Santa Monica officially reports numerous new business openings, often highlighted by the media as signs of economic recovery. However, a walk through the streets tells a different story; it appears less like a revival and […]

Walk down Ocean Park Boulevard, and you can feel something coming. Development signs announce seven- and eight-story buildings that will tower over local shops and restaurants. Almost 1,000 mostly luxury units. Across Santa Monica, neighbors […]

By CHARLES ANDREWS NOW, THAT’S JUST SILLY With all that’s going on in the world, you’re going to use this precious space to complain about… sports on TV? (Hang with me on this.) That was […]

Attached is an article SMa.r.t. wrote in 2018, and short of a brief comment, I’m not going to edit or alter it, as it is prescient to what we are no doubt about to experience […]

By CHARLES ANDREWS NEXT FRI 5/1: GENERAL STRIKE We have the numbers, we have the economic power. We have seen that pushing back, protesting in large numbers, works. Trump and his clowns back off. The […]

There’s a story urban planners love to tell. A visionary architect-politician in a mid-sized Brazilian city looked at the chaos of modern urban life, the traffic, the pollution, the sprawl, and decided it didn’t have […]