San Diego may have expensive housing, but it still ranks as one of the 10 best U.S. cities for raising a family, according to the financial services website WalletHub.

The Miami-based company ranked 182 U.S. cities — including the 150 most populous, plus at least two cities from each state — on five measures:  affordability, education, health, socio-economics and family fun opportunities.

San Diego came in 8th, with measures of education and family fun outweighing affordability.

Five of the ten best cities were in California, including top-ranked Fremont, Irvine, San Diego, San Jose and Huntington Beach. Only one city in California’s arch-rival Texas — Plano — made the top ten. Pembroke Pines was the top city in Florida, coming in at 40.

“While not perfect — given personal preferences and the limitations of publicly available data — our findings will hopefully give movers a better sense of their options,” WalletHub said.

Other cities in San Diego County made the extended list, including Chula Vista at 43 and Oceanside at 70.

News websites like Times of San Diego get dozens of email pitches every week ranking cities and states by different measures. This week’s batch from publicists included rankings of rat infestations, ER wait times and, as widely reported, the nation’s most expensive cities.

The first thing we do with a ranking is check the methodology. If it doesn’t clearly indicate how the ranking was accomplished, we delete the email.

That was the case with the U.S. News & World Report ranking of San Diego as the most expensive city in the United States. The methodology was surprisingly vague.

“Metro areas in the rankings are evaluated using data from sources including the U.S. Census Bureau, the FBI, the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. News’ own internal resources,” according to the U.S. News website. “This data was categorized into the four indexes listed below and evaluated using a methodology determined by Americans’ preferences.”

The four indexes were “quality of life,” “desirability,” “value” and “job market.” It’s not clear how the first two affect expense, and a figure used in the “job market” category was completely wrong. The unemployment rate for San Diego was listed as 10.3%, when in fact it’s 4.0%.

Then there’s the common-sense test of any ranking. Examining the U.S. News list, we found cities in California’s Central Valley ranked with some of the largest coastal cities. Stockton (#17) is supposedly more expensive than Washington, DC (#18), while Fresno (#19) and Modesto (#20) are ranked as more expensive than Portland, OR (#21).

It’s stretches credulity that a family in Stockton could save money by moving to the nation’s capital.

So we checked out other U.S. News rankings and found another surprising one. The “military power” ranking lists Russia as the country with the most powerful military. Maybe this was before Putin invaded Ukraine?

I’m sure many in San Diego, which has the largest cluster of military facilities in the world, are chuckling over this U.S. News ranking.

U.S. News & World Report has a well-deserved reputation for ranking universities, but that hasn’t necessarily transferred into other areas of life. Indeed, rankings like the ones for most expensive cities and military power may be nothing more than website clickbait.

There’s no question that San Diego is an expensive city. But I wouldn’t expect to move to New York (#11) and spend less and live better. And I don’t believe every ranking I see.

Chris Jennewein is editor & publisher of Times of San Diego.

San Diego was ranked the “greenest” city in the United States, thanks largely to clean energy sources and environmentally friendly policies, in a new study by WalletHub.

The Miami-based personal finance website compared the 100 largest cities using 28 indicators ranging from greenhouse-gas emissions per capita, green job opportunities and public transit to organic farms, bike lanes and air quality.

However, the report was not able to include recycling, with the authors noting the lack of comparable city-level data .

Honolulu came in second, and Portland third. Three cities surrounding Phoenix — Gilbert, Glendale and Mesa — came in last.

Braden Allenby, a professor of engineering and ethics at Arizona State University, told WalletHub that cities need to be strategic about their efforts to become more green.

“Miami might invest in increased resilience around flooding and climate change effects, while Phoenix might invest in water efficiency and lowering its urban heat island effects,” he said.

WalletHub noted at a majority of Americans now “think that protecting the environment should be prioritized above economic growth.”

Technically, the encampment of about a dozen tents at W Street and Alhambra Boulevard in Sacramento is illegal. 

The tents, tarps and associated debris — clothing, a discarded crib, boxes of rotting food — are blocking the sidewalk in violation of a new city ordinance. Located on a major thoroughfare and across the street from a neighborhood of houses, the camp is one of the most complained about in the city, said Hezekiah Allen with Sacramento’s Department of Community Response. 

But on a recent Tuesday morning, his team wasn’t out there threatening to arrest people, or even telling them to move. Instead, city outreach worker Jawid Sharifi was greeting encampment residents, whom he knew by name, with fist bumps. Gently, he inquired whether they’d given any more thought to moving into a city-run trailer park for unhoused residents.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Sharifi told a man in a black hoodie who emerged from a tent. “We’ll come back here in the afternoon also to talk to you guys.” 

As in many California cities, Sacramento’s shortage of affordable housing and shelter options makes it difficult to enforce anti-camping laws. But despite obvious challenges, local ordinances designed to crack down on encampments are becoming increasingly common.

Liberal leaders in cities and counties throughout California, pushed to their wits’ end by massive encampments and irate voters, are taking steps to ban camps. Cities including Los Angeles, Sacramento, Elk Grove, Oakland, Santa Cruz and Milpitas — all run by Democrats — passed ordinances in the past three years to target behavior such as setting up tents near schools and other buildings, blocking sidewalks or even camping at all when shelter is available. Officials in San Jose and San Diego are considering similar measures.  

“It’s a reflection of where we’ve gotten to as a society on this issue,” said Democratic political strategist Daniel Conway, who led support for a 2022 Sacramento ballot measure that will make large encampments illegal if shelter is available. “Because I think there’s a recognition that the kind of status quo of having over 100,000 people in California living and dying on the streets, it’s terrible for those people…And at the same time there’s this increased sense that people don’t feel safe in their own neighborhoods and their own communities anymore.”

So far, state lawmakers have been reluctant to follow with new anti-camping laws. Two bills backed by Republican legislators would take the unprecedented step of making it illegal for unhoused people to camp in certain areas — including near schools — throughout the entire state. To date, the state’s involvement in encampment management mostly has been restricted to agencies such as Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol clearing camps from state land. 

Broader anti-camping measures can be politically and morally fraught, as well as logistically complicated. Activists argue displacing unhoused people from their camps is traumatizing and dangerous to their health. 

And such laws run the risk, particularly for liberal lawmakers, of appearing to criminalize homelessness — so far, Democratic legislators by and large have been unwilling to sign on in support. 

The new local ordinances, which come with penalties that can include fines or even arrest, have become a flashpoint in a heated debate. Advocates for the rights of unhoused people argue they’re cruel and unconstitutional, while some housed neighbors — sick of seeing human waste, trash and discarded needles in the street — say they don’t go far enough. Enforcement of the new ordinances, which largely is driven by complaints, has been uneven, and most cities don’t have the resources to respond to every encampment.

And then there’s the state’s legendary affordable housing shortage. Sky-high rental prices have forced multitudes of Californians onto the street, where they’re confronted with a dearth of shelter beds, addiction treatment and mental health help. Though anti-camping laws may score political points for officials under immense pressure to clean up their city’s streets, without places for unhoused people to go, they continue to move block by block around our cities. https://calmatters-encampment-bans.netlify.

For example, Sacramento County, which counted more than 9,000 unhoused residents in its 2022 homeless census, has about 2,400 shelter beds. 

“The overarching issue is if you don’t have actually acceptable places for people to go, then people can be forced to leave but then they’ll just go somewhere else,” said Jennifer Wolch, a professor emerita at UC Berkeley who specializes in issues surrounding homelessness. “And it will become a problem for another neighborhood.”

Should the State Decide Where Encampments Can Be?

Despite what’s going on at the local level — and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s repeated insistence that clearing California homeless camps is a top priority — Democrats in the Legislature have been reluctant to jump on board.

Senate Bill 31, which would make it illegal to sit, lie or sleep within 1,000 feet of a school, daycare, park or library, failed to make it out of the Senate Public Safety Committee and is awaiting reconsideration. The bill, introduced by Senate GOP leader Brian Jones of San Diego County and backed by seven other Republicans, has just one Democratic co-author — Sen. Bill Dodd of Napa. Representatives from 15 different organizations across the state spoke out against the bill during its committee hearing last month, calling it “misguided” and accusing supporters of prioritizing criminalization instead of health and safety.

Assembly Bill 257, another GOP bill that would make it illegal to camp within 500 feet of a school or daycare center, also was voted down in committee. Author Josh Hoover, a Folsom Republican, tried to assuage critics by narrowing its focus — it no longer applies to parks or libraries and now prohibits “camping” instead of “sitting” or “lying” — but to no avail. Even so, it’s not dead yet. The bill was granted reconsideration and Hoover remains hopeful.

“I personally have found needles in the park where my kids play, and I think this is something that most of the public finds unacceptable,” he said in an interview. “It needs to be addressed immediately statewide.”

At least two newly elected Democratic lawmakers voted for local anti-camping ordinances while serving on city councils last year, Sen. Angelique Ashby of Sacramento and Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen of Elk Grove. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re sold on a statewide ban. 

“I believe that addressing these concerns at a local level rather than a statewide level is the best approach,” Nguyen said in an emailed statement. 

Ashby refused an interview request and her office wouldn’t say whether the senator supported the statewide efforts. 

City leaders also don’t necessarily want the state to step in. 

“When it comes to where do you enforce a no-encampment zone, I feel like that should be a city decision,” said San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.

San Jose City Council voted in 2021 to target homeless encampments near schools for removal, and since then has cleared 42 school-zone camps. Mahan said the experiment has been successful, as people have agreed to move from the school zones without creating “a huge tax on city resources or a big controversy.”

But Shaunn Cartwright, a local advocate for the rights of unhoused people, said many of those displaced from school zones just move their camps to other locations in the city. 

“All it does is stigmatize unhoused people as these are people we can’t trust around children,” she said of the city’s policy. “And it’s ridiculous because many unhoused people obviously are parents.” 

Mahan is considering eventually implementing broader no-camping zones in places like key business districts, but only after his city increases its temporary housing capacity.

Brigitte Nicoletti with the East Bay Community Law Center said in addition to being a “really cruel and shortsighted way of addressing homelessness,” ordinances that ban camping when there’s not enough shelter may violate unhoused people’s constitutional rights. Another problem: When clearing encampments, many cities will offer shelter not everyone can accept — whether it’s because of mental or physical health conditions, or because it would force them to leave behind beloved pets or important possessions. 

“It’s really just pandering to people who are freaked out by health and public safety issues,” she said of the uptick in no-camping ordinances, “but it does nothing to address people’s actual needs.” 

Democratic Leaders Want More Homeless Shelters

Several factors led to the growth of massive homeless encampments throughout the state and prompted the recent spate of anti-camping ordinances. In addition to an overall increase in the state’s homeless population — it’s estimated more than 170,000 unhoused people lived in the state last year, compared to just over 150,000 in 2019 — many cities stopped clearing homeless camps during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing them to grow and become more entrenched. 

A 2018 ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals also changed the game. In Martin vs. Boise, the court ruled cities cannot penalize someone for sleeping on public property if no other options exist — which many cities have interpreted to mean they can’t clear an encampment unless they have enough shelter beds for the displaced residents. 

Cities’ new anti-camping ordinances take advantage of a loophole in that ruling — even if they have no space in their shelters, they still can make it illegal to sleep outside in certain places or at certain times.

But no liberal California leader wants to be accused of “criminalizing” homelessness. So most are pairing anti-camping ordinances with a push for resources. Mahan of San Jose wants to build 1,000 new temporary housing units this year before he expands no-camping zones. Santa Cruz’s no camping ordinance has yet to take effect, and won’t do so until the city can create 150 new shelter beds and establish a place for unhoused people to store their belongings.

Sacramento’s Measure O, passed by voters in November, includes a requirement to set up more shelter beds before cracking down further on camps – something city leaders plan to achieve via a new partnership with the county. 

“It’s first up to the society through its government to provide safe dignified alternatives to people,” said Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, who has become one of the state’s most high-profile examples of a progressive politician caught between the pressures to clear camps and to respond to homelessness with compassion. “And if that test is met…to say people cannot choose to live out on the streets.”

Uneven Enforcement

Enforcement of these ordinances presents a tricky question: How do cities get unhoused people to comply without punishing them for having no home? Approaches vary widely throughout the state – and even within cities. 

• In Elk Grove, the city can confiscate homeless people’s belongings if they violate the city’s new anti-camping ordinance, but can’t fine or arrest them. The Sacramento suburb has not yet seized anyone’s belongings. 
• San Diego, on the other hand, after issuing warnings and offering people shelter and other help, wrote 925 citations and made 513 arrests last year for violations of laws aimed at homeless camps, according to Voice of San Diego. 

San Diego is trying to do even more. Last year, Mayor Todd Gloria directed police to target anyone who had a tent up during daytime hours. But follow-through was “somewhat uneven,” Gloria admitted in an interview, due to police understaffing and COVID-related issues. Now he’s backing a proposal that would prohibit all encampments on public property when shelter is available, and bar camps near schools and shelters even when it’s not. 

“The city is providing more solutions than it ever has,” Gloria said. “And I think as a result the taxpayers helping to fund this should have a right to expect safe and hygienic public spaces.”

• Oakland passed a controversial encampment management policy in 2020 that prioritizes clearing camps near schools, homes and businesses, but doesn’t give authorities the ability to cite or arrest people for camping. The city cleared encampments in 226 locations over the past year.
• Sacramento in 2020 passed an ordinance making it illegal to camp within 25 feet of “critical infrastructure” such as government buildings, bridges and electrical wires. In August, the City Council passed a measure banning homeless encampments that block sidewalks, and in October they expanded the critical infrastructure ordinance to ban camping within 500 feet of schools.

The Sacramento ordinances are enforced selectively, generally based on complaints made by residents calling 311. The city has about 20 outreach workers, like Sharifi, who try to connect people to shelters and warn occupants of problem camps that they need to move. If they refuse, police or code enforcement may take over.  

The intention isn’t to be punitive, said Assistant City Manager Mario Lara.

“We’ve responded to thousands of calls,” he said. “We’ve not issued any citations or any arrests.”

Camps on Route to Sacramento School

Though encampments still dot the city, some Sacramento residents say they’ve seen a little improvement. Last year, the route Amy Gardner’s 8th-grade daughter walked to Sutter Middle School got so bad that she and other parent and community volunteers formed a group to escort kids past an environment she characterized as rife with snarling dogs, human waste, broken glass, needles and people in the throes of mental health crises. 

It took months, but the city finally cleared the main camp on the route, under an Interstate 80 overpass, Gardner said. The kids now feel safe walking to school.

But the problem didn’t go away.

“The camps have shifted and moved,” she said. “It’s not that everyone got shelter.”

Some people from under the overpass relocated about eight blocks over, where more than a dozen tents recently lined 29th Street. Damian Newton, who has been homeless for a dozen years, was one of them. The city told him and his neighbors the bridge they slept under is off-limits because it’s “critical infrastructure,” Newton said. 

“They just didn’t want us in sight,” 38-year-old Newton said. “What damage have we really done to schools? What damage have we really done to bridges?” 

Soon, he’ll have to move again. As he talked to a reporter on a recent Thursday, while sitting on a bare mattress in the doorway of his tent, Newton said the California Highway Patrol had been by that morning to tell him and other camp residents they had to leave their new home within four days. 

Newton said he’s been offered a shelter bed before, but after seeing friends accept and then end up back on the street, he doesn’t see the point. Activists and those who have lived in shelters throughout California say residents sometimes chafe under a shelter’s strict rules, feel uncomfortable or unsafe there or get frustrated by the lack of options to transition from there into permanent housing.   

So where will Newton go next? He’s not sure. Maybe across the street, until someone complains and he has to pack up again. 

“Not many places that’s left to go, really,” he said. 

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters.

The guerrilla war between Gov. Gavin Newsom and some of California’s 482 cities over housing policy is heating up.

The state has imposed quotas on local governments to provide — on paper — enough land for much-needed housing, particularly projects for low- and moderate-income families, and streamline permits for projects.

While most are complying, albeit with some reluctance, others are trying to thwart the mandate. Resistance is strongest in small suburban cities dominated by wealthy residents who live in spacious homes on very large lots and don’t want dense condo or apartment projects to spoil the bucolic atmosphere of their neighborhoods.

That said, the sharpest conflict in California’s housing war pits a not-so-wealthy Orange County city, Huntington Beach, against the state. The city has basically declared it won’t meet the state’s demands, and Newsom and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta are suing to force compliance.

“The City of Huntington Beach continues to attempt to evade their responsibility to build housing, but they will simply not win,” Newsom said last week, just before Huntington Beach formally declared its rebellion. “City leaders have a choice — build more housing or face very real consequences — including loss of state funds, substantial fines, and loss of local control.”

“The city has a duty to protect the quality and lifestyle of the neighborhoods that current owners have already bought into and for the future sustainability of Huntington Beach,” City Councilman Pat Burns wrote in a letter to his colleagues prior to their action. “Radical redevelopment in already-established residential neighborhoods is not only a threat to quality and lifestyle, but to the value of the adjacent and neighboring properties.”

Afterwards, Newsom’s office tweeted, “Tonight, Huntington Beach leaders decided that their residents don’t need affordable housing. This is a pathetic pattern by politicians more focused on taking down pride flags than on real solutions. CA needs more housing. Time for Huntington Beach to start acting like it.”

It’s at least noteworthy that the affluent suburbs seeking ways around their quotas, mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area, are overwhelmingly Democratic in their political orientation while Huntington Beach is a Republican stronghold.

Interestingly, while the battle over land use and housing continues elsewhere, residents of arguably California’s most exclusive community don’t have to worry about multi-family housing projects spoiling their ambiance because of a quirk in the law.

That would be Montecito, home to celebrities galore, including Oprah Winfrey, Rob Lowe, Ellen DeGeneres and, most recently, expatriate British Prince Harry and his wife, actress Meghan Markle.

Montecito lies next to the Santa Barbara but is not a city. Rather, it is an unincorporated community governed by the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors.

The county’s cities have their own quotas, but all of its unincorporated territory is folded into one quota of 5,664 units. The county’s plan, unveiled last month, identifies potential building sites, mostly near the cities of Santa Barbara and Santa Maria and the communities of Orcutt, Goleta, Isla Vista and Carpinteria.

Some of the sites are vacant while others are occupied, including some shopping centers and churches. None are in Montecito or an adjacent enclave called Summerland, even though the county’s inventory of vacant land includes about a dozen parcels, some of them fairly large, in those two communities.

When county officials outlined their plan at a public meeting this month they were asked why no sites in Montecito were included. County planning director Lisa Plowman said only sites whose owners were interested in development were chosen and no one in Montecito or Summerland was amenable to dense multi-family housing.

That’s why Oprah and her neighbors won’t be bothered.

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters.

Nine board members at the San Diego Association of Governments walked out of their first meeting of the year over growing frustrations that the agency’s weighted voting structure is weakening the voice of the smaller cities they represent.

The move is likely to continue board discord as SANDAG continues to grapple with a series of controversial audits and divided decisions over its long-term transportation planning.

“We saw no point in continuing,” said Steve Vaus, Poway mayor and the city’s representative on the SANDAG board. “You saw the discussion about the weighted vote. They keep pushing it aside, but the only way this county’s going to come together and meet the needs of all the people in all the county will be if we have a collaborative, collegial, cooperative board.

“That’s not happening now. So there’s no point being there.”

Since 2018, state law has allowed a weighted voting system at SANDAG that gives more power to San Diego County’s larger cities. It means that representatives from just three jurisdictions — the city of San Diego, the county and Chula Vista — can make up the majority vote for a board made up of 19 local governments.

Supporters say the voting system gives proportional representation to residents of larger cities, while opponents say it’s diminishing the voices of smaller cities. Previously, the SANDAG board had to have a majority tally vote and a weighted vote to pass items. 

Now, just the weighted vote is needed. That came into play last week, when the board ushered in its new leadership. 

County Supervisor Nora Vargas will serve as SANDAG chair and San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera as first vice-chair, both of them being appointed with a weighted vote.

Read the full article on inewsource.org.

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Mayor Todd Gloria was tapped Thursday to lead the bipartisan group Big City Mayors, a statewide coalition composed of the mayors from the 13 largest cities in California by population.

Gloria will lead the group composed of the mayors of Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Fresno, Sacramento, Long Beach, Oakland, Bakersfield, Anaheim, Stockton, Riverside and Irvine — in 2023 and 2024.

Locally, this means Gloria will not seek the chairmanship at the San Diego Association of Governments. He has endorsed San Diego County Supervisor Nora Vargas for the role to succeed Encinitas Mayor Catherine Blakespear, who was elected to the state Senate in November.

“California’s cities face daunting challenges, and I’m humbled by the trust my colleagues in the Big City Mayors coalition have placed in me to lead them,” Gloria said.

“Since taking office, I’ve worked with the Big City Mayors coalition to secure funding to get thousands of people off the streets into housing and to pass the Governor’s CARE Court proposal, enacting badly needed reform to the state’s mental health system.

“Cities are the engines that run this great state, and I’m committed to working with federal and state leaders to leverage our voice to get results on homelessness, housing costs and mental health for all Californians,” he said.

The bipartisan coalition secured dedicated funding in the last few years to address homelessness in the state’s big cities through California’s Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention program.

According to Gloria, the group will continue to “strengthen HHAP’s focus on accountability for the funding that goes to cities, counties and continuums of care, highlighting the successes cities are having with the funding and conveying the need for continued investment at the local level to help the state address its most critical challenge.”

The Big City Mayors coalition also worked to secure federal pandemic relief and economic recovery funding for cities and pushed for the passage of SB 1338, the bill that carried Gov. Gavin Newsom’s CARE Act — a reform of California’s approach to mental health to help people struggling with mental illness access services.

A study released this month ranked San Diego as the greenest city in America, thanks to copious amounts of renewable energy and an overall healthful environment.

San Diego was followed by Portland and Honolulu in the ranking by Washington, DC-based WalletHub, a financial information website. The least green of the 100 largest cities in America were three in the Phoenix suburbs: Gilbert, Glendale and Mesa.

“Clean energy and other green practices, such as recycling programs and urban agriculture, help create jobs and benefit both the environment and public health, all of which contribute to America’s bottom line,” said WalletHub.

The study used 28 metrics from greenhouse-gas emissions per capita, to number of smart-energy policies and initiatives, to green job opportunities to rank the cities.

San Diego came in 4th in overall environment, 26th in transportation, 2nd in energy sources and 11th in lifestyle and policy to achieve the no. 1 ranking.

San Diego Gas & Electric, which serves the entire county, has one of the country’s highest shares of renewable energy supply at around 40% of power generated.

Several experts told WalletHub that public commitment is key to building a green city and economy.

“Overall, a question is whether or not greening is front of mind,” said Michael V. Russo, a professor of sustainability at the University of Oregon, who recalled spending a term in the Phoenix area.

“I could not believe what I saw. People commuted in Hummers,” he said. “What this tells me is that there are places where sustainability simply is invisible to people. And unfortunately, I think for some folks we will have to get their attention with strong price signals.”

Envision your ideal neighborhood. Imagine the kinds of businesses there, the entertainment spaces, the homes.

Now, in your perfect neighborhood, how far do you have to drive for essential services? How many miles to the nearest grocery store? Are the children living there walking to school, or do get dropped off in a long line of cars? These are the kinds of questions I like people to think about when they consider urban design and planning.

However, as many people working for the public will admit, activating individuals to imagine real change can be difficult. To do so, the problem that you solve has to create more pain than the fear of change.

As an urban designer and planner looking to change the way people think about their neighborhoods and communities, I know this fear of change is often one of the greatest challenges cities face. Out-of-control urban planning, and a major lack of comfortable, practical walking space, are often just accepted by communities that would benefit most from a change.

In a recent presentation, I spoke to community advocates about how city planning can be a powerful tool for creating safe, healthy spaces for San Diegans to live in. I explained that, like many places around the United States, San Diego communities are facing a crisis of poor planning as residential, commercial, and industrial hubs stretch up the coast connected by busy transportation corridors.

Think about the urban sprawl of homes and apartments, separated from the closest shopping, by busy streets and highways. This is the outcome of decades of zoning regulation in San Diego County that favored transportation, not people. As a result, many areas lack any reason — or hospitable space — for pedestrians to walk, leading to a slew of unintended consequences.

The negative effects of poor urban planning can often trickle down to communities in unexpected ways. For example, the “industrialization” and partitioning of drinking environments can create unsafe areas and exacerbate health issues.

For example, as communities stretch out further and further along transportation corridors, decreasing the number of commercial locations close to residential spaces, individuals are more likely to drive further to get drinks — and drink more while they are there. But in a community where smart planning has provided a reasonable number of accessible alcohol outlets in walking distance, individuals would not need to drive, and would be less likely to binge.

Policies like exclusive commercial-only zoning impact how customers interact with businesses, and can influence the vitality of an entire area of a city. Contrary to what many might expect, storefront parking requirements in many “main street” business corridors tend to have an overall negative effect on commerce in the area, rather than benefitting businesses. With storefront parking easily accessed from the street, it is more convenient for individuals to park, run into the store, and quickly leave.

I advocate a mixed-use city design that puts people before vehicles. Mixed-use zones are areas where commercial and residential buildings share space, rather than just one or the other. In these mixed-use spaces, smart urban planning can reduce the need for cars and protect spaces for pedestrians, further encouraging people to walk, bike, and utilize public transportation to get to places they need in a centralized space.

In my presentations I also demonstrate how conscientious transportation planning can address inequalities that often spring up in an urban environment. “Complete” streets are the best social justice tool a city can build, as these streets that create space for pedestrians, bicycles, and other transportation alternatives can reshape the way populations interact with their cities.

How our private buildings and businesses relate to our public streets and parks matters, and balance is the key to responsible urban planning that puts people first and creates places that residents actually want to inhabit. Local residents ultimately benefit — or suffer — from city planning, and the needs of residents don’t always align with how their neighborhoods are designed. That’s why community input is vital to good planning and zoning; every community is different, and only the people who live there can truly help make it home.

Howard Blackson is a San Diego architect, master planner and contributing faculty member at the NewSchool of Architecture & Design.

A new study by WalletHub found inflation to be highest in Phoenix, lowest in Anchorage, and generally low for major California metropolitan areas.

“In 2022, Americans are dealing with sky-high inflation, which hit a 40-year high earlier this year,” said WalletHub. “Inflation is rising more quickly in some places than others, though.”

The study released Tuesday by the Washington, DC-based financial services website was based on the change in the Consumer Price Index over the past two months and the change over the past year for 23 metropolitan areas.

Metro areas where both figures were high topped the list, and illustrated how inflation is felt differently across the country.

Phoenix led at 13% over the past year and 0.8% over the past two months, followed by Atlanta, Tampa, Miami and Dallas in the combined measures.

San Diego came in 13th with 7.3% over the past year and 1.2% over the past two months.

Anchorage was at the bottom, with prices actually declining 4% over the past two months but sill up 7.6% for the year.

San Francisco ranked 22nd and Los Angeles 20th. Both major metropolitan areas experienced a slight decline in prices over the past two months.

WalletHub asked a number of university professors to comment on the reasons for inflation and the potential outcome.

“The two biggest factors driving inflation today are the supply chain problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the Russian invasion of the Ukraine,” said Robert R. Johnson, a business professor at Creighton University in Nebraska.

Milton Marquis, a professor emeritus at Florida State University, noted that “while in the throes of high inflation, it is sometimes forgotten that inflation is not a forever phenomenon.”