Richard Risemberg: 4 books

1978: The wave of gentrification has yet to break over downtown Los Angeles, and vast swathes of the warehouse district lie nearly abandoned by the sterile trench of the city's concrete-clad river. Lenny Strasser, a straight-arrow type with a taste for shady places, plunges into that world...

A lakeside cabin in the Sierra foothills, a canyon village divided between old coots and laid-back hippies, and a bartender who's as square as square can be. It's just an all-too-rare escape from the hustle and bustle of L.A for Lenny and his ex-cop friend and landlord, Red Henshaw, when they arrive...

These essays on urbanity were written between 1997 and 2014. Most, though not all, have to do with Los Angeles, a city much loved and much maligned, and justly so in either case. Although Sustainable City News, first home of most of these observations, is devoted to the structures of cities, these...

This is a report on the continuing controversy over Los Angeles officialdom's obsession with expanding and extending the 710 freeway corridor to accommodate freight traffic from the ports, despite the harm it already causes communities along the route, and in spite of the alternatives offered...