City's new planner

Gail Goldberg was the city planner of San Diego. Her hiring by Mayor Villaraigosa to run the show in Los Angeles was disclosed Saturday and will be formally announced Monday. Con Howe, the previous head of the planning department, left in September. Stories in today's Times, Daily News and Daily Breeze. Tidbits about her:

⇒ Goldberg...said Saturday that she knows little about the lay of the land in Los Angeles but a great deal about working with communities. (LAT)

⇒ In 1988, at age 45, she was hired as a junior planner in San Diego. She worked her way up the ranks and was made chief of the department in 2001. (LAT)

⇒ Goldberg is closely associated with a neighborhood-focused growth strategy that has been dubbed the "City of Villages" approach. (DN)

⇒ In San Diego, Goldberg was sensitive to community concerns about preserving open space and the character of neighborhoods, said David Abel, publisher of The Planning Report. (DN)

⇒ Goldberg spearheaded San Diego's "City of Villages" strategy, a 20-year growth plan that prompted such strong complaints from neighborhoods that the council stripped 37,000 residential units from the plan just before it was approved. (DB)

⇒ Goldberg, 62, said she sees Villaraigosa as a major proponent of smart growth, the planning philosophy that sees multistory housing development along transit routes as a way of accommodating population growth while addressing traffic.(DB)

Goldberg, who is 62, went back to school after her husband died and entered the planning field in her 40s.

Previously:
Mark Winogrond named interim planner