Kevin Starr writes in Coast of Dreams: California on the Edge, 1990-2003: Organized as the Bus Riders Union, a project of the Labor/Community Strategy Center, and backed by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Bus Riders Union filed suit in September 1994 in federal court charging that the MTA was violating the civil [...]

Edward W. Soja writes in the book Seeking Spatial Justice (2010): A remarkable moment in American urban history – and geography – occurred in October 1996 in a courtroom in downtown Los Angeles.  A class action lawsuit brought against the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) by a coalition of grassroots organizations on behalf of [...]

Dan Weikel writes in the Los Angeles Times: Los Angeles officials will hold a major event Friday near Staples Center to mark the 20-year expansion of urban rail service in the county and what they see as a dynamic shift that will transform the nation’s car capital into a model for mass transit. But although [...]

Judge blocks controversial parts of Ariz. law She rules against requirement that officers check immigration status Dateline NBC Judge grants injunction on part of Ariz. law http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38436995/ns/us_news-immigration_a_nation_divided/#slice-2 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26613008/ Matt York  / AP Salvador Reza speaks outside Phoenix City Hall on Tuesday in Phoenix. Community members from the Puente Movement were petitioning the city to not enforce [...]

SUMMIT, N.J. (July 28) — Dusk fell around Salvadoran immigrant Abelino Mazaniego as he sat on a bench on a promenade in an upscale New York suburb after finishing his restaurant shift. As night encroached, so did a group of teenagers, including one with a cell phone videocamera at the ready. Then, authorities say, they [...]

Steve Chawkins writes in the Los Angeles Times: The last time members of a Northern California Indian tribe held a coming-of-age ceremony beside a popular river, they were heckled by boaters. Drunks yelled racial taunts, jet-ski engines roared and a woman flipped down her bathing-suit top as she passed them. The tiny group known as [...]

Adam Liptak writes in The New York Times: When the Supreme Court left for their summer break at the end of June, they marked a milestone:  the (Chief Justice John G.) Roberta court had just completed its fifth term. In those five years, the court not only moved to the right but also became the [...]

Maureen Dowd writes in the New York Times: The Obama White House is too white. . . . The first black president should expand beyond his campaign security blanket, the smug cordon of overprotective white guys surrounding him — a long political tradition underscored by Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 when she complained about the “smart-ass [...]

Adrienne Lyles-Chockley published the article entitled Building Livable Places: The Importance of Landscape in Urban Land Use, Planning, and Development, 16 Buffalo Environmental Law Journal 95 (2009). The following excerpts focus on the work of The City Project [most footnotes omitted]. In the vast literature concerning urban planning and development — its problems and solutions, [...]