Santa Cruz County Blog Articles

Three California transportation leaders explain why Measure D will ultimately kill much-needed rail service and slow progress on the Santa Cruz Rail Trail.

In which we explore how we do community journalism at California Local.

Sometimes making the community better manifests as a better understanding of how nature works. Local birders lead the way.

Recent discussions in social media revealed a lack of maps of safe local bike routes. So we connected with local bike experts to start a crowdsourced project to create some.

America is weird. Nobody likes taxes, but everyone enjoys the benefits of the services funded by the taxes.

An exploration into the mechanisms and uses of the attention traps purposefully designed into digital platforms, and the importance of our real life relationships in countering manipulation.

I hoped the events of Jan. 6, 2021, would put an end to the Big Lie—that the election of 2020 was bogus. But on Jan. 6, 2022, the Big Lie got even bigger.

We take a look under the hood of California Local’s Traffic and Transportation portal, which provides comprehensive information on local road and traffic conditions, current CHP incidents and traffic congestion hot spots.

In which we ponder how to make things better in a climate of no.

We wanted to build a better local newspaper; it turned into something much larger.

UPDATED In which we ponder the things around which humans self organize.

In which we ponder human self organization.

Thank you for finding California Local. This is what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it.

California Local gives a voice to community volunteers—and the business leaders who make their work possible.