Ken Bernstein
Ken Bernstein is Manager of the Office of Historic Resources and Principal Planner of the Citywide Planning Division for the City of Los Angeles' Department of City Planning.
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Ken Bernstein is Principal Planner for the Citywide Planning Division of the Los Angeles Department of City Planning. In this capacity, he serves as Manager of the City’s Office of Historic Resources, where he directs Los Angeles’ historic preservation policies. He serves as lead staff member for the City’s Cultural Heritage Commission, oversees SurveyLA, a multi-year citywide survey of historic resources with significant support from the J. Paul Getty Trust, and is working to create a comprehensive historic preservation program for Los Angeles. He also oversees citywide policy planning, including the Department’s work on its General Plan Elements and the Department’s Urban Design Studio.
He previously served for eight years as Director of Preservation Issues for the Los Angeles Conservancy, the largest local non-profit historic preservation organization in the country, where he directed the Conservancy’s public policy and advocacy activities. He served as Planning and Transportation Deputy to Los Angeles City Councilmember Laura Chick from 1993 to 1998 and worked for three years as Editor of The Planning Report, a monthly publication on urban planning, housing, and transportation issues in Southern California.
He has been an adjunct professor in the Urban Studies and Planning Department of California State University, Northridge (CSUN), teaching a course on urban planning, redevelopment and economic development for the public sector. He has a Master’s Degree in Public Affairs and Urban and Regional Planning from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and a B.A. in Political Science from Yale University.
Can "Webinars" Make Planning Workshops Obsolete?
Can planners effectively use on-line meeting technology to host public participation workshops? The City of Los Angeles' Department of City Planning recently decided to find out for itself by experimenting with a "webinar" format for two kickoff workshops highlighting the City's 2010 draft citywide Bicycle Plan. <p> A webinar is a web conference, where participants can access a virtual meeting using a computer and Internet connection. Participants access a website to see the presente's computer screen and also listen to the presenter through the computer's speakers or using a telephone. </p>
Planning Lessons from an Olympic Beauty Contest
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Last week, my home city, Los Angeles, lost out to Chicago for the right to represent the United States in the international competition to host the 2016 Olympics.<span> </span>Since an Olympic city selection represents the ultimate inter-urban beauty contest – dare I say, a kind of urban “International Idol” – what did this process tell us about the state of urban planning in two of America’s largest cities?</font><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font> </p>
'Historic', Not 'Hysterical': Preservation Goes Mainstream
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Historic preservation still suffers from an image problem, even in the face of all available evidence.<span> </span>Some critics still have the misimpression that preservationists are fussy (even fusty) antiquarians.<span> </span>When I hear complaints about the requirements of historic review commissions, I’m amazed that the griping is often accompanied by a crack about the local “hysterical society.” <span> </span>Even the Wikipedia entry on “historic preservation” contains the passage, “‘historic preservation’ is sometimes referred to as ‘hysterical preservation’.”<span> </span>(And, of course, Wikipedia is ever-infallible).</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'"> </spa