Planning for the Future of Development

The federal government's listing in 1993 of the California gnatcatcher as a threatened species would have been anticlimactic has it not produced such a profound impact on development planning in southern California. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt's announcement of the tiny songbird's protection under the Endangered Species Act capped four years of jockeying between the development community, environmental interests, and the government agencies charged with implementing the law. Babbitt sought to make the California process a national model for avoiding the type of  "environmental train wrecks" that have occurred in the Everglades and the Pacific Northwest. While the final outcome of the process is not clear, one thing is certain: The way development is planned in the most lucrative real estate market in the country has been changed forever.