Land Use

Chinese authorities Sunday blanketed volatile towns in Inner Mongolia with armed police, blocked Internet and telephone connections, and confined students to their campuses and activists to their homes in an effort to forestall protests scheduled Monday over the death of a Mongolian herder during a confrontation over land use. The killing of the herder, allegedly run over May 10 by truck drivers who were transporting coal across pastoral lands,...

Big changes are coming to Exposition Park. The Endeavour space shuttle, NASA announced last month, will be moving to the California Science Center campus -- though not to Frank Gehry's cramped 1984 Air and Space Gallery, whose future is, well, up in the air. The UCLA basketball team will take up temporary residence this fall at Welton Becket's 1959 Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, another candidate for future demolition. And a new Metro light-rail line along Exposition Boulevard, nearly complete, will knit the park into the regional transit grid even as its impact at ground level promises to be something of a disaster.

The lemon: An empty Manhattan lot surrounded by beat-up chain-link fencing. The lemonade: An urban oasis with wildflowers, wooden benches and sculptures in the middle of Manhattan. The economic downturn has littered the nation's cities with soured real estate developments ? empty lots or partly built projects that were abandoned when funding dried up. Now architects, developers and urban planner are trying to sweeten the situation with projects like the LentSpace park in downtown Manhattan.

In "Shaping the city of L.A." on July 2, The Times' editorial board declares, "Now is the time ... to streamline the land use process and make it smarter and more efficient." At the same time, it urges policymakers to "take charge" and commit to a vision for community planning. The Times cannot have its cake and eat it too. Which will it be: a streamlined process and quick approvals, or a deliberative approach to deciding the future of our city? Five years ago, when Gail Goldberg came to the Planning Department, confidence in the planning process was at an all-time low. Department underperformance had soured neighborhoods, and faith in the mayor himself had ebbed.

How do we want Los Angeles to grow? That's the key question the city must ask, and finally try to answer, as Planning Director Gail Goldberg prepares to retire and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa searches for her successor. Too often the answer from residents is: We don't want it to grow, because it is already big enough, crowded enough, congested enough, ugly enough and sold out enough to development interests. But that resistance has not protected the city; it has merely kept us from making decisions about our future.

The four-mile stretch of land adjacent to the Los Angeles River in the city's downtown is rife with deteriorating buildings, crumbling sidewalks and potholed streets. But a cleanup crew and the presence of creative, green-minded businesses could freshen up the strip and help transform it into a major clean technology district, a panel of land use experts said Friday. The city's much-touted plan to turn the dilapidating industrial area into the proposed CleanTech Corridor got a boost when 10 land use and real estate professionals from the nonprofit Urban Land Institute unveiled their recommendations for revitalizing the area.

In Whittier, city officials are clearing the way for office buildings, retail shops and even homes to take root on the land where the vacant car lots stand. Classrooms offering lessons on green technology are being considered as a replacement for the deserted dealerships in Riverside County. And in coastal Ventura, a card club could soon take up residence among the Toyotas, Chevys and Jaguars being sold at the struggling Ventura Auto Center. For decades, cities have set aside vast expanses of land for auto malls and the dealerships have rewarded them with a steady flow of tax dollars, often providing 20% or more of an average town's sales receipts.

Los Angeles, the city -- not L.A. the megalopolis or the culture or the state of mind, but Los Angeles, the incorporated municipality -- seems perpetually unable to figure out what it is, what it should be and where it is going. Civic boosters clamor for a place on the world stage and call for sweeping programs to enhance its glamour. What, after all, is the point of being such a large city if its clout and spotlight can't be put to use to make a positive mark on history? Yet many residents, especially those who have spent most of their lives here, often want simply to be left alone, and want their government to keep them safe and hold wrenching change at bay without raising their costs of living.

Los Angeles city officials are drafting a master plan for a proposed solar farm and possibly a state park on Owens Lake, drained nearly a century ago when its water was diverted to the Los Angeles Aqueduct, officials said Thursday. Representatives with the Department of Water and Power disclosed the concept when they appeared before the California State Lands Commission, which has regulatory authority over the dusty lake bed near Lone Pine. Commission members, meeting in San Diego, said they were intrigued by the idea but remain wary because of the DWP's history of using its ample political power to get its way and not cooperate with the state panel.

This isolated Sumatran village, where monkeys frolic in the jungle canopy and residents take easy evening swims in the mud-colored Kampar River, is the unlikely center of a tense international battle of wills. Logging lobbyists, environmental activists and even foreign diplomats, including the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, have visited in recent months. Job fairs, door-to-door visits and community meetings have become a constant. It's a little like the New Hampshire presidential primary season, in an equatorial climate.