May 1, 2022

neighbors upset over granny flat constructions near single family homes...look more like apartments

May 1, 2022

Can you be a NIMBY and a Christian? Ex-Motown singer struggles with a new homeless shelter

The Bible was always Larry S. Buford’s guiding light, but it put the one-time Motown singer-songwriter in a dilemma, when he found himself defending his South Los Angeles neighborhood from encroaching development.

Buford became increasingly alarmed over the span of two decades, as he watched the single-family homes on his tranquil block of Avalon Boulevard replaced by multi-story apartment buildings with insufficient parking.

The apartment buildings were for people who are poor or homeless or aged or mentally ill. And the deeply religious 68-year-old, who has lived in Willowbrook for a quarter century, was in a quandary: His personal values were at odds with his concern for his neighborhood.

And then he found himself in conflict with a spiritual brother: the Rev. Andy Bales, head of the Union Rescue Mission, the downtown L.A. homeless shelter that vows to “embrace people with the compassion of Christ.”

======

That focus began around 2000, when a 42-unit home for seniors rose across the street from Buford’s house. In 2012, the man with the barbeque pit sold his property. A Community of Friends, a nonprofit that builds and operates apartments for people with mental illness, announced plans to construct the 55-unit Avalon Apartments on the land.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-01/to-be-a-nimby-or-a-follower-of-isaiah-a-former-motown-songwriter-faces-a-moral-crossroad

May 1, 2022

We mapped the warehouse takeover of the Inland Empire. The results are overwhelming

I recently drove past the Amazon warehouse that provides the Orange county region ( I think it was in Rialto). that thing was HUGE. if you ever want take a route 66 drive...check out the warehouses along the way.


Forty percent of the nation’s goods now travel through the Inland Empire,

We mapped the warehouse takeover of the Inland Empire. The results are overwhelming

Over the last 20 years, I’ve watched open land and farmland in the Inland Empire become a gridlocked sea of warehouses. These giant boxes have worsened traffic, air quality, cancer rates and chronic health problems in the region and have cemented poverty here. The industry once touted as a blue-collar miracle is instead filled with temp jobs rife with health and safety issues, wage theft, little job security and a future in which robotic workers are predicted to reign supreme.

The Inland Empire is at a breaking point. More than a dozen groups throughout its vast 27,000-square-mile region are attempting to pass moratoriums on warehouse construction. But conservative politics and development money continue to win out. City councils in what are known as “diesel death zones” routinely sacrifice the health of residents for economic benefit in areas that often have Black and Latino populations.

Last year the Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability at Pitzer College, which I oversee, began creating an animated map of warehouse growth in the Inland Empire that reaches back to 1975. Recently published, the map makes warehouses in the Inland Empire look like the spread of a disease. What began at a couple of World War II military logistics sites in San Bernardino and Mira Loma, a town in Riverside County, has grown into a behemoth with millions of square feet of warehouse space.

Strategic land acquisitions near airports and rail yards created an Inland Empire logistics hub that is visible from space. By the 1980s, agriculture was considered a relic industry and the Inland Empire region had been deemed to be “dirt cheap.” The abundance of land combined with a large immigrant population of low educational attainment made for a narrative that warehousing was a natural fit. Besides, the nation’s largest port complex is an acceptable drive away. With the emergence of online shopping in the 1990s, warehouse construction began to skyrocket.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-05-01/inland-empire-warehouse-growth-map-environment

May 1, 2022

Florida... rents soaring