
Sweet Laurel opened its flagship store in Palisades Village in 2018 and built a strong following across West Los Angeles....
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SM.a.r.t. Column: Santa Monica Isn’t Rebounding Yet. It’s Replacing
Santa Monica officially reports numerous new business openings, often highlighted by the media as signs of economic recovery. However, a...
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