Two distressing stories

Written By H. Pike Oliver

I am mostly an optimist. But there are times when I wonder if i am deluding myself. Early on this New Year’s Day morning, I read two disturbing stories. The first article addressed decades of dysfunction and mismanagement at New York City’s main jail complex on Rikers Island in the East River between Queens and the Bronx. The second article reported on the rapidly moving and devastating fires in the Denver area that has destroyed as many as 1,000 homes.

The Rikers Island situation has been brewing for decades as have the Colorado wildfires. The question is are we as a society going to take effective action to resolve the underlying factors that lead to instances of social and environmental chaos?

H. Pike Oliver

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, H. Pike Oliver has worked on real estate development strategies and master-planned communities since the early 1970s, including nearly eight years at the Irvine Company. He resided in the City of Irvine for five years in the 1980s and nine years in the 1990s.

As the founder and sole proprietor of URBANEXUS, Oliver works on advancing equitable and sustainable real estate development and natural lands management. He is also an affiliate instructor at the Runstad Department of Real Estate at the University of Washington.

Early in his career, Oliver worked for public agencies, including the California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research where he was a principal contributor to An Urban Strategy for California. Prior to relocating to Seattle in 2013, Oliver taught real estate development at Cornell University and directed the undergraduate program in urban and regional studies. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute, the American Planning Association and a founder and emeritus member of the California Planning Roundtable.

Oliver is a graduate of the urban studies and planning program at San Francisco State University and earned a master’s degree in urban planning at UCLA.

https://urbanexus.com
Previous

Inbound U-Haul moves
Next

Happy New Year