Aaron Betsky makes the case for architectural renewal
Release Date: 11/21/2024
Erica Hellerstein on how improving farm worker conditions are now halted by a new wave of fear
California Sun Podcast
Erica Hellerstein's follows the story of Pedro Romero Perez, a survivor of the 2023 Half Moon Bay mass shooting that left seven people dead, including his brother Jose. The tragedy exposed deplorable conditions in San Mateo County's agricultural industry: farm workers earning less than minimum wage while living in shipping containers without running water. Perez, who survived five gunshot wounds, emerged as an unexpected voice for change through a lawsuit against his former employer.
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Olaf Groth explores California’s high-stakes dance amid trade and tech turmoil
California Sun Podcast
Olaf Groth, a futurist and professor at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, examines how global trade tensions, artificial intelligence advancements, and economic shifts are reshaping California's position in the world economy. He analyzes how intensifying tariff wars threaten the state's tech sector while driving up consumer prices. Groth explores AI's transformative effects on employment, the emerging defense-tech ecosystem, and California's strategic challenges as it navigates global trade pressures and growing climate vulnerabilities.
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Alissa Wilkinson explores Joan Didion's warning about America's entertainment politics
California Sun Podcast
New York Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson discusses her new book, ": Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine," which explores the California author's prescient understanding of how entertainment would colonize American political life. Wilkinson examines Didion's work through the lens of a Hollywood insider and cultural critic, revealing how she anticipated our drift toward manufactured realities and endless performance — from Ronald Reagan's performative presidency to modern reality television-style governance.
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John Garamendi talks insurance, water, and farming under Trump
California Sun Podcast
Rep. John Garamendi, a Bay Area Democrat, draws on his experience during two terms as California's insurance commissioner to discuss the state's insurance challenges. Garamendi argues that the state's current insurance chief, Ricardo Lara, has surrendered much of his authority to industry, creating market instability while failing to require transparency. Garamendi also discusses farmers' concerns over tariffs and market access, and water issues that have become increasingly politicized at the national level.
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Chris Roberts unearths San Francisco's toxic nuclear legacy
California Sun Podcast
Journalist Chris Roberts discusses the long-forgotten history of the U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory at San Francisco's Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Following atomic bomb tests in 1946, the Navy towed radioactive ships to San Francisco, creating a research program that exposed more than a thousand people to varying levels of radiation. Roberts' seven-part series in the San Francisco Public Press, "," details how the lab conducted human experimentation with questionable consent, incomplete record-keeping, and environmental contamination that plagues redevelopment efforts today. The...
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Gregory Weaver on how a land conservation program delivered a windfall to mega-farms
California Sun Podcast
In a two-part , journalist Gregory Weaver exposed the false promise of California's Williamson Act, a tax break created in 1965 to protect agricultural lands from suburban sprawl. The program, tax records showed, now primarily benefits 120 mega-farms that collect roughly half of its $5 billion tax shelter, benefiting Wall Street investors and foreign pension funds. Weaver's reporting details how the system ultimately harms small farmers and depletes precious public resources.
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Randy Shaw champions San Francisco's Tenderloin through decades of change
California Sun Podcast
Randy Shaw is the director of San Francisco's Tenderloin Housing Clinic, founder of the Tenderloin Museum, editor of Beyond Chron, and author of the newly updated book ": Sex, Crime, and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco." For over 45 years, he has advocated for this unique neighborhood which has maintained its character and resisted gentrification. Shaw discusses the Tenderloin's rich history as a refuge for marginalized communities, its struggles during the Covid-19 pandemic when it became a "containment zone" for homelessness and drug problems, and his hopes that Mayor Daniel Lurie...
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Dr. Shayan Rab is taking psychiatry to the streets
California Sun Podcast
Dr. Shayan Rab, associate medical director at Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, explains his revolutionary, if controversial, approach to helping mentally ill homeless individuals. As the county's first street psychiatrist, he created the Homeless Outreach and Mobile Engagement, or HOME Team, despite resistance from some quarters over concerns about liability and diagnostic protocols. His innovative program combines medical treatment, housing assistance, and human connection. While challenging conventional wisdom, Dr. Rab's work has become a model for how to approach the...
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Lili Anolik maps the orbit between Joan Didion's cool detachment and Eve Babitz's raw sensuality
California Sun Podcast
Lili Anolik, author of the new book "," delves into the complex and largely unexplored relationship between literary icons Joan Didion and Eve Babitz in 1960s Los Angeles. Through newly discovered letters and extensive research, Anolik explains how these contrasting personalities — Didion's calculated reserve and Babitz's uninhibited sensuality — shaped our understanding of them and the era. Their story illuminates broader themes about women's voices in American letters, the nature of literary persona, and the price of artistic ambition.
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Dr. Mildred García is driving the CSU system beyond diplomas
California Sun Podcast
As the first Latina chancellor of the California State University system, Dr. Mildred García is seeking to transform the nation's largest public university system. Beyond focusing on diplomas and graduation rates, she is emphasizing career success and employment outcomes for CSU's more than 460,000 students. Her vision includes integrating artificial intelligence education, allowing campuses to reflect their unique communities, and launching programs like Second Start, which helps students who dropped out restart their studies.
info_outlineArchitectural critic Aaron Betsky challenges conventional thinking about our built environment in his new book "Don't Build, Rebuild," in which he makes the case for transforming existing structures rather than constructing new ones. From San Francisco's empty offices to Los Angeles's historic core, Betsky explores how this approach can not only address housing shortages and climate change but also preserve the soul and stories embedded in our buildings. He discusses the economic challenges, policy hurdles, and gentrification paradox while arguing that reimagined architecture can be more beautiful and meaningful than new construction, carrying within it the patina of human experience.