Two years ago I had the pleasure of joining some incredible international urbanists on a panel at Project for Public Spaces' 2016 Placemaking Leadership Forum in Vancouver. Along with my colleague and friend, Alex Sasayama of NeighborWorks America, I talked about the over 130 year history of Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, my personal connection to this very special neighborhood, and its cultural significance - marked in large part by its generations of "placemaking" efforts wel

It's been 4 years since the Latino Cultural District (LCD) was formally recognized by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. I was fortunate enough to participate in the early planning stages of Calle 24 and the LCD, culminating in this report back in 2014. However, as this recent San Francisco Chronicle article points out - gentrification in the Mission District has not let up and remains an ongoing struggle for this historically Latino community. "According to the mayor’s