Michael Manville, professor and chair of Luskin urban planning, commented in a KQED story on the effects of gentrification in a South Los Angeles neighborhood on bus ridership. The story focuses on the northern tip of the Vermont Square neighborhood, where median incomes have risen markedly while the number of Black residents has declined. At the same time, new apartment buildings have been constructed in the area. A study co-authored by Manville also is cited which compared changes in transit ridership numbers to rental market trends in L.A. and Orange County neighborhoods. The UCLA study suggests that the state’s public transit issues reflect the state’s housing affordability crisis, according to the story. “The basic premise of the paper is, ‘Can rising rents help explain why you’re losing transit ridership?’ And it seems to be that they can, because they reduce the likelihood that very high transit riders will live near transit stops,” Manville said.