Are you an urban practitioner—a designer, artist, policy maker, planner, engineer, demographer, advocate, etc., working to improve the physical urban environment? Are you passionate about the future of Los Angeles? Interested in collaborating with top-notch urban thinkers?

We hope you’ll join us for LA 2.0, a fast-paced, energetic afternoon think-tank with the best and brightest, most creative and critical urban thinkers in Los Angeles.

The event will be held at the GOOD Magazine Think Space in Hollywood on December 5th. The goal: to connect dynamic thinkers, get creative juices flowing, and emerge with a list of the top five catalytic strategies to improve the physical urban environment of Los Angeles. The focus is on fresh ideas, new approaches, and inter-disciplinary collaboration.

LA 2.0 will culminate with an ad hoc presentation and engaging discussion with a guest panel comprised of some of the city’s leading urban practitioners.  Final recommendations will be compiled into a letter to send to Obama’s Office of Urban Affairs and the City of Los Angeles.

Go to www.good.is/LA2point0 to apply to participate in the upcoming LA 2.0 event, join the 2.0 Team, and create the catalytic changes that our city needs. Young professionals are encouraged to apply.

LA 2.0
Saturday, December 5
The GOOD Think Space
Apply at www.good.is/LA2point0 by November 10
Moderated by Amber Hawkes and Georgia Sheridan

For questions email info[at]sheridanhawkes[dot]com

Kiva’s Fourth Birthday Party
Tuesday, November 3
6:30 p.m. to  9:30 p.m.
The David Brower Center
2150 Allston Way
Berkeley, CA

There will be live music performances including Gaucho and Baba Ken and the Afrobeat Connexion. Drinks will flow from Barefoot Winery, SKYY Vodka, and Drake’s Brewing Company, and there will be delicious food courtesy of Slanted Door, Café Gratitude, FeelGOOD Grilled Cheese, and many more.

$20 for a ticket gets you open bar, food, music, changing the world. What could be better? Event details and RSVP here.

And that’s not all. According to Alissa “We’ll also be gawking at the spanking-new architecture sprouting up around New York’s ‘Starchitect Row,’ followed by gelato in the shape of Frank Gehry’s InterActiveCorp Building.”

This is sure to be a blast. There are logistical details below and more information about this, and other walking tours, on Alissa’s site.

The High Line: A Rail Good Idea
Saturday, October 24
11 a.m.
Meet at the southern terminus of the High Line, at the corner of Gansevoort & Washington.
Lost? Left behind? Raining? Canceling? Wanna meet the tour already in progress? Check Alissa’s Twitter updates or message her at @gelatobaby
Kids absolutely welcome!

Photo from Flickr user yourdon (cc)

Our friends over at Public Matters have been hard at work this past year, partnering up with the Pilipino Workers’ Center, UCLA’s Center for Remap, and Hypercities to bring Hi Fi’s hidden stories to the surface. A key player in telling these stories has been PDUB Productions, a group of local teenagers who underwent a video boot camp before jumping directly into their field work: meeting the neighborhood’s longtime residents and documenting its historic sites and events. The results of these groups’ collaborative work are the Mobile Hi Fi Tours. Using digital technology to explore Historic Filipinotown’s buried past, these tours offer a mobile media experience akin to time travel.

On Saturday, September 26, at Pilipino Workers’ Center, PDUB Productions will launch the Mobile Hi Fi Tours from 1 to 6 p.m., followed in the evening from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. by a barrio fiesta style fundraiser for PWC, which includes cultural performances and an outdoor PDUB Production screening under the stars.

For more information on the project, visit PDUB. To reserve a spot on the Hi Fi walking tour here, and on the Jeepney tour here. You can buy a ticket for PWC’s fundraiser barrio fiesta here.

And if you can’t make it out to any of the festivities on Saturday, come out to Good Girl Dinette in Highland Park (one of Jonathan Gold’s 99 essential Los Angeles restaurants) on Wednesday, September 23, and tip generously. All proceeds from tips will go toward the PWC fundraiser as well.

On Wednesday evening, an installation of his work (an example of which can be seen at left) will open—with much fanfare—at Ampersand in Portland, Oregon. At 7:30 p.m., Mr. Menjivar will engage in a discussion with Amanda Peden from Slow Food Portland, an event partner, and visitors can participate in an optional potluck dinner in the gallery from 6 to 10 p.m.

Portland residents and visitors should certainly consider coming. And if you can’t make it on Wednesday, fret not: The installation will stay up until October 25.

Construction Worker/House Wife | San Angelo, TX | 4-Person Household | Wife wakes every morning at 4AM to cook breakfast for family. | 2007

As part of the American Institute of Architects’ annual Architecture and the City festival that takes place this month, we focused on the theme of Everyday Design—the idea that designers and architects can help find solutions to everyday urban problems.

Six urban leaders answered our “call for problems”—Monique Moyer, Port of San Francisco; Nathaniel Ford, SFMTA; Chris Meany, Wilson Meany Sullivan; Michael Cohen, City of San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development; Carlos Garcia, San Francisco Unified School District; Zahid Sardar, author, editor and columnist—and we assigned the problems they came up with to six design teams from Min|Day Architecture, Mike and Maaike, Stamen Design, Surface Design, Kuth Ranieri Architects, and Volume, Inc.

Expect a fast-paced evening confronting issues ranging from reinventing the city’s bicycle infrastructure to changing the way San Francisco recycles to a scalable way to improve local public education, with ideas pitched to the very city leaders who can put these ideas into action. I’ll be moderating the event with our fantastic partners at AIA San Francisco, SPUR and CEOs for Cities. So join us on Tuesday, September 29 at 6 p.m., at SPUR’s beautiful new Urban Center. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at aiasf.org/archandcity. Hope to see you there!

If you’re in Los Angeles, be sure to stop by the event Farmers’ Markets: 30 Years and Growing on Thursday, September 3 from 10:00am to 2:00pm. In addition to the official announcement of the contest winners—made by none other than Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic from LA Weekly, Jonathan Gold—20 finalists from the competition will be exhibited in GOOD’s tent. A press conference by Mayor Antonio Villaragiosa will kick off a program emceed by Evan Kleiman, host of KCRW’s Good Food, which will include many of the original farmers from the first L.A. farmers’ market held 30 years ago in Gardena, as well as many of L.A.’s most farmers’ market-friendly chefs, including  Nancy Silverton, Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, Jeffrey Saad, Michael Cimarusti, Ben Ford and more.

In partnership with The Architect’s Newspaper and edible LA, we’ve also invited a few people to our tent to talk about their design solutions for local food starting at noon, including: Our own greywater workshop teachers and community leaders Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne from Homegrown Evolution, demonstrating their self-irrigating planters; Sara Marie Paul from Ramirez Farm talking about how community supported agriculture works; Mike Blockstein, Public Matters, and Sharlene Gozalians, South L.A. Healthy Eating Active Communities Initiative sharing the stories behind their video series Where Do I Get My Five? and the soon-to-launch MarketMakeovers.org; and Tara Kolla, from Silver Lake Farms, who will be discussing the challenges of urban farming in L.A. with some of her beautiful flowers and loofahs.

All this in addition to a packed day of activities including a salsa contest, produce tasting, chef demos, a timeline of 30 years of farmers’ markets in L.A., and some pretty nifty giveaway bags we’ve been working on with ECOBAGS and Fresh Pressed. Plus the celebration will be held at what’s already one of the liveliest farmers’ markets in town, with more than 40 local food vendors and artisans, on the South Lawn of City Hall. Sounds to us like the perfect reason to come downtown for an extra-long lunch.

In New York, it’s playing at Sunshine Cinemas (143 E Houston St).
Daily at 11:15 a.m., 1:40 p.m., 4:00 p.m., 6:30 p.m., 9:00 p.m.
Purchase tickets here.

In Los Angeles, it’s playing at Laemmle Sunset 5 (8000 Sunset Blvd.) in West Hollywood.
Daily at 1:20 p.m., 4:10 p.m., 7:10 p.m., 10:00 p.m.
Purchase tickets here.

The film, directed by Amy Rice and Alicia Sams, will reach a broader audience on HBO this November.

It all happens at Echo Park this Sunday, July 26, at 4 p.m. It’s going to be a blast (have you ever not had fun at a paddleboat race?) and the whole event benefits the fantastic 826LA writing center.

And now a shameless appeal: The GOOD paddling team is trying to raise funds to race—we get a better starting position based on dollars raised, so please click here to contribute to our team if you can (though we’d love to see you there either way).

Second Annual 826LA Paddleboat Regatta
Sunday, July 26
4 p.m.
Echo Park Lake, Los Angeles CA 90026
*Free parking on Sundays in the public lot behind The Echo Park Time Travel Mart (Just below Sunset Blvd. between Logan and Lemoyne Streets).

Each participant will receive drinks, hors d’oeuvres, tamales to make and take home, a tamale picnic box to go (including rice and beans), and a salsa lesson from local MacArthur Park dance instructors.

Who: Anyone interested in learning about tamales from “Mama” of Mama’s Hot Tamales
What: Tamale making workshop followed by salsa lesson and tamale picnic at the Levitt Pavilion.
When: Friday, July 17, from 6-9p.m.
Where: Mama’s Hot Tamales. 2122 W. 7th St. (free parking for participants)
*Cost: $25 (space is limited so RSVP in advance).
*People can pay at the door (first come, first served) but in order to secure a spot they should purchase tickets in advance.