California Sun Podcast

Conor Dougherty — New York Times economics reporter, Bay Area native, and the author of "Golden Gates" — looks deeply into California’s housing crisis, the historical economic forces that have driven it, the sad results we see on our streets, and the activists pushing for new public policies. He explains how and why what’s happening in California should be a cautionary tale for the rest of the country.

Naomi McDougall Jones lays out the battle lines for gender parity in Hollywood. The actress, writer, and producer — whose Ted talk “What it's like to be a woman in Hollywood” has more than a million views, and whose new book is "The Wrong Kind of Women" — has helped ignite a new conversation about the women-in-film movement.

David Talbot, a long time Bay Area journalist and political activist returns to the California Sun podcast to share a reimagined view of the world after his life-threatening stroke. His near-death experience, and what he learned from it, is also the story of our times.

Kenneth Turan, L.A. Times film critic for almost 30 years and the regular film critic for NPR’s "Morning Edition," looks at the state of Hollywood on the eve of the Oscars. He describes a business edgier than some of this year’s movies, one that’s operating far out on the precipice of change and about to be eaten by Netflix.

State Sen. Scott Wiener makes his case for SB 50 by first reminding us that almost one-third of the nation’s housing shortage is in California. In homes per capita, California ranks 49th among U.S. states. Wiener argues that the California tradition of extreme local control of zoning has not worked, while sprawl continues and adds to our environmental woes. For too long, he says, we’ve allowed cites to do whatever they want in a race to the bottom.

Jared Farmer — an environmental historian and geohumanist, sometimes just called "the tree guy" — chronicles California’s post-Gold Rush history through the evolution of four emblematic tree species: redwood, eucalyptus, orange, and palm. As they have changed, so have we. His observations remind us how what is perceived as natural is often just a jumble of cultural legacies.

Thomas Wolf wants to use his experience with and recovery from drugs and homelessness on the streets of the Tenderloin as an opportunity to help others, thank the police officer who rescued him, and reinvent San Francisco’s response to the drug crisis.

Paul Kitagaki Jr., a Pulitzer Prize-winning Sacramento Bee photographer, tells the personal stories of Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. Inspired by a Dorothea Lange photograph of his parents' and grandparents' internment, he embarked on a 10-year pilgrimage, photographing survivors of the California camps and seeking to mirror pictures taken during World War II.

Sam Dodge, homeless coordinator for the San Francisco Department of Public Works, talks about California’s battle with homelessness, our most significant problem of this past year and our most important and consequential challenge in 2020.

Sam Liccardo, the 65th mayor of San Jose, shares his view of the city as facing unique challenges and only now coming into its own. Liccardo also discusses his effort to get elected leaders around the state behind a proposal to turn PG&E into a customer-owned utility.

David Ulin, the former L.A. Times book editor, interprets Joan Didion, just as she interpreted California. As the editor of the new multi-volume edition of her collected works, Ulin shares insights about Didion as a writer and cultural figure and about her vision of California.

John Dunbar, the newly elected president of the League of California Cities, explains how the organization — made up of nearly 500 cities, more than 3,000 local elected officials, and 50 board members, all with different agendas and each struggling against Sacramento for local control — really works.

Paul Theroux, the renowned travel writer and author of the new book "On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey," takes the trip that all of us in California should take to understand our southern neighbor. Traveling by car along the border and deep into the interior of Mexico, he helps us appreciate the people and places that impact our culture, our economy, and the future of our state.

California and Silicon Valley may have created much of today’s America. But according to tech entrepreneur and presidential candidate Andrew Yang, the impacts are only just beginning. While we worry about Facebook and social media, we’re overlooking larger threats on the horizon and the “techlash” that will result from artificial intelligence and automation.

Dr. Manuel Pastor, USC professor of sociology and American studies and ethnicity discussed how the future of work, politics, demographics, and race can be found in California. A state was once considered reactionary in the 1980s became a progressive beacon. Now it’s paying a price for that success.

Lincoln Mitchell, author of "San Francisco Year Zero," makes the case that the San Francisco of today begins in 1978. The assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk, the massacre of Peoples Temple members in Jonestown, the explosion of the city’s punk rock scene, and a breakthrough season for the San Francisco Giants, he says, all led inevitably to 2019 San Francisco.

Willow Bay, dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, details how the school is developing our next generation of journalists while taking advantage of the unique media resources of Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.

Soleil Ho, the newly minted restaurant critic at the S.F. Chronicle, shares her modern approach to food criticism, the politics of food, and the responsibility of being our culinary cartographer at a time when food is inseparable from who we are.

Producer Rocky Lang and film archivist Barbara Hall share the intimacy of personal letters from the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, John Huston, Ingrid Bergman, and others. Their collection, "Letters from Hollywood," is a voyeuristic but heartfelt examination of a bygone era, where personal letters reflected the passion and work of the time.

Dr. Joely Proudfit has traveled from tribal poverty to become a three-time tenured Cal State University professor and was a member of President Obama’s National Advisory Council on Indian Education. She is a leading advocate for Native American education, sovereignty, cultural preservation, and ecological stewardship on behalf of California's largest-in-the-nation American Indian population.