What if composting were more than waste management? What if it could help reconnect people to their food, their neighborhoods, and the natural systems beneath the city?

Sam and Warren sit down with Ryan Jackson, Executive Director of LA Compost, at the organization’s Griffith Park site. Ryan explains how LA Compost transforms food scraps into healthy soil through a network of community composting sites across Los Angeles County and why keeping those resources local matters.

They discuss LA Compost’s beginnings as a few friends collecting food scraps by bicycle, the policies that once made community composting technically illegal, and the organization’s evolution into a regional climate and food-systems leader. Ryan also makes the case that successful composting requires more than green bins and large processing facilities. People need a tangible relationship with the system and a reason to see food scraps as a community resource rather than waste.

The conversation explores soil health, urban sustainability, California’s organic-waste mandates, neighborhood-scale climate infrastructure, and whether community composting should be treated as a public utility... or as something even more fundamental.

Watch the full video episode on YouTube for visuals on our visit to LA Compost’s Griffith Park site, including a tour of the composting process and Sam and Warren actually turning the pile. Yes, there are pitchforks. Yes, the compost is steaming.

We cover:

• Community composting in Los Angeles
• Food-waste recycling and healthy soil
• LA Compost’s neighborhood-based model
• California organic-waste policy
• Climate action and environmental justice
• Local food systems and urban agriculture
• Building stronger connections between people, soil, and cities

If you enjoyed this episode, rate and review the show. It helps more people find us.

Watch full vids of our episodes (more fun!) on youtube.

Oil wells aren’t just part of Los Angeles history. They’re still operating today, and sometimes just steps from homes, schools, and entire neighborhoods.

In this episode of City People, Samantha Roxas and Warren Logan speak with Emma from Physicians for Social Responsibility–Los Angeles and STAND-L.A., and Ashley from Communities for a Better Environment, about what it means to live next door to urban oil drilling.

We examine how oil extraction became embedded in Los Angeles communities, the health and environmental consequences residents have raised for decades, and the fight to permanently phase out neighborhood drilling. We also ask a bigger question: Who gets protected when a city plans for the future—and who is expected to keep living with the consequences of its past?

This is the story of the oil wells next door and the communities working to shut them down.

Topics include: Los Angeles oil drilling, environmental justice, public health, neighborhood oil wells, fossil fuels, frontline communities, and the movement to phase out urban oil extraction.

If you enjoyed this episode, rate and review the show. It helps more people find us.

Watch full vids of our episodes (more fun!) on youtube.

What happens when an entire neighborhood decides it deserves better transit?

In this episode, we sit down with leaders from the San Antonio Station Alliance (SASA), a grassroots coalition advocating for a new BART station in one of Oakland's most densely populated neighborhoods.

We explore why San Antonio was left without a station, how Link21 and a potential second Transbay crossing could reshape the Bay Area, and what it actually takes to move a multibillion-dollar infrastructure project from community vision to political reality.

Along the way, we talk about organizing, coalition building, housing, transit equity, and why some of the most important infrastructure projects don't start inside government. They start with neighbors.

If you're passionate about public transportation, urban planning, local government, or community advocacy, this conversation offers a rare and wonky look at how cities change from the ground up.

In this episode:

• Why Oakland's San Antonio neighborhood lacks a BART station
• How the San Antonio Station Alliance was formed
• What Link21 could mean for the East Bay
• The politics behind major transit investments
• How residents can influence public infrastructure

If you enjoyed this episode, rate and review the show. It helps more people find us.

Watch full vids of our episodes (more fun!) on youtube.