Author: Ethan Elkind ^{p. 8}

UPDATE: The original employee numbers from the San Francisco Chronicle that I used to make the calculations below have since been significantly revised...

GUEST OPINION Los Angeles County is a big place, with lots of urban centers to connect with rapid rail transit. Funding is limited for these expensive trains,...

Smart phones are now ubiquitous and have revolutionized almost every aspect of our lives in barely less than a decade. The power of digital connectedness,...

When I lived in Los Angeles, I hated to pay for parking. And not just for the obvious reason of not wanting to part with precious dollars. By Ethan Elkind My...

City dwellers in apartment buildings who lack dedicated parking spaces are sort of out of luck when it comes to owning an electric vehicle. By Ethan Elkind As a...

Electric vehicles are good for the environment not just because they decrease petroleum fuel burning, but because the batteries in the vehicles can help support...

Tesla solar roofs may have a rocky start due to the high costs and technological uncertainty.  But Understand Solar recently dug into some of the initial...

Falling transit ridership is a nationwide problem, but it’s particularly a setback in Los Angeles, which is investing like crazy in transit due to two...

This January, I hosted a City Visions radio discussion on the state of democracy in America.  The show’s two guests have researched public opinion on...

In these first 100 days, our new president has backtracked on many promises, completely reversed course in others, and demonstrated an alarming disregard for...

NIMBYs are at the heart of California’s biggest economic and environmental problems: high housing costs, sprawl, and air pollution. These not-in-my-backyard...

We certainly need cheap renewable like solar, coupled with batteries, to clean our grid and mitigate climate change. By Ethan Elkind But these technologies also...

California isn’t building enough housing to meet population growth, while the new housing that does get built is happening too often in the wrong places, like...

The smart phone revolution has almost completely taken over the human race, rendering most people into neck-bent zombies hungry for their next dosing of...

Elizabeth Kolbert at the New Yorker explains why facts don’t matter to people, when it comes to persuasion, belief and arguments. By Ethan Elkind Ultimately,...

The one place California should be building high speed rail immediately is between Los Angeles and San Diego. By Ethan Elkind The two big cities are too close...