Gilens on Trump, Musk and Conflicts of Interest

/0 Comments/in /by

A Washington Post story on tech billionaire Elon Musk’s outsize influence on the incoming Trump administration cited UCLA Luskin’s Martin Gilens. Musk became an outspoken Trump supporter less than six months ago and spent $277 million to back Republican campaigns in this election cycle. Now, he’s playing an unprecedented role in shaping Trump’s administration, weighing in on Cabinet picks, joining meetings with heads of state and, this week, sparking a showdown on Capitol Hill by attacking a spending bill that would forestall a government shutdown. Musk is also the target of multiple government investigations and party to many lucrative government contracts. His business empire’s dependency on the government creates a conflict of interest, said Gilens, a professor of public policy, social welfare and political science. “It’s kind of a perfect storm, in the sense that he’s unelected and in a seemingly very influential position,” he said, “so that’s problematic to begin with.”

Read the story

 

 

Torres-Gil on Providing Culturally Competent Care

/0 Comments/in /by

Fernando Torres-Gil, director of UCLA Luskin’s Center for Policy Research on Aging and professor emeritus of social welfare and public policy, commented in an article published by The World about aging immigrants and their health care needs. The story notes that the number of foreign-born older people in the United States is quickly increasing and projected to reach 23% of the total older population by 2060. However, the U.S. health care system is not fully prepared to meet the needs of this aging population. The story focuses on a hospital-based fall-prevention class for Spanish-speaking older adults. Torres-Gil said that care programs where language and culture are shared and understood are vital to immigrants “because that way, they’ll age healthier and be less of an economic health burden on the community.” At the same time, he said that providing culturally competent care may be difficult to fund considering the incoming presidential administration’s attitude toward immigrants.

Read the story

 

Manville on L.A.’s Spot Street Widening Regulations

/0 Comments/in /by

Michael Manville, professor and chair of UCLA Luskin Urban Planning, is cited in a Los Angeles Times editorial on the city’s longstanding street-widening requirements, so-called “zombie regulations” that are now getting the attention of local lawmakers. Under these regulations, in place since the early 1960s, new apartment and commercial developments are often required to dedicate part of the property to the city for road expansion. Road expansions account for L.A.’s “jigsaw-puzzle” configuration of widening and narrowing streets, according to the editorial. While intended to improve traffic flow, whether roads are congested or not, the editorial argues that the parcel-by-parcel widenings provide little or no congestion relief while they take out mature trees, parkways and sidewalk space. “I’ve studied urban regulations for 20 years, and this is probably the dumbest regulation I’ve ever encountered,” Manville said. The editorial also cites research by Manville showing that the road widening regulation increases the cost of housing.

Read the editorial

Shoup’s Strategy to Fix L.A.’s Broken Sidewalks

/0 Comments/in /by

Donald Shoup, distinguished research professor of urban planning at UCLA Luskin, wrote a Planetizen article about his proposal for the best way to address the broken concrete and uprooted trees causing hazards on the sidewalks of Los Angeles. Shoup says that Los Angeles should enforce the city and state laws that require property owners to maintain the adjacent sidewalks. The city can then partner with banks to allow the property owners to delay paying for any repairs until they sell their properties. He suggests that banks loan people money for repairs, to be repaid when owners sell their properties. With this policy, Los Angeles can repair its 4,000 miles of broken sidewalks that violate the Americans with Disabilities Act. Failure to make all the sidewalks accessible for people with disabilities before the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2028 would give Los Angeles a catastrophic black eye on the world stage, he says. Shoup also spoke with KCRW and The Times of London.

Read the Planetizen article
Listen to the KCRW report
Read the Times of London article

 

 

Recycling Wastewater to Protect Clean Water Supply

/0 Comments/in /by

Gregory Pierce, co-executive director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation (LCI), spoke to the Los Angeles Times and LAist’s AirTalk about a new study that assesses Los Angeles’ plan to invest in a $740-million facility to recycle wastewater into clean drinking water. “Any way you slice it, our estimates are that the benefits are going to vastly outweigh the costs,” Pierce said. LCI researchers examined about 100,000 potential scenarios, including shortages caused by droughts or major earthquakes that could rupture aqueducts and cut off outside supplies. “Because climate uncertainty will be the largest driver of the city’s water shortage, the city must adapt by developing more local, reliable supplies,” he said. “It’s worth making that investment even though it’s a high cost up-front.” In a separate AirTalk appearance, Pierce, who also directs LCI’s Human Right to Water Solutions Lab, weighed in on the historical and contemporary importance of the century-old L.A. aqueduct.

Read the L.A. Times article
Listen to the AirTalk segment

 

 

Zepeda-Millán on the U.S.-Mexico Border Wall

/0 Comments/in /by

Chris Zepeda-Millán, associate professor of public policy at UCLA Luskin, commented in an Independent story on the current status of the U.S.-Mexico border wall eight years after President-elect Donald Trump made it a central part of his 2016 campaign. According to the story, illegal immigration increased during Trump’s major border wall construction push and hit record levels in 2023 during the Biden administration, with the wall “neither preventing nor deterring the things it was designed to stop.” Zepeda-Millán, who has conducted public opinion polling about why people support the wall, said, “Most Americans, even those who support the wall, know that it’s not going to produce the claimed effect, which then leads to the question: Why support it? Why build it?” Zepeda said he sees a parallel with Trump’s promises to deport millions of undocumented people: “The economy would collapse if he actually deported 11 million undocumented people. … Inflation would skyrocket.”

Read the story

Turner on How Cities Can Help Shape Responses to Heat

/0 Comments/in /by

A Smart Cities Dive brief on heat resilient cities cites V. Kelly Turner, associate professor of urban planning and associate director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation (LCI). The brief provides information from the federally funded Center for Heat Resilient Communities to cities interested in financial and technical assistance for extreme heat planning. Communities are eligible to apply by Jan. 24 for $10,000 and assistance to determine the impact of extreme heat on their area, assess their capacity to respond and design a “locally tailored blueprint for heat resilience,” according to the brief. Up to 10 cities will be selected. The center will “also be able to highlight how the experiences and local knowledge of diverse communities can help shape federal responses on heat,” said Turner, the center’s principal investigator. The Los Angeles-based Center for Heat Resilient Communities is one of two heat resilience research centers established by the Biden administration in May.

Read the brief

 

A Cautionary Note on Policies to Curb ‘Vehicle Miles Traveled’

/0 Comments/in /by

Research by professor and chair of UCLA Luskin Urban Planning Michael Manville is the focus of Reason Foundation articles on state policies aimed at reducing the growth of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) on California’s roads. Manville is among transportation professionals in the U.S. concerned about current state policies enacted to reduce VMT. California has the most ambitious goal of reducing VMT by 20% by 2030, while other states including Washington, Colorado, Minnesota and Massachusetts have set their own reduction targets. Manville’s work on VMT is reviewed in the October issue, and the November review takes a detailed look specifically at California’s VMT-reduction policy. In creating his report, Manville used input from a panel of experts from academia, as well as transportation practitioners to examine current practices for estimating induced travel from freeway expansions, to resolve areas of disagreement and to provide recommendations.

Read the November article

 

 

A Post-COVID Change in How We Live Our Lives

/0 Comments/in , /by

Media outlets in the United States and around the world have spotlighted new research showing that Americans are spending more time at home since the COVID-19 pandemic. The study by Brian D. Taylor and Sam Speroni of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies and Eric A. Morris of Clemson University reveals an overall drop since 2019 of about 51 minutes a day in time spent on out-of-home activities and an almost 12-minute reduction in time spent on daily travel such as driving or taking public transportation. The authors conclude that the trend calls for a rethinking of many planning policies, including repurposing office and retail real estate given the increase in working and shopping from home. News media including Health, Earth.com, Consumer Affairs, ZME Science, Manchester Evening News and National Geographic Germany are among the more than 400 outlets covering the study, which was published in the Journal of the American Planning Association.

 

Shoup on New York City’s Plan to Make Curbs Smarter

/0 Comments/in /by

Distinguished Research Professor of Urban Planning Donald Shoup commented in a Gothamist article on a plan to modernize and better utilize curb space in New York City’s Upper West Side. The “Smart Curbs” program, which is already being implemented, is designed to dramatically change parking rules in the Manhattan neighborhood, reducing double parking, increasing public seating and providing space for bike racks normally used for parking cars. The program is part of a larger effort to control traffic and increase safety, including designated curb space for delivery trucks and for-hire vehicles, according to transportation officials. However, Shoup, an expert on parking, described the plan as only a mild change and argued that the city should be more ambitious. “The curbs could be even smarter,” he said. “On every street there should be loading zones. They should be charged by the minute.” Shoup added, “It’s the most unsophisticated city on earth for curb parking.”

Read the article