Daily Business Report: Friday, January 30
Opinion: ‘Density’ is not a dirty word. Stop trying to make it one.
By Lawrence A. Herzog | Times of San Diego
High-density development is inevitable in cities across the planet. It is the 21st century’s secret sauce for dynamic regions like San Diego, that can take on the challenge to reinvent themselves and become resilient, climate friendly “ecocities,” as Berkeley writer Richard Register once described our sustainable future.
Building at gentle and medium density — development up to 10 stories — in the right locations will allow San Diego to respond to climate change by creating innovation districts and new villages closer to the urban core, unleashing a future where residents won’t have to drive two hours to work.
High-density housing sometimes gets a bad rap. But it is not, in itself, a bad thing. Often, debates over it are a stand in for a discussions of reinventing places that have outgrown their old identity and are screaming out to be remade into something better.
Paid Protestors from LA Supported Airbnb During Vacation Home Tax Vote
By Mariana Martínez Barba | Voice of San Diego
Dozens of people in light blue shirts flooded the San Diego Council Chambers on Wednesday to oppose a proposed tax on second homes and vacation rentals.
Those people showed up to oppose Councilmember Sean Elo Rivera’s proposal to put an $8,000 tax on some vacation homes that failed. They weren’t San Diego residents – and they didn’t show up for free.
“We arrived from Los Angeles yesterday,” Amada Valle said, speaking in Spanish. Valle said she was paid a stipend to attend the meeting and was provided with transportation and hotel accommodations. She did not say who paid her.
Immigration arrests quietly increase by 1500% in San Diego
By Wendy Fry and Natasha Uzcátegui-Liggett | CalMatters
While the Trump administration’s immigration blitz hit Midwestern cities like Chicago and Minneapolis, a quieter escalation unfolded in San Diego late last year with agents making thousands of arrests in and around the city.
Government data analyzed by CalMatters show nearly a 1500% increase in arrests for May to October compared to the same time period a year earlier. The arrests occurred in San Diego and Imperial counties, a region the federal government refers to as its San Diego area of responsibility.
By September, the number of arrests recorded in the two counties surpassed immigration arrests in the Los Angeles territory, a much larger region that the Trump administration targeted for a headline-grabbing crackdown that summer.
