Matute on Carbon Footprint of Electric Scooters

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Juan Matute, deputy director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about a study attempting to tally the carbon footprint of electric scooters. The research measured several factors: the energy-intensive materials that go into making the vehicles; the driving required to collect, charge and redistribute them; and the shortened lifespan of scooters battered by use on urban streets or attacked by vandals. The study concluded that e-scooters aren’t as eco-friendly as they may seem. While traveling a mile by scooter is better than driving the same distance by car, it’s worse than biking, walking or taking a bus — the modes of transportation that scooters most often replace, the researchers from North Carolina State University found. “That actual trip somebody’s taking on the scooter — that’s pretty green,” Matute said. “What’s not green is everything you don’t see.”

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Lens Weighs In on Rent Control Bill

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Michael Lens, associate professor of urban planning and public policy, spoke to Curbed LA about Assembly Bill 1482, which would bar most property owners in California from increasing rent more than 7 percent, plus the cost of inflation, in one year. The bill would also require landlords to have just cause, such as failure to pay rent, when terminating a lease. “We’re definitely at a time more tenant protection in California generally — and especially L.A., San Francisco and other hot markets — is necessary,” Lens said. Advocates say the bill, if enacted, would protect up to 4 million Californians from rent gouging and arbitrary eviction. Opponents say it could deter developers from building at all. Lens pointed out that the 7 percent cap on rent hikes may be too high to have significant impact. “There’s a really small number of homes in which a landlord in a given year is even mulling a 10 percent hike,” he said.

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Monkkonen on Bringing All of L.A. Into the Housing Effort

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Curbed LA spoke with UCLA Luskin’s Paavo Monkkonen about efforts to provide affordable housing in every part of Los Angeles. City planners have been instructed to develop recommendations that require all neighborhoods to help meet L.A.’s affordable housing goals.  One option is “inclusionary zoning,” which would require new residential developments to include units that low-income renters can afford. Some developers argue that this policy would dissuade them from building new housing in the city. Monkonnen, associate professor of urban planning and public policy, said inclusionary zoning would be a good start. But he added that it would not have much impact on single-family neighborhoods with little land zoned for multi-family buildings. “A better idea would also be to rezone a lot of land for multi-family and combine it with inclusionary zoning,” Monkonnen said.

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Manville on Lessons From the Measure M Campaign

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An article on Streetsblog USA featured a report authored by Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville on the transit funding initiative Measure M. Voters approved the measure overwhelmingly in 2016, largely due to a political campaign that focused on boosting the economy and easing traffic, but not on transforming the region’s car culture, the report noted. “Voters were expressly not offered a vision of a more multimodal or environmentally sustainable Los Angeles; they were mostly offered instead a vision of more jobs, better roads and easier driving,” Manville wrote. The transportation investments ushered in by Measure M have not led to higher use of public transit. “Los Angeles has a hard road in front of it in making the vision of Measure M a reality,” the report said. “An electoral victory is the end of a political process, but only the beginning of a policy process.”

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Tilly on Apps That Disrupt the Payday Cycle

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Urban Planning Professor Chris Tilly spoke to Bloomberg Law about new apps that allow workers to tap into their paychecks ahead of the traditional two-week cycle. At least five tech startups have entered the market, which is primarily aimed at workers who live paycheck to paycheck. By accessing their earnings earlier, people will gain more flexibility in paying bills and avoiding high-interest credit card charges, the services say. However, some observers say that speeding up pay cycles could mask a larger problem: stagnant wages. “The smoothing of pay availability over a pay period is advantageous to people who have very little savings,” said Tilly, a labor economist. “What it doesn’t address is why those people have very little savings in the first place. Low pay is low pay, and this is being intensified by increasing housing, health care and other costs in many places.”

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Professors Urged to Fight for Free College

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The Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin was cited in a Chronicle of Higher Education article calling on academics to speak out in favor of legislation that would eliminate student debt and make public college free. Momentum toward this goal increased after a group of students launched a “debt strike” in 2015, using the slogan, “We are the first generation made poor by the business of education,” the article said. But it added, “The fact is that most elite academics have been absent from the political fight for free college.” The article encouraged public universities to collaborate with grassroots activists and commended the Institute on Inequality and Democracy for providing funding and other resources to local organizers. “Academics who want to see transformative change must use their positions to help win back the promise of college as a necessary and vital public good,” the article said.

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Leap on Indictments of MS-13 Street Gang

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Social Welfare Adjunct Professor Jorja Leap spoke with BBC World Service’s Spanish-language news outlet about the Fulton clique of the MS-13 street gang. A federal indictment of 22 of the gang’s members detailed brutal acts across Los Angeles, according to BBC Mundo. Federal officials said 19 of those indicted are undocumented immigrants from Central America who arrived in the past three or four years. The Fulton clique actively recruits young people, who often behave impulsively and unpredictably, Leap said. Youths who have experienced poverty, poor education, trauma and mental illness are particularly susceptible to gang overtures, she said. The indictments came as MS-13’s influence in the region has waned. Leap said 1,200 homicides were recorded during MS-13’s boom, but last year the number had dropped to 300.

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Akee on Protests Over Giant Telescope on Mauna Kea

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Randall Akee, associate professor of public policy, weighed in on protests sparked by the construction of a giant telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii’s highest mountain. Native Hawaiians are attempting to stop construction of the $1.4-billion Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on the site, which is considered sacred ground. “The sight of some of the most revered and esteemed Native Hawaiian elders being hauled off the mountain in plastic tie bands was appalling to Native Hawaiians everywhere,” Akee wrote in a piece for Real Clear Markets. These images threaten Hawaii’s $16-billion tourism industry, and the cultural and environmental costs of building the telescope would be great, he wrote. Akee was also cited in a Vox report on the protests. “The opposition to the TMT construction is like the straw that broke the camel’s back,” he said. “It represents decades of poor management of Hawaii’s natural resources and prioritizing of economic interests ahead of community interests.”

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Holloway on Protections for LGBTQ Travelers

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Ian Holloway, associate professor of social welfare, spoke with NBC News about Tinder’s new personal security feature aimed at protecting users in countries that are hostile to LGBTQ communities. In these countries, the dating app will keep gender identity and sexual orientation private and will prompt travelers to take other precautions. Noting that the LGBTQ community uses dating apps at a relatively high rate, Holloway welcomed the new protections but said apps that specifically cater to gay users face additional challenges.  “Tinder’s Traveler Alert is a great idea, but I wonder how it would translate to LGBTQ-specific platforms, where people know others’ sexuality by virtue of being on those apps,” he said.

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Koslov on ‘Managed Retreat’ From Rising Waters

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Assistant Professor of Urban Planning Liz Koslov spoke to Vice about “managed retreat” as a strategy for coping with climate change — and perhaps creating a better quality of life. Faced with rising sea levels, some communities lobby for protection from walls and levees. Staying in place is seen as a sign of resilience, moving away a sign of surrender. Koslov noted that walling off cities could create “provinces of the wealthy” that bring about environmental and social havoc. “You could end up with these walled city-states and then everyone else is just left to fend for themselves,” she said. Managed retreat — moving populations away from an environmental threat in a carefully planned strategy — can be empowering and restorative if the people involved have a voice in the move, she said. Koslov, who has a joint appointment with UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, is currently working on a book based on her fieldwork on Staten Island after Hurricane Sandy.

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