Later this month, political, business and community leaders, including state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, will join with academics in exploring the state of California's infrastructure--including its physical, political, social, economic and environmental systems--in an effort to align the state's existing and emerging needs with its capacity to meet those needs during normal times or during an emergency.

The 17th annual Envisioning California Conference, "Retrofitting California: Rethinking Policy and Infrastructure for a Sustainable Future," will take place Thursday, Sept. 22, and Friday, Sept. 23, at the Warner Center Marriott in Woodland Hills. The conference is being sponsored by Cal State Northridge's Center for Southern California Studies and the Center for California Studies at California State University, Sacramento.

Conference organizers said that much of California's infrastructure, from its roads and schools to its energy systems and medical services, was created in the 1950s and 1960s.

Nuñez will give a keynote address on the evening of Sept. 22. Los Angeles Times columnist Patt Morrison and former presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis will speak at the conference on Sept. 23.