“Woman was struck and killed” by a driver, not a car. Vehicles don’t drive themselves. One human killed another, sadly. http://bit.ly/7EeJGo
Hometown Congressional District 12 and Jackie Speier on the Colbert Report! http://bit.ly/41lpjr Great comedy.
Eric Morris of UCLA has a great Freakonomics post on Shovel-Ready Stimulus. He suggests a rename: bureaucracy ready. http://bit.ly/2RHjhK
The O.C. and L.A. Co at loggerheads on freeway expansion v. transit improvements http://bit.ly/4xj5qu
Gosh I hope this gets built. Near an old home of mine, I loved the walkability of the neighborhood. Fingers crossed. http://bit.ly/V8uea
Leasebacks to foreclosed homeowners -
The SF Chronicle presents an interesting story today about bank negotiated leases with homeowners before they foreclose on their property. In return for rent, the policy keeps them in their home, keeps vacancy rates down and in general, is a pretty humane and smart approach to the current housing crisis.
Homeowners don’t see their credit score hit quite as hard (not sure that’s too critical though - remember that many of these foreclosed owners had iffy credit and income that wasn’t checked by loan officers in the first place) and more importantly, cities don’t have rows of homes that are vacant and/or blighted.
Currently the proposal is for a market rate lease for one year, though some housing advocates would like to see the Sallie Mae program extend to 3-5 years with an option to buy back the home. As the article points out, that’s a long time for banks to carry the “toxic” loan.
The official action is modest, a $2.5 million contract to devise a set of detailed growth scenarios for California, from classic suburban sprawl to compact development focused on older cities. The goal is to produce a single “preferred scenario” - one that conceivably could be used to prod local governments to accept or reject new construction.
LEED-esque Landscaping.
Although few S. California cities have embraced waste water management and permeable design much, xeriscaping strategies similar to those I’ve seen in Palm Springs and Tucson, AZ could fit nicely with this new rating system.
N. California cities have no excuse and honestly, isn’t the idea of logical landscaping, location and water use much overdue?
Infographic of the Day: The Jobless rate for People like You: http://bit.ly/2SmBdO
Something like this only makes sense in rainy locations but still, pretty neat.