PLAN

New Book!

The Next Los Angeles
The Struggle for a Livable City
By Robert Gottlieb, Mark Vallianatos, Regina M. Freer, and Peter Dreier
UC Press | 2005

"At its most lively, this book provides an intelligent insider's account of the construction of Progressive Los Angeles Network, or PLAN, and the emergence of a powerful labor-Latino bloc that provides progressive L.A. with much of its heart and soul. But the book offers readers more, including details of a grassroots-driving progressive agenda and a revealing social and political history. . . .The authors don't shy away from discussing problems and challenges. . . .A good starting point for any serious student of forward-looking municipal politics."--James Goodno, San Francisco Chronicle

PLAN: Progressive Los Angeles NetworK

The Progressive Los Angeles Network (PLAN) was formally launched in December 1999. PLAN was founded and built on the success of the 1998 Progressive L.A. Conference which was co-sponsored by a number of local and national institutions and organizations including Occidental College, The Nation Institute, Liberty Hill Foundation, LA Weekly and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. The Progressive LA Conference was an overwhelming success and gave participants a sense that the growth of a wide variety of progressive social movements had reached an important threshold. As a result, attendees and others within the progressive movement in Los Angeles expressed a desire to participate in further discussion about how to develop a common agenda that is community based, inclusive and brings together the wealth of experience and knowledge of organizers, activists, and researchers.

In 1999, the organizers of the 1998 Conference consulted dozens of grassroots, community, labor, and environmental leaders about how to capitalize on the conference's momentum. Participants decided to develop a community-driven network that could develop a public policy agenda and action plan for Los Angeles, using the resources and knowledge of public policy experts and the experience and leadership of influential activists and organizers in Los Angeles. This network became PLAN. A list of the original PLAN advisory board members can be found here.

While PLAN has evolved into less of a formal network over the years, the network members and task forces that came out of the PLAN process have remained active players in areas of social and economic justice, livability and democracy in L.A. Most recently, four PLAN members, Robert Gottlieb, Mark Vallianatos, Regina M. Freer, and Peter Dreier have published a book outlining the history of the progressive movement in Los Angeles and the evolution of PLAN. In addition, PLAN is participating in the development of the document "Planning for a Livable City."

The archived PLAN Website can be found here.

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