Cities

If you drove down the center of Hurstview Avenue heading east, you would be in the city of Monrovia. But your passenger would be in Duarte. Or hop on South Myrtle Avenue in Monrovia. As you cross Altern Street, you are under county jurisdiction for about half a mile. Pass Wayland Way and you return to Monrovia, but only for about 350 feet. Then it's back to the county again--for another three-eighths of a mile.

Jen Lynch and her family live in the heart of the city but roll out of bed to the sound of clucking chickens. Their day starts with cleaning coops, scooping out feed and hunting for eggs for morning omelets. Eight families in a three-block radius and an estimated 150 families citywide do the same. "It's our slice of rural life, minus the barns," said Jen Lynch, 35, as Flicka the chicken pecked at her backyard lawn.

Los Angeles is at a disadvantage competing with Las Vegas, New York and Miami for tourists who want a lively nightclub scene because of a California law that cuts off alcohol sales at 2 a.m., a state lawmaker contends. State Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) has introduced legislation that could extend the last call for alcohol in some California cities until 4 a.m. "This legislation would allow destination cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego to start local conversations about the possibility of expanding night life and the benefits it could provide the community by boosting jobs, tourism and local tax revenue," Leno said.

In terms of sedentary lifestyle, Lexington, Ky., has some explaining to do, or perhaps, some light jogging and yard work. It topped the online list of “least active” cities by Men’s Health. The city joins Indianapolis; Jackson, Miss.; and Charleston, W.Va., as the nation’s top couch potato cities. In the ranking of 100 U.S. cities, the most active one was Seattle, followed by San Francisco and Oakland. Washington was fourth, with Western cities Salt Lake City and Reno right behind.

WASHINGTON - Since the advent of the automobile in the 1920s, America's suburbs have been growing faster than cities as people fled urban life for quieter, less-crowded expanses. But new Census Bureau data indicate that, in general, cities last year grew faster than suburbs, reflecting an urban renaissance accelerated by the Great Recession. For all 51 metro areas with a million or more people, cities as a whole grew by 1.1% from 2010 to 2011, while suburbs increased 0.9%.

Alaska has the highest number of bicycle and pedestrian commuters and Alabama has the lowest, according to a new report on bicycling and walking in the U.S. The Bicycling and Walking in the United States: 2012 Benchmarking Report , released by the Alliance for Biking & Walking, provides a look at commuting by cycling and walking in the U.S., how safe those commutes are, and where transportation funding is going -- or not going -- to promote these...

The denizens of San Jose, that Silicon Valley gem, haul in a median household income of $76,593, making the city the wealthiest in the country. That's compared with the national figure of $50,502, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau. In San Jose, 13.9% of residents go without health insurance coverage, compared with 15.1% nationally. Of the preschool-age population, 56.8% was enrolled in school, compared with 47.4% around the country. Fewer than three in 10 Americans over age 25 have a bachelor's degree; 36.6% of that demographic in San Jose have graduated from college.

We cannot even begin to say how disappointed we are by The Times' Aug. 3 editorial regarding the Inland Empire and our four recently incorporated Riverside County cities of Jurupa Valley, Eastvale, Wildomar and Menifee. The implication that all other California cities are subsidizing our communities is not remotely true. To the contrary, we have been subsidizing other communities for years as unincorporated areas when our locally paid tax dollars left our area because we weren't cities.

Re "A tale of two cities," Opinion, July 25 Harold Meyerson blames banks and big business for the collapse of our economy, especially for the bankruptcies of California cities hit hard by the bursting of the housing bubble. Rather, the federal government encouraged the irresponsible lending to increase homeownership. Banks would never have been successful in making so many subprime loans if Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae weren't buying them. Wall Street also bought these toxic loans and rated them as AAA securities.