Josh Stephens

Josh Stephens is a contributing editor of the California Planning & Development Report (www.cp-dr.com) and former editor of The Planning Report (www.planningreport.com)

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Full Bio

Josh Stephens is the former editor of, and current contributing editor to, the California Planning & Development Report, the state's leading publication covering urban planning. Josh formerly edited The Planning Report and the Metro Investment Report, monthly publications covering, respectively, land use and infrastructure in Southern California.

As a freelance writer, Josh has contributed to Next American City, InTransition magazine, Planning Magazine, Sierra Magazine, and Volleyball Magazine. Josh also served as vice president of programs for the Westside Urban Forum, a leading civic organization on L.A.'s fashionable and dynamic Westside. Josh also served as editorial page editor of The Daily Princetonian and, briefly, the editor of You Are Here: The Journal of Creative Geography while he studied geography at the University of Arizona. He earned his BA in English from Princeton University and his master's in public policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Josh can often be found gazing from high vantage points wondering what it all means.

Deconstructing A Tea Party Muse

For some lucky candidates, tomorrow’s election will have a storybook ending. Unfortunately for anyone who understands architecture, planning, and land use, that storybook will, in many cases, turn out to be The Fountainhead. The train wreck of ideologies that is emerging this election season is too much for anyone to categorize.

ULI's Odd Notion Of 'Global Excellence'

I write this blog from the concrete cradle of Nokia Plaza, an urban space so wondrous that the global arm of the Urban Land Institute has bestowed upon it one of five “<a href="http://www.uli.org/sitecore/content/ULI2Home/News/PressReleases/2010%20archives/Content/GlobalAwards2010.aspx" target="_blank">2010 Global Awards for Excellence</a>." In winning such a distinguished award, you’d think that developer AEG would have invited the Laker Girls and be pouring Champagne for an ebullient crowd here in one of the world’s great public spaces. Except they’re not. In fact, I’m pretty much alone. I don’t suppose the pigeons are carrying Cristal underwing?

Campaign Fundraising Holds City Hostage

I wasn't even in Los Angeles yesterday, and for once I'm glad. Everything from my Facebook feed to the morning headlines told me that traffic on the Westside yesterday afternoon was so awful that only a parade of obscenities accompanied by words like "cluster" and "show" would have sufficed to describe it. Hardened locals were driven nearly to tears behind the wheels of their unmoving cars. The president was in town.

L.A.: 'Most Politicized' Planning In The World

An all-star panel of architects, developers and journalists convened to offer advice to L.A.'s new planning director.

State Views Redevelopment Funds As Piggybank

A judge ruled that the state of California is allowed to pluck $2 billion out of local redevelopment tax increment funds. Redevelopment agencies ponder near-shutdown of new projects.