# LA Just Avoided 1600 Layoffs. Is That a Good Thing? Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/upzoned-515359/la-just-avoided-1600-layoffs-is-that-a-good-thing Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/upzoned-515359/la-just-avoided-1600-layoffs-is-that-a-good-thing.md Podcast: [Upzoned](https://stenobird.com/podcast/upzoned-515359) Published: 2025-10-01T10:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://upzoned.strongtowns.org/e/la-just-avoided-1600-layoffs-is-that-a-good-thing/ Audio file: https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/zbhxzdvtzsuxctj5/UPZ_10-1-25.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/upzoned-515359/episodes/la-just-avoided-1600-layoffs-is-that-a-good-thing Duration seconds: 2834 ## Resource The city of Los Angeles recently announced that it saved 1,600 jobs that were at risk of being cut to balance its $1 billion budget deficit. But did it actually fix anything, or is it just shuffling money around to hide the problem? What role do unions play? And what should cities actually do when facing a major budget deficit? Strong Towns Chief Technical Advisor Edward Erfurt dives into these questions with guest host Norm Van Eeden Petersman in this episode of Upzoned. ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES “Mayor Bass says layoffs averted after labor negotiations, "creative solutions" for next year city budget” by Chelsea Hylton, CBS News (September 2025). Finance Decoder Become a Strong Towns member to access weekly Ask Strong Towns Anything sessions. Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn) Do you know someone who would make for a great The Bottom-Up Revolution guest? Let us know here! ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/upzoned-515359/episodes/la-just-avoided-1600-layoffs-is-that-a-good-thing/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/upzoned-515359/la-just-avoided-1600-layoffs-is-that-a-good-thing.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.