The California Department of Transportation, in cooperation with a joint powers authority, will in June begin buying land to build a 63-mile high desert freeway connecting the Los Angeles County communities of Palmdale and Lancaster with the San Bernardino County communities of Victorville, Apple Valley and Adelanto. ... The county’s first new freeway in a quarter-century is something of a throwback, as regional planners have shifted their focus in recent years toward mass transit and infill development to combat snarled traffic and housing shortages. Yet it serves as a reminder that even as Los Angeles moves to encourage more density...