New York City's many Chinatowns

This isn't breaking news, but I thought it was interesting: Queens has two Chinatowns, Flushing and Elmhurst, and Flushing has a larger Chinese population than Manhattan's Chinatown. Brooklyn also has its own Chinatown in Sunset Park, which is dominated by immigrants from Fujian Province. This is not to be confused with Little Fuzhou, an enclave in Manhattan's Chinatown of immigrants from the capital and largest city of Fujian Province. There is apparently a budding Chinatown in Edison, NJ, though it's more like a downsized version of Monterey Park rather than the traditional crowded urban Chinatowns. Monterey Park was the first suburban Chinatown, which has expanded such that Asians constitute a majority of the population of the sprawling San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles (which, of course, has a more traditional downtown Chinatown).

HSR crowding out local transit projects

Yet another way in which Obama's high-speed rail plans are derailing actual progress in getting Americans out of their cars:

BUENA PARK, Calif. — Mayor Art Brown spent years pushing for a commuter train station combined with nearby housing in his community. But as townhouses are being finished around the $14 million Metrolink station, he's facing the prospect that California's high-speed rail line may plow right through his beloved project.

"The only option they presented to us was either losing the condo units or losing our train station," Brown said of an engineering presentation to city leaders last year.

That a successful effort to get car-dependent Californians to embrace mass transit could be derailed by another transportation project may strike some as ironic. But it's also one of the hidden costs — and a potential harbinger of delay — in the ambitious plan that would enable passengers to speed the 430 miles between Los Angeles and San Francisco in just 2 1/2 hours.

By the way, the projected cost of a one-way ticket on the high-speed rail line from LA to SF has risen from $55 to $105. Despite the fact that intraurban trips account for the vast majority of transportation use in America, the Obama administration and other politicians prefer to focus on expensive boondoggles like high-speed rail, often at the expense of more mundane, but much more important local projects like these.

Californians to vote on legal weed for all in 2010

I know I've posted about California's 2010 marijuana legalization referendum twice already, but it's a little surreal, so I'm just making sure. But according to the LA Times, the referendum looks like a sure thing:

Supporters of legalized marijuana announced today that they have gathered about 700,000 signatures for their initiative, virtually guaranteeing voters will see it on the November ballot.

They plan to turn in the petitions today to elections officials in some of the state's major counties, including Los Angeles. Supporters need 433,971 valid signatures to qualify the measure.

What's interesting about the whole movement is that it isn't really a popular movement – if you believe the Times, it's the business community that has sprung up in the wake of Prop 215:

Four marijuana legalization initiatives have been proposed, but Lee’s is the only one that appears to have the financial support to make the ballot.

Lee's firm, one of the state's most successful marijuana businesses, has spent more than $1 million on the measure and hired professional consultants to run the campaign. Lee owns half a dozen mostly pot-related businesses in Oakland, including Coffeeshop Blue Sky, a medical marijuana dispensary, and Oaksterdam University, which offers classes on marijuana.

Denver beats LA in per capita medical marijuana dispensaries

Despite all the hype about California's medical marijuana dispensaries, it looks like the metropolitan area with the most dispensaries per capita is not even in the state. It's Denver, according to NORML. Denver has about one dispensary for every 3,000 people (200 dispensaries spread amongst 600,000 people), compared with Los Angeles, which has only 1,000 dispensaries serving 10 million people, or one for every 10,000 residents.

According to US News & World Report, Colorado was actually the first state to tax medical marijuana (which ensures that money-habit state legislatures will have an interest in the industry's survival), since California law treats the dispensaries as non-profits, not subject to taxes. The Washington Times, however, claimed that it was "the second state, behind California, to tax and regulate medical-marijuana sales," but I have a feeling they're confusing "and" with "or."

Nevertheless, California may reclaim its title as the most pot friendly state if they outright legalize the drug through a 2010 ballot initiative.

Could pot be legal in California next year?

Via Reason, November 2010 might be the first big step towards marijuana legalization in the United States...ever:

Advocates of the Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act say they have gathered more than enough signatures to qualify the initiative for California's November 2010 ballot. The measure would allow people 21 and older to grow marijuana for personal use and to possess up to an ounce. It would also allow licensed suppliers to grow and sell marijuana (up to an ounce at a time) to adults. Public consumption and consumption in the presence of minors would remain illegal. (The text of the initiative is here.) The measure's chief backer, Richard Lee (operator of Oaksterdam University and Coffeeshop Blue Sky in Oakland) told the San Francisco Chronicle "the petition drive collected more than 680,000 signatures in two months, less than half the time allowed for such a drive." Supporters need 433,971 valid signatures to get the initiative on the ballot. The Chronicle notes that "a recent California Field Poll suggested that a majority of California voters, 56 percent, support the idea of legalizing and taxing cannabis."

Of course, even if it passed there would still be some sort of conflict with the federal government, but something tells me that it won't be long after November 2010 that marijuana will be legally cultivated and sold in California.