Yaroslavsky on Frustrations Over Combating Homelessness

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Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, spoke with KCRW’s Press Play shortly after President Trump criticized California cities for the spread of homelessness during a trip to the state. Yaroslavsky took issue with Trump “coming in here and lecturing to us about what’s wrong with our housing policy,” saying several of the administration’s actions are responsible for pushing citizens onto the streets. He also said the root of homelessness is income inequality, not the availability of housing units. “The bottom line is this: We have an affordable housing crisis. We don’t have a market-rate housing crisis.” Yaroslavsky argued against loosening rules on zoning and development. “The proposals that have come out of Sacramento to eliminate the single-family homes and the duplex zones and the quadruplex zones in the city and allow seven-story massive apartment buildings with no parking is not the answer,” he said. “The people who are squeezed in this housing environment are people who are of low and moderate income, and that’s 40 to 45 percent of the city.”

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Matute on E-Scooters Hitting an Invisible Fence

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Juan Matute, deputy director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the emergence of electronic geofences that slow down or shut down e-scooters to enforce rules of the road. Cities across California are testing the technology, which erects invisible fences to enforce speed and parking restrictions and, in some places, create dead zones. The rules change from neighborhood to neighborhood and have caused confusion and frustration among riders whose rented e-scooters come to a halt. Cities and scooter companies negotiate the restrictions, but “these aren’t on the books,” Matute said. “Given that what the companies are asked to do changes week to week, it can be hard for an individual to keep up with what’s permitted and what each company’s restrictions are.”

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Koslov on ‘Managed Retreat’ as a Moral Act

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A New York Daily News opinion piece about communities that choose to retreat from coastal areas threatened by climate change highlighted the research of Liz Koslov, assistant professor of urban planning. The world is witnessing storms that are increasing in frequency and severity, as well as a dramatic rise in sea levels as massive ice sheets melt. As a result, some coastal communities are considering relocation. Koslov noted that some Staten Islanders who participated in a buyout of their property after 2012’s Superstorm Sandy viewed retreat not as surrender but as a form of resilience. “They spoke of retreat very differently — as a moral achievement, a sort of sacrifice for the greater good,” she said. “They felt that that was a very profound and meaningful act.” Koslov shared her research at a conference on “managed retreat” at Columbia University’s Earth Institute this summer.

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Yaroslavsky Weighs In on Democratic Debate

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Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, provided in-studio commentary on KCAL9 following a debate of the top 10 Democratic presidential candidates. Vice President Joe Biden, who bore most of the criticism during the three-hour debate, “has had his challenges with syntax, so to speak, but he hung in there,” Yaroslavsky said. Biden’s poll numbers are slowly falling, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s are on the rise, he said. But he cautioned that no one should take front-runner status for granted. Candidates with low polling numbers who fared well in the debate included Sens. Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, he said. “They all had an opportunity to reintroduce themselves to the American people, and they did well,” Yaroslavsky said. But he added, “It’s a crapshoot right now.”

 

Mukhija on Empowering Homeowners to Ease the Housing Crisis

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Urban Planning Professor Vinit Mukhija argued for loosening restrictions on “granny flats” and other accessory dwelling units in a Sacramento Bee opinion piece co-authored with state Sen. Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont). As a result of legislative reforms that went into effect in 2017, applications from homeowners who want to build basement apartments, backyard cottages, garage conversions or upstairs additions are up across the state. These units, just one element of a broader strategy needed to ease the state’s housing crunch, are “the low-hanging fruit for cities seeking a quick and inexpensive way to increase housing,” the authors wrote. They urged Californians to support Senate Bill 13, which would reduce fees levied on homeowners, loosen owner occupancy requirements and strengthen state oversight of local ordinances. In addition to relieving the housing crisis, the authors wrote, “homeowners can generate rental income that provides much-needed financial security, especially for seniors who may be house rich but cash poor.”

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Cohen on Weighing the Benefit of Antidepressants

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A Los Angeles Times column about the difficulty of coming off antidepressants quoted Social Welfare Professor David Cohen, whose research focuses on psychoactive drugs. The column noted that the number of Americans age 12 and over who use antidepressants has tripled over the last two decades. For some patients, ongoing treatment is the best option for a functional life. Others may opt to wean themselves from the drugs, which must be done with care to prevent severe withdrawal symptoms. “Users themselves must decide about meds’ helpfulness in their own lives,” said Cohen, who is associate dean for research and faculty development at UCLA Luskin. Two recent studies by Cohen looked at clinical trials funded by the pharmaceutical industry that appeared to misinterpret withdrawal symptoms as relapse, bolstering the case for staying on the medications and raising questions about the reliability of the trials.

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Manville on East Coast Traffic Relief

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Michael Manville, associate professor of urban planning, spoke with WGBH News in Boston about a proposal to add dedicated toll lanes on Massachusetts’ major highways. As the state considers options to alleviate traffic during rush hour, Gov. Charlie Baker has come out in support of adding “managed lanes” that let drivers choose whether to pay a fee for a quicker commute. “While drivers have a choice to commute in a faster lane for a cost, drivers who remain in the un-tolled lane will also experience lighter volume from those who peel off for the faster lane,” the governor explained. Manville said the benefits of creating such lanes are clear. “Almost anytime these managed lanes have been put in, you see traffic flowing much more smoothly, delay going down and many more vehicles being moved in these managed lanes. They are, at this point, a proven intervention,” he said.

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A Spotlight on Park’s Research on Heat, Learning

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PBS NewsHour took an in-depth look at Assistant Professor of Public Policy R. Jisung Park’s research linking extreme heat and students’ ability to learn. Every 1-degree-Fahrenheit increase in average outdoor temperature over a school year reduces student learning by 1 percent, a team of researchers led by Park found. The team’s analysis of weather data, test scores for 10 million students, and access to air conditioning in classrooms across the country point to a “Dixie divide”: In hotter counties in Florida, Texas and other Southern states, test scores were lower than those in the North, even after controlling for factors such as family income, a county’s economic status or local pollution. “The causal effect of any given 90-degree day was much larger for lower-income students and racial minorities,” added Park, associate director of economic research for the Luskin Center for Innovation. The study puts a spotlight on the nuanced ways that developed nations will be influenced by global warming.

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Wray-Lake on Planting Seeds of Political Engagement

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Laura Wray-Lake, associate professor of social welfare, authored a blog post for the London School of Economics that highlighted her research on political behavior among U.S. youth. Affiliation with a major party has long been linked to heightened political engagement, she wrote, but in recent years young adults have been less likely to join a party. To analyze changes in youth political engagement, Wray-Lake and her research partners surveyed nearly 13,000 people — beginning at age 18 and continuing until they reached at least 30 — about behaviors such as voting, donating to a campaign, writing to public officials, and boycotting products or stores. They found that major political and social events from a person’s adolescence may be linked to his or her level of political activity throughout young adulthood. Given their potential for engagement, “it is remarkable that political parties appear to place such a low priority on recruiting or mobilizing young people,” Wray-Lake wrote.

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Zepeda-Millán on O’Rourke’s ‘Last Effort to Stay Relevant’

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Chris Zepeda-Millán, associate professor of public policy, spoke with the Houston Chronicle about a campaign strategy shift by Beto O’Rourke. Since the Aug. 3 mass shooting in his hometown El Paso by a man who warned of a “Hispanic invasion of Texas,” the Democratic presidential hopeful has focused his message on racist violence, and held President Trump accountable for stoking it. This may be an attempt to jumpstart O’Rourke’s lagging campaign or set himself up as a vice presidential pick, some analysts said. “There’s nothing about him anymore that stands out,” Zepeda-Millán said. “He’s not a person of color, he’s not a woman, he’s not the most progressive candidate by far. He doesn’t have anything to set himself apart.” Zepeda- Millán concluded: “This is kind of a last effort to stay relevant.”

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