Letter to the Editor:
The 28 October 2025 City Council Meeting public comments revealed some ideas hopeful Burbankers see as a few of the obvious future tasks still awaiting the informed, focused attention of our five elected civic policy-makers. Big Questions are open-ended urban queries of high social importance that can be answered within a reasonable timeframe. A Burbank Rental Registry is vital to move forward on the urgent matter of affordable housing for Burbankers, old and young.
I was impressed by the Commentators who had to voice their most cogent thoughts on Burbank’s rental economics in just one minute of allowed speech. After being exposed to the corporate landlords’ exaggerations of their organized industry’s masterminded merits, renters were careful not to oversell their common viewpoint on the landlord-constraining new legislation ultimately and wisely affirmed by the Council.
Poor apartment maintenance is a particular sore point with many ripped-off renters. Ageing of infrastructure, deterioration, is taken to start usually after five years of use, anything before that is considered as inadequacy of design, quality of construction or poor operation. The city we see around us is the backdrop of our daily lives, but we cannot apprehend the mess that many tenants, both commercial and private, must endure that is caused entirely by wretched management of rented properties! Maintenance should be the exclusive domain of dedicated occupations that are in charge of the caring supervision and the repair of leased and rented Burbank buildings. However, that is rarely the case as many of those persons who rent/lease know personally from unpleasant conflictual experiences.
In fact, the corrosive political climate generated by landlords and some distrusted politicians (State-wide) has caused the generalized formation of a quiet public outcry, perhaps best dubbed RUST. Renters Under Social Threat. To forestall a further breakdown of public trust as well as Burbank’s cohesion as a civil society, why not implement ASAP, a cooperative public planning policy? For example, Haochen Shi, writing in the journal NATURE CITIES, “Seeing cities through video games” (2025), offers a cheerful possibility for enabled Burbbankers to participate in meaningful “…urban design, especially in complex regeneration contexts”.
Richard B. Cathcart
Burbank
