The redevelopment postmortem continues with a look at five projects that demonstrate the ways in which the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles (CRA/LA) strayed from its core mission.
While many of our news items this week concerning the dissolution of redevelopment in California focused on the who's and how's of redevelopment's transition and future, Matt Pressberg has authored a piece looking at the CRA/LA, and five specific projects that demonstrate why so many across the state were fed up with the status quo.
Each project Pressberg describes tells the larger story of the ways in which the CRA/LA strayed from its core mission, "of providing affordable housing and improving blighted areas and instead [used] taxpayer money to subsidize commercial developments in more desirable submarkets."
"The CRA/LA is an easy target, but its downfall can provide insights into why certain government agencies that may begin with a noble and popular purpose can lose their way to bloat, waste and compromise."
FULL STORY: The End Of The CRA: A Look At Five Projects
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City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research