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.

The Persistence of Bad Ideas, Part 1: The Devil Strip

(Prefatory musing: As the title implies, this is Part 1 in a series. I haven't yet mapped out any of the other parts, but considering the boundless errata that clutter American cities, I anticipate little trouble finding objectionables to raise my ire next time my monthly deadline approaches. I welcome my fellow Interchangers to follow suit.)

So Many Cities, So Much Mediocrity

Here's an item that should be more than enough to make you spew your morning latte all over the Starbucks: In a <a href="http://www.mercerhr.com/summary.jhtml?idContent=1173105" target="_blank">survey</a>, conducted last year and released yesterday by Mercer Consulting, ranking the top 50 global cities by quality of life, not a single American city cracks the top half. Zero.

The Quiet Evils Of America's 'Favorite' Buildings

The American Institute of Architects recently threw its authority behind a list of America's <a href="http://www.aia150.org/afa150_default.html" target="_blank">"favorite architecture,"</a> ranking three centuries of indigenous design one to 150 specimins. The resulting menu, culled by survey, of buildings, bridges, monuments, and other solid things amounts to a joyous celebration and a remarkable commentary on America's embrace of beauty. It also reinforces the desperation that arises when aesthetics and nationalism mix.

Adapting Habitat For Humanity To The Urban Environment

Habitat for Humanity takes its expertise in creating builder-owners in suburban settings to Los Angeles, which desperately needs affordable housing. The Planning Report interviews CEO Erin Rank.

Planning And The Scourge Of The Collective Action Problem

In its most forward attempt to ensnare the fabled “discretionary rider,” my local transit agency recently set out handsome billboards touting the pleasures of the bus and the miseries of driving alone. They employed pithy admonishments and graphics such as a hand cuffed to a gas pump and a merry executive knitting and purling his way to the office.