Journalist Michelle Lecours in a two-part interview sat down with Signal Hill Councilman and three-time mayor Larry Forester to talk about redevelopment in Signal Hill and Long Beach.

Forester knows more than a thing or two about it — he’s chaired his city’s redevelopment agency three times. In layman’s terms, he explains the economic role such municipal agencies have played in city services and development decisions since its implementation in the 1950s. With the state’s dissolution of all RDAs — the “economic engine” of cities, as Forest decribed — local leaders have new challenges to face.

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