11/27/2006

It seems to have been fairly peaceful over Thanksgiving so the mail does not herald much.
Before we take our tour of the recent publications, I picked up the annual Worldwide Spa Guide which offers nice, concise "bios" of their picks for the 20 best spas in the world. The directory presents the spas in regions (US and Canada; Caribbean and Bermuda; Mexico and Latin America; Hawaii, Asia, and the South pacific; Europe, Middle East, and Indian Ocean), but has geographic and alphabetic indexes as well.
Now for the news round up:
San Fernando Valley Business Journal (11/20) The special feature of the issue is the "50 Fastest Growing Private Companies" in the Valley, including a piece on NewMark Merrill the #1 fastest Valley grower> NewMark specializes in rehabbing malls and has worked on te Westridge Shopping Center in Canoga Park,Tarzana Village, and Marketplace at The Oaks. The issue also announces that Valley officials were "stunned" by the State's decision to not renew the Northeast Valley Enterprise Zone. The Zone was created in 1986 and renewed in 2001.
Journal of the American Planning Association (Autumn) has a couple interesting pieces -- "Targeting Investments for Neighborhood Revitalization" which looks at how public money can best be spent in revitalizing urban areas; "Which Reduces Vehicle Travel More: Jobs-Housing Balance or Retail-Housing Mixing?" a study based on data from the San Francisco area.
Kiplinger California Letter (11/15) has interesting tidbits on the developments surrounding the Oakland A's and the 49ers including the A's deal that includes housing development and predictions that neither the A's or the 49ers deal will have great economic impact on the communities they are moving to.
New Orleans City Business (11/6-- nice of it to arrive *today*!!!) has a feature on Harrah's new general mamager with an appended table of LA nad Gulf Coast MS casinos and their particulars; and an article on the questionable demographics of the city focusing on how hard it is to tell how many residents have returned (it includes a table on building permits for commercial and residential structures)
Sunset (Dec)features their top 10 ski resorts "from British Columbia to New Mexico" and recommends an off-season getaway to Mendocino for those in need of some R&R
Fortune (11/27) To save you some time, when you go to read your copy, flip directly to page 53. The articles don't start until there. If you like reading the letters to the editor, those start on page 49. Yes, I just adore magazines where 50 pages are useless piffle. Oh and about the last 20% of the magazine is ads too. Just rip out the middle 100 pages and you've got the actual magazine.
Business Week (11/27) For those of you tracking the trends impacting everything, BW has a nice piece on businesses "developing" inside Second Life. Don't know about Second Life? Well, possibly you don't care, but if you are interested in demographics trends, especially in gen X and younger, in entertainment and recreation, and in corporate branding, you need to at least "meet" Second Life. If you are friendly with Second Life, want to start a contest to come up with an ERA avatar? :) Preservation (Nov-Dec) has an article on the shuttered Smithsonian Arts and Industries building.
Califronia Real Estate Journal (11/20) leads its front page with a story on the Sacramento arena tax failure in the recent election. The week's issue includes pieces on City modernization incentive in downtown Riverside, biotech developments in San Francisco, and Escondido landlords taking the City to court over the passage of the initiative requiring landlords not rent to illegal immigrants.
Meetings and Conventions (Nov) has a brief, but informative sidebar on developments in Denver (namely the opening of the expansion of the Denver Art Museum, the switch to union control of the 1,100-room Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center, and the plans to open a 202-room Ritz-Carlton in Denver in 2007 with 13,00 sq. ft. of meeting space); a short piece on Canada ceasing their GST rebate program; an article on spas as a locale for small group meetings; and the destination guides for the month are: Orlando/Central FL, New Orleans, MS, and Puerto Rico/U.S. Virgin Islands.
MSNBC has news on a proposed Bruce Lee theme park in China today.
Arkansas Business announced (11/14) that the Little Rock Zoo got a record donation of $775k for naming rights to 2 new exhibits.