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.

Introducing Smart Growth To An Edge City

A new master plan for Los Angeles's Century City attempts to undo some of the shortcomings that typically plague Modernist master-planned edge cities. Its goals include walkability, greening, and a more appealing public realm.

Climate Change May Prompt Revolution In Transportation Planning

Transportation planners and public officials have begun to consider ways to reconfigure cities and alter driving patterns in order to reduce vehicle miles traveled and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Singing the City Sterile: Urbanism and New Wave

I've always hated songs about cities, particularly mawkish anthems like "New York, New York," "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," and the ghastly "I Love L.A." Lyricists seem to dream them up when there's nothing else to sing about. Indeed, cities are the setting for life, not the object of it. Singing about them is like performing a play about a theater.

Art, Agriculture, and Civic Identity Converge in the Great Plains

MINNEAPOLIS--If not for the <a href="http://www.walkerart.org" target="_blank">Walker Art Center</a> I would have scant reason to spend extra time in Minneapolis. Minneapolis is not lacking for charm or culture, but it certainly falls in that middle range of American cities, somewhere between New York and nondescript, which is to say that it is not a destination in and of itself, yet it offers reasons to extend a stay for those who find themselves so far north for other reasons.

Light Rail Pits Planning Against Parenthood

Yes, yes. We all want to save the children. They are our most precious resource and hold the key to our future. Let them lead the way, and please, lord, don't let them get run over by a train. Fortunately, most American kids face no such danger because they are held safe in far-flung suburbs where conformity and the cocoon of the strip mall tend to their well-being. They are growing up strong and worldly behind gates and in perfect communities far from the strife of the city, where art, culture, diversity, adventure, and freedom might stimulate them just a little too much.