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Urban planning thrives on informed decision-making. However, the increasing influence of game theory—a branch of mathematics that studies strategic interactions—can be a recipe for disaster in the messy world of governance. While game theory offers insights in some areas, relying largely on its models...

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and remained healthy. I’m a “cup is half full” kind of guy, and believe that 2022 has a lot of positive surprises in store for all of us! Board President. In December, my colleagues...

This article serves as a refutation of Jeffrey Blum’s article, “Community, not theory, should be at the heart of Town’s Planning,” which ran in last week’s edition.  Jeffrey Suzuki is a former Planning Commissioner, the current Vice Chair of the Complete Streets and Transportation Commission,...

Reading “Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World” by Peter S. Goodman left me despairing the power and greediness of a select group of billionaires until I neared the book’s end. One of the final chapters, titled “The Money is Right There in...

As avid rowers of the Los Gatos Rowing Club, we frequently encounter trash floating in the Lexington Reservoir during our practices. The scope of this problem is alarming. Every year, the San Francisco Bay is overwhelmed by a staggering 7 trillion pieces of microplastics,...

On a recent car trip, I drove across a set of railroad tracks and noticed a large white sign in bold black letters: “Do Not Stop on Railroad Tracks.” Of course, the sign has a serious purpose. Sadly, there are people in crisis who have...

The 2024 presidential election is one to remember, but Santa Clara County residents also faced a rare local decision: choosing a successor to longtime 16th Congressional District Representative Anna Eshoo, a Democrat who held her seat for over three decades. This election was special to...

The acronym “SOS” stands for save our ship. It can also stand for sorting, othering, and siloing, which is how the acronym is used in “I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times,” written by...

Crying doesn’t mean something’s wrong. Sometimes it means everything is gloriously right.

Perhaps I’ve read too many articles and listened to too many podcasts decrying the level of vitriol and partisanship existing in Washington D.C. and in many communities throughout the country. Add to this sorry situation the scenes of conflict I’ve seen on television and...