City Planning

In this upscale city just north of Chicago, a plan to build a skyscraper -- one nearly as tall as the Washington Monument -- has fueled more than a simple debate over urban planning. To many residents, the idea is outright heresy.

The main drag in Hermosa Beach -- Pier Avenue -- is slated to undergo a major revamping under a controversial plan narrowly approved last week by the City Council. The $2-million improvement project, approved in a 3-2 vote and scheduled to begin as early as July, calls for wider sidewalks and reconfigured parking. But the plan faced criticism from some elected officials, who argued that it fell short by failing to include bike lanes which had been sought by some residents.

The state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a new trial be held to determine if the city of San Bernardino intentionally misled a judge during its battle to close down a notorious strip club that officials said was actually a brothel. The Flesh Club closed in 1995 for nearly five years, after a judge issued an injunction banning nude dancing in the establishment. The judge used information from the city that later turned out to be wrong. The ruling put on hold the nude cabaret's demand for $1.

Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti has introduced a motion calling for the city to explore using "sharrows" on roadways to improve relations between cyclists and vehicles. What are those? They're markings on the pavement that show the best place for cyclists to ride on roads. And they're increasingly popping up in other cities -- Denver; Portland, Ore., Paris; New York and San Francisco, to name some.

Imagine Hong Kong, or Seoul, or the crowded L.A. envisioned in futuristic movies. Languid sprawl has been replaced by density all around: High-rise apartments have supplanted bungalows, and shopping centers go up instead of out. Not here, you say? As urban planners push for ever-increasing density in Southern California, one of the region's biggest real estate developers is preparing to build Southern California's first vertical shopping mall on Wilshire Boulevard.

Century City was envisioned in the 1960s as a bold experiment in urban planning -- a sleek, efficient "second downtown" of high-rise office buildings where the car was king. Now the district is the focus of a new urban experiment designed to undo the sort of auto-centric design that marked planning in Los Angeles for much of the last half-century.

A controversial plan to allow low-cost housing in Anaheim's resort district has been rejected by city planners. But the City Council, despite strong objections from the Walt Disney Co. and other business leaders, appears inclined to override the decision and move the project forward. The Planning Commission vote Monday marked the latest in a simmering debate over putting housing in the city's resort district, a dispute that has pitted housing advocates against the city's largest employer.

A new study from researchers at USC about the effects of local highway pollution on children's health would be alarming under any circumstances, especially for parents. But it happens to arrive just as Los Angeles is building or planning scores of projects -- including housing, parks and schools -- right on the edge of major freeways. Seen in that light, the study carries significant implications not just for antipollution efforts but also for the future shape of the city.

Early last Thursday, an hour before the public was let in, biographer Robert Caro passed through a side entrance of the Museum of the City of New York to see its exhibit on Robert Moses, the public works czar whose life he documented in "The Power Broker," which portrayed Moses as a Machiavellian manipulator who became "America's greatest builder But after Caro signed the register, a security guard offered a different take on the New York bureaucrat who died in 1981.

You might call it de-inventing the wheel. In communities and workplaces across the country, new groups are marching together to get Americans off their duffs and on their feet. With six in 10 Americans classified as sedentary, walking advocates have both vast opportunities and a daunting challenge.