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<p><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular" size="5"><i>Selected Newspaper Commentaries</i></font></p>
<p>by Sharon Hudson, from Berkeley, California, 2003-2008</p>
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<p>The following are a selected group of commentaries I wrote for the local newspaper between 2003 and 2008, on zoning, planning and land use issues, landmarking and historical preservation, good government, and problems with the University of California at Berkeley. I have included those articles which, although responding to local problems, contain underlying principles that are widely applicable. For example, urban livability, the destruction of the commons, the unintended consequences of district elections, and the value of historical preservation apply to most cities. Names, dates, and places will differ, but most citizen activists everywhere will recognize the problems and operational systems at work here.</p>
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<font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular" size="5"><a name="top"></a>CONTENTS</font>
<h1>City Planning</h1>
<h2><a href="#blindside">Citizen Voices Can Influence Coming Changes in Berkeley</a></h2>
<p>Don't get blindsided by bad development, like I was</p>
<h2><a href="#MTF intro">After Slow Start, Task Force Finally Hears Public Input</a></h2>
<p>Group of developers and homeowners focuses on grumpy neighbors, not giant buildings</p>
<h2><a href="#infill">Filling in the Details of Berkeley's Infill Planning Award</a></h2>
<p>Planners win APA award for ignoring city plans and trampling community</p>
<h2><a href="#pace">Does City's 'Planner Wanted' Ad Reveal Too Much?</a></h2>
<p>Planners openly seek to dominate, not serve, the community</p>
<h2><a href="#MTF1">City Task Force Impresses One Potential Critic</a></h2>
<p>Unrepresented but stubborn community members finally heard by Planning Task Force</p>
<h2><a href="#MTF2">City Report Fails to Cite Pro-Developer Staff</a></h2>
<p>...but recommendations would benefit community, not runaway developers and planners</p>
<h2><a href="#NIMBY">NOTES on NIMBYISM (4-part series)</a></h2>
<p>How to protect urban livability (ideas I later developed into the Urban Bill of Rights)</p>
<h2><a href="#commons">Commons Sense--in Berkeley?</a></h2>
<p>How the commons is privatized, diminished, and destroyed by attacks from left and right</p>
<h2><a href="#Rhoades">Mark Rhoades: Just Following Orders?</a></h2>
<p>Corrupt individuals create corrupt systems</p>
<h1>Historical Preservation</h1>
<h2><a href="#historical">Historical Preservation: It Takes a Community</a></h2>
<p>Developers would like to usurp the citizens' right to determine their cultural commons</p>
<h2><a href="#LPO">The LPO and CEQA: The Hidden Agenda</a></h2>
<p>Extreme densification proponents seek to evade study of environmental impacts</p>
<h1>Government</h1>
<h2><a href="#good">Doing Good Without Doing Harm</a></h2>
<p>Is "progess" causing more harm than good, and can't we re-imagine this dilemna?</p>
<h2><a href="#district">Questioning District Elections (3-part series)</a></h2>
<p>How district elections disempower citizens and harm policy making, and what we might do about it</p>
<h1>The University of California</h1>
<h2><a href="LRDP">Reviewer Pans UC's Latest LRDP Release</a></h2>
<p>Berkeley is an ugly character in university's 2020 Long Range Development Plan</p>
<h2><a href="#self">Self Government: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?</a></h2>
<p>University sovereign immunity destroys UC host cities</p>
<h2><a href="#colors">Final LRDP Shows University's True Colors--<br>
And the City Sees Red, Not Blue and Gold</a></h2>
<p>University ignores City and public response to LRDP, plan remains essentially unchanged</p>
<h2><a href="#behaving">New Book Reveals Universities Behaving Badly</a></h2>
<p>The corporatization of the university harms everyone</p>
<h2><a href="#MPHE">Master Plan in Whole, Not in Part</a></h2>
<p>University ignores student enrollment limits in Master Plan, damaging both students and city</p>
<h2><a href="#myth">The Myth of Cooperation</a></h2>
<p>University pretends one-sided bargaining is "cooperation"</center>
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