Reminder: The $80 Million Question

Last fall, we raised the question in some postings about the proximity of the campus of a defunct Catholic college that UCLA purchased for $80 million in Palos Verdes. We have yet to hear how this hard-to-access campus - which originally accommodated only a few hundred students - is supposed to deal with the enrollment pressures UCLA faces.

The enrollment question was there from the beginning. But a later question arose as a landslide area developed not all that far from the campus. We have yet to hear anyone deal with that issue. But a recent NY Times article is a reminder:

Along the sparkling coast of Southern California, a string of landslides creeping toward the sea has transformed the wealthy community of Rancho Palos Verdes into a disaster zone. New data from a NASA plane shows the widening threat of these slow-moving landslides, which have destabilized homes, businesses, and infrastructure like roads and utilities. Researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory documented how the landslides have pushed westward, almost doubling in area since the state mapped them in 2007.

The landslides have also sped up in recent years. A month of aerial radar images taken by NASA in the fall revealed how land in the Palos Verdes Peninsula slid toward the ocean by as much as four inches each week between mid-September and mid-October. Before that, a city report showed more than a foot of weekly movement in July and August...

Full story at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/02/18/climate/landslides-california-storm-map.html.