Fifteen for Fresno

People ask all the time, "How can I make a positive contribution to Fresno? I'm just one person!". So, I came up with a list of fifteen things you can do that will benefit both yourself, and Fresno as well. I call it the Fresno Fifteen. Consider it a start, and not an end. My challenge to anyone reading this is to come up with your own list, and share it as widely as possible!

1) Take an active interest in a local child's
education.  Borrow a kid if you have to.

2) Don't use a car one day out of the week.

3) Make at least one new acquaintance this month.

4) Write a letter to an elected official.

5) Find and patronize a new restaurant...on
foot...downtown.  Tell them fifteen sent you.

6) See Chinatown...before it's gone.

7) Volunteer at least one day out of the month.

8) Carpool one day out of the week. (The car-less day
doesn't count!)

9) Walk, jog, run, skate, or bike with someone from
Mindhub.

10)Borrow a Mindhub recommended book from the library.

11)Visit a local art showing, movie, or performance
with someone from Mindhub.

12)Cook a new dish with an unfamiliar ingredient
produced and acquired locally.

13)Propose at least one workable solution to a problem
facing Fresno.

14)Talk Fresno up to someone who is down on it.

15)Come up with another fifteen for Fresno!

Villaraigosa envisions L.A. future

Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has conveyed his vision of the Los Angeles of the future, and it sounds pretty good. Acknowledging that Los Angeles has housing and transportation problems, Villaraigosa challenged local leaders to attack the problems head on. Among the hi-lites:

1) L.A. will become denser, along the lines of New York and San Francisco

2) Rail mass transit will expand

3) The quality of education will be improved.

It's good that L.A. has a visionary mayor, and I agree with his vision for the future of L.A. Especially important to me was the acknowledgement that housing the majority of the populuation in large single family homes is old hat, and is not sustainable, forward thinking, or the way things work in much of the world. So many of the problems L.A. has are directly tied to the way housing is designed. The sprawl in L.A. breeds traffic, environmental, commerce and societal problems.

Fresno is making big strides with the update of the zoning code to allow for housing in commercial areas, but further improvement can be made by encouraging mixed use development in ALL areas of the city, and not just in the downtown area. Otherwise, Fresno is on the path that L.A. took to get where it is.

Valley Housing Prices Declining

So, it seems that the valley real estate market is finally slowing down. This is both good and bad. Good for those who would like to purchase a place or move here in the future. Bad for those who made speculative or highly leveraged home purchases in the last few years.

Let's get something straight; valley incomes are not sufficient to support current home prices. Home prices have reached their current levels only through excessive speculation, and the availability of highly leveraged loans. These price gains are not sustainable, and due to the amount of overpriced soon to come on the market, price declines are invevitable.

Given that rising real estate has improved the Fresno economy significantly over the past few year, I'm predicting that the unemployment rate will see double digits again within the next two years, and that we'll see record foreclosures as interest rates increase and home owners can no longer afford their ARM payments after they adjust. If you're in the market for a house, now would be a good time to save yourself and wait.

Study claims parental involvement not pivotal to student success

The L.A. Times reports on a study that claims parental involvement is not a deciding factor in student academic sucess. The study claims that measuring student performance, setting high academic standards, and have an adequate supply of up-to-date teaching materials are the factors that have the largest impact on student academic performance.

This flies in the face of what I believe to be true, and I have to take it with a grain of salt. I'm not convinced that any of these factors are more important then the reinforcement and standards that parents provide in the home. If this study is accurate, then there's virtually no reason why any school should be failing. How hard is it to measure student performance? They're tested on a regular basis. Algebra hasn't changed for ages; do students really need the latest textbook to learn a subject that has been around for centuries? I have a hard time seeing how something so simple could be gotten so wrong.

So many students, and the community at-large have been shortchanged by the failure to educate our children properly. It is absolutely essential that we do whatever it takes to provide our students with the tools they need to succeed in an increasingly competitive world. Whether the foundation comes from the schools or the home, we must get it right.

Forest City development sparks outcry

For those of you who aren't denizens of New York, I picked this one up from the NY Times (my hometown paper). It seems Forest City Ratner, an affiliate of Forest City Enterprises (the same Forest City Enterprises with the proposal for the stadium area downtown Fresno) has a massive new project in development in Brooklyn that has sparked a lot of concern from area residents. If you've never been Park Slope, it's a really nice area, full of old brownstones and a very nice park. My dream was to buy a brownstone there, but alas, I'm in Fresno now. Maybe we can get Forest City to move the Atlantic Yards project to Fresno! *Sigh* I really miss New York.

Fresno survey shows many dissatisfied with city direction.

A survey was conducted that indicates 28% of the city's residents believe the city is headed in the wrong direction. My suggestion to those 28% is to send comments to the Fresno CEC and council members on what will get the city headed in the right direction. I know not even a fraction of that 28% showed up at the Fresno CEC meeting. We as a community need to move past complaining and placing blame, and move towards seeking creative, innovative solutions to the problems and challenges that face us. It's going to take the entire community to make Fresno the place we want to it be, both for our benefit and for our children.

Something I found very interesting is that according to the survey, the top three priorities for area residents are fighting crime and drugs, improving education, and increasing business opportunity and jobs, in that order. Success in two will likely lead to progress in one and three. So, perhaps as a community increased investment in the quality of education should be our priority. It's no coincedence that Fresno is number one in concentrated poverty, has a struggling school system, and has crime statistics higher then the national average. There's a town-hall meeting at CSU Fresno tonight from 6 to 7:30. I would encourage anyone who can to attend, or at least find someone who will adequately represent your interests.

CEC public forum draws Fresno visionaries

Yesterday (Oct 11th) the mayor's Creative Economy council held a public meeting to solicit input for the plan to attract and retain creative professionals to Fresno. Initially, I was disappointed at what appeared to be poor turnout. I very nearly didn't make it myself due to last minute childcare issues. Alas, my problem was resolved and I was elated to have been able to attend. I even got an KFSN interview broadcast out of it.

Anyway, the turnout was very good, and there were a lot of local power players present. Thanks to Tom Jones for facilitating and getting everyone to speak up. Tom asked everyone to share what they would like to see in Fresno in five years. It would be nice if the CEC would do a complete undistilled list that could then be published in the Bee to provoke some discussion and debate. Of course, I don't expect everything that was said to be implemented. Some of the suggestions were beyond the capability of the Fresno metropolitan area. That speaks to the need to develop a regional forum to attract people from other Central Valley communities, as many of the problems we need to address are not particular to the city of Fresno, or Fresno county.

If even a quarter of the suggestions presented were implemented, we likely would not recognize Fresno five years from now. There was a ton of enthusiam and visionary thinking in that room. We as a community need to make sure that the ideas people shared are not discarded, but instead acted upon. I would like to see a meeting of this sort every year, with growing participation from more all sectors of the Fresno community. In five years, this meeting should be five times the size. More people means more ideas, more participation, more witnesses to the dream that could be Fresno.

Fresno Housing Is Increasingly Unaffordable

The Bee publishes an article confirming what many of us already know to be true--housing in Fresno is very expensive. Relative to the rest of the state, it's not much better. My personal opinion is that low interest rates and an influx of money from more expensive parts of the state combined to inflate local housing prices. Over the next several years, as houses remain unaffordable for much of the local populace, I think we'll see prices slowly begin to decline. If interest rates continue to rise, prices should drop significantly when those high-leverage ARM loans start adjusting, and homeowners realize they can no longer afford the payment. So, maybe one day affordability will return to Fresno.

Declining home prices will be bad for the Fresno economy, but it's an adjustment that must take place to set the stage for future long-term growth. There is still strong demand here for affordable housing. City council is making progress in updating a decades old zoning codethat limits flexibility in housing construction. Hopefully this change will result in more variety and greater supply in the housing market. The link to the California Association of Realtors is here. It shows that much of California is unaffordable to all but a sliver of its residents. This does not bode well for the future of the state economy, as housing is currently its primary driver.

Forest City woos city council.

According to the Fresno Bee, City Council nearly wet their collective pants when they saw Forest City Enterprises presentation for redeveloping the area near the downtown stadium. Let's hope they don't get star struck and hand over the house keys. Some thorough due diligence will be required.

On its face, the project looks like a definite shot in the arm for Fresno, and is a progression to what Fresno needs--more efficient land-use policy, integrating housing, retail, and commercial spaces. The project would usher into existence a characteristic heretofore lacking in Fresno; an integrated, urban, city-space. The Mall falls a bit short, due to its lack of housing; this flaw would not be replicated with the Forest City project.

I have two primary concerns about the project. 1) How much public money will the developer be seeking, and 2) What will be the impact to existing businesses? Corporations have a habit of feeing at the public trough whenever possible. Last time I checked, a good investment is a good investment; so how much public tax dollars will they want and for what? Also, it doesn't send a good signal to your existing business base when you run roughshod over them to assist another company with land assemblage and financing. It'll be interesting to see how this one plays out over the next few years.

Some questions for the readers:

Do you want to see this project happen?

Do you think the public should contribute a significant sum of money to make it happen, if necessary?

Should eminent domain be used to acquire needed property, if necessary?

High energy prices taking a toll on working families.

The FresnoBee reports on the impact that rising energy costs are having on the local populace. It seems as with any rising expense, lower-income people get screwed first. I'll try to avoid a long tirade and get to the point. The US has been on an cheap energy binge for decades now, and its time for it to end. The costs associated with our cheap energy binge--pollution, loss of community, overdependence on foreign sources of fuel from authoritarian regimes, and poor health just to name a few--have not been adequately quantified nor internalized. Now we are beginning to recognize the impact of our actions, and pay the true costs associated with our way of life. the bill is coming due...with interest.

It's a shame that lower income people have to bear the brunt of the impact of higher energy prices. Our elected officials should've been raising taxes on fuel decades ago, to encourage energy efficiency. However, they are not solely to blame. We believed we were acting in our own self-interest by consuming as though there was no tomorrow; as in so many other things, everyone acting in their own self-interest has a net negative impact on the population as a whole. A wrenching transition is just beginning, and it will require a tremendous effort on our part to see this change through to the end.

Here in Fresno, with inflated housing prices and poor air quality, we have a tremendous opportunity to improve our living environment and quality of life, by adopting more energy efficient lifestyles. Get involved, let local elected officials know you want creative solutions to Fresno's problems, not the old re-hashed modes of thinking. Let's learn from others and adopt the best thinking and planning the planet has to offer. Do not let this opportunity pass us by.