How Don Tacha Taqueria became the Lowell neighborhood’s family-run ‘tacoasis’
Fresno is a tough place to stand out for serving great tacos. Taco Truck Throwdown has been establishing our bona fides as a taco destination since 2011, and if there’s one thing the broader world knows about the Fresno food scene, it’s probably tacos. Bringing tacos to Fresno is like bringing sand to the beach.…
Fresno law firm dodges $10,000 fine, says use of AI do not meet its standards
A law firm representing the City of Fresno will not have to pay a $10,000 fine after a Fresno County judge found 11 fake and improper case citations in one of its court filings. In an April 14 tentative ruling, Fresno County Superior Court Judge Kristi Culver Kapetan wrote that she wouldn’t subject Aleshire &…
Inside the effort to fix the Tower District’s vacant building problems
In a neighborhood like Fresno’s Tower District, where some storefronts have stood vacant since the Nixon administration, local lawmakers are seeking out new ways to tackle the blight. But are their tactics working? Some say it’s too soon to tell. Last June, Councilmembers Annalisa Perea and Miguel Arias brought forth a new one-year pilot program…
Fresnoland’s 2025 in Review: Five of our favorite neighborhood stories
Looking back at Fresnoland accomplishments in 2025, one of the efforts of which I’m most proud was our decision to go even deeper into our neighborhoods. We wanted to explore the often untold or forgotten stories of the store owners, the artists, the cooks and history makers that shape our community as much and sometimes…
Fresno council approves new plan for the Tower District
A seemingly straightforward approval from city leaders on Thursday marks the end to years of arduous discussion and planning among Tower District stakeholders over the future of their community. The Fresno City Council approved the newly drafted Tower District Specific Plan, setting new rules for design and land use decisions in the city’s historic neighborhood. …
Fresno art? Inside a vending machine? Meet the man behind it
Marco Tovar was around 9 years old at a Modesto swap meet when he first came across a switchblade comb. He had never seen anything like it. With the press of a button, a fine-tooth plastic comb snapped out. It was so cool to him as a kid in the 1980s. “The fact that you…
Fresnolandia Podcast: How to improve a neighborhood
On this week’s Fresnolandia, Jordan and Danielle speak with Kiel Lopez-Schmidt, a longtime Fresno community organizer and the executive director of the South Tower Community Land Trust, about his decades of experience working in community development. They talk about the fight he and his neighbors took on to get a new park built on Broadway,…
This is one of the cheapest homes for sale in Fresno right now, and here’s why
Fresno’s first-ever community land trust-owned home went on the market Wednesday in the city’s South Tower neighborhood. The single-family home, located on Farris Avenue just north of Belmont, was purchased and renovated by the South Tower Community Land Trust over the past year-and-a-half. Now, it’s for sale for $215,000, well under the neighborhood’s median home…
How Fresno’s South Tower neighborhood replaced a police station with a community park
Just around the corner from Fresno’s brand new Broadway Parque is the first door Kiel Lopez-Schmidt and his neighbors knocked on eight years ago, asking what people wanted to see built on the lot that’s now home to the park. Before it was Broadway Parque, the corner was the site of a Fresno police substation.…
Fresno to crack down on smoke shops following narrow vote
City leaders moved forward Thursday with cracking down on Fresno smoke shops after a somewhat tense debate. The Fresno City Council’s narrow 4-1 vote — with one councilmember abstaining and another absent — greenlit a proposal to force dozens of smoke shops to close down or change the nature of their business by 2026. “I…