Storper on the Roots of Housing Inequality

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Michael Storper, distinguished professor of regional and international development in urban planning, co-wrote a paper featured prominently in a CityLab article. Storper and co-author Andrés Rodríguez-Pose of the London School of Economics argue that, while insufficient housing is a part of the problem, the idea that it is the main cause of urban economic problems is based on faulty premises. They find that increasing the housing supply does not lower housing costs. Rather, they find lower-income service workers move out of the city and higher-income “knowledge workers” move in. They write that the affordable housing crisis is “due less to over-regulation of housing markets than to the underlying wage and income inequalities, and a sharp increase in the value of central locations within metro areas, as employment and amenities concentrate in these places.” Storper is also the director of Global Public Affairs at UCLA Luskin.

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More Is Less on L.A.’s I-405, Michael Manville Says

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Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville is quoted in a StreetsBlog USA article on worsening traffic congestion in and around Los Angeles, especially in the Sepulveda Pass. The completion of the I-405 Sepulveda Pass Improvement Project in 2015 was projected to alleviate congestion, but studies have shown that traffic is worse despite the addition of an extra lane. This phenomenon, known as the law of induced demand, explains how travel time on the pass during rush hour has gone up by 50 percent in the past four years. According to the theory, when the supply of a good (in this case traffic lanes) is increased, more of that good will ultimately be consumed. “So you have a road that is every bit as congested, just wider,” Manville said. On possible fixes for the problem, Manville explained that establishing a toll system may be the best way to combat traffic: “When you do price the road, people switch to transit.” 

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Goh on Indonesian President’s Plans to Move Capital City

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In a recent CityLab article, UCLA Luskin’s Kian Goh commented on the Indonesian president’s approval of a plan to relocate the nation’s capital. The current capital of Jakarta is overcrowded and sinking by a few inches per year as a result of excessive underwater pumping. “Only part of this [relocation plan] is environmental,” explained Goh, assistant professor of urban planning. She stressed the economic and political factors at play, arguing that “a move to literally reposition the capital may have to do with reframing the center of power in the country itself.” Even if the president is successful in moving the capital, the government will still need to deal with the sinking land and rising seas in Jakarta. Goh predicts that Jakarta will remain the center of economic activity in Indonesia regardless of whether the capital is moved, concluding that “the people will still be there, and the problems they face will still be there.”

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Newton Debates Eisenhower’s Stance on Desegregation

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Jim Newton, public policy lecturer at UCLA Luskin, shared his interpretation of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s actions on desegregation while serving as president in a recent CJ Online article. According to Newton, President Eisenhower’s public statement that “the Supreme Court has spoken and I am sworn to uphold the constitutional processes in this country, and I will obey,” after the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision banned racial segregation in schools in 1954, illustrates Eisenhower’s “lukewarm” stance on desegregation. “He did what was required of him but evidenced no enthusiasm for it,” Newton said, arguing that he believed Eisenhower didn’t fully anticipate what he was getting in the area of civil rights when he appointed Earl Warren as Chief Justice of the United States. Newton, who has written biographies of both Eisenhower and Warren, commented that Eisenhower’s enforcement of Brown v. Board of Education at Little Rock was more about power than about desegregation.

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Yaroslavsky Calls SB 50 an Overreach

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Director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA and former LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky spoke to NBC 4 about the implications presented by Senate Bill 50. The bill would allow cities to rezone along transit lines in order to increase the amount of high-density housing in California. Yaroslavsky said this would be an overreach without a middle ground. Many single-family neighborhoods would be rezoned to develop multifamily housing because SB 50 extends to virtually every bus line in L.A. County, he said. As the bill currently stands, it exempts small, affluent cities. “Don’t exempt the affluent cities. Treat everybody the same,” Yaroslavsky said.

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Institute on Inequality and Democracy Highlighted for Debt Relief Activism

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The Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin was featured in a Public Seminar essay that highlighted the institute’s continuing collaborative efforts to support “organizations that conduct critical work on behalf of the dispossessed, including debtors, those displaced by gentrification and the formerly incarcerated.” Student debt and the prospect of tuition-free public universities have lately moved from fringe debate to a mainstream topic of discussion among Democratic presidential candidates. The institute has served as a model for creating reciprocal relationships between academia and debt relief organizations, often giving voice to academics who argue that “educational institutions that run on debt are in conflict with those who critique such models or who are working to concretely transform them.” This is “all the more reason for activists … to work in collaboration with those who may have access to resources but whose institutional affiliations may limit them in other ways,” the essay said.

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Villasenor Weighs In on Electronic-Tracking Bracelets

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Public Policy Professor John Villasenor spoke to the Associated Press about using technology to locate missing seniors with dementia or autism. Los Angeles County began a program called LA Found to help police, sheriffs, fire departments, nursing homes and hospitals coordinate searches for missing people. LA Found uses a system of electronic bracelets worn by vulnerable people; the bracelets can be tracked by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department if these individuals go missing. While some technology that tracks people can raise red flags about privacy, experts said in this case the upside outweighs any concerns. Villasenor said the voluntary use of the electronic bracelets “seems like a very good potential use of location-tracking technology.” The report was picked up by several media outlets, including NBC Los Angeles, the San Francisco Chronicle and Fox News.

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Yaroslavsky Explains Drag on Quality of Life in L.A.

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Los Angeles Initiative Director Zev Yaroslavsky spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the recently released UCLA Luskin Quality of Life Index. Poll respondents in Los Angeles County expressed satisfaction with health care, the economy and community relations. However, cost of living, particularly for housing, ranked lowest on the index. “This survey is important to our region and its communities in that it helps capture at a point in time what county residents consider most important to them, personally,” Yaroslavsky said. The study was also featured on media outlets including KABC7, NBC Los Angeles, The Patriot LA 1150, AM870 and LAist. In a KNX In Depth radio interview, Yaroslavsky said the rising cost of living is spurring residents to leave Los Angeles. “People who are economically on the margins and can’t afford to rent an apartment or buy a home are going to places where the costs are cheaper,” he said. 

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Lens Defends Senate Bill 50 Upzoning Proposal

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Michael Lens, associate professor of urban planning and public policy, expressed his support for Senate Bill 50 in a Los Angeles Daily News article about the controversial bill. If passed, SB50 would override local restrictions against multi-family housing, allowing developers to construct larger buildings or condos near transportation hubs in a process known as upzoning. Many have expressed opposition to the bill, arguing that it would destroy neighborhoods without necessarily addressing housing affordability. Critics of SB50 argue that there is little empirical evidence to support the relationship between upzoning, increased construction and lower housing prices. Lens points to the long-standing trend of downzoning to protect single-family neighborhoods, arguing that “there is an absence of evidence mainly because we don’t have a lot of experience upzoning anything like this.” In defense of SB50, Lens explains that he “doesn’t believe it’s his right to guarantee that a building down the street isn’t multi-family housing.”

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Torres-Gil and Shoup on Disabled Parking Fraud

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In a story about the Los Angeles City Council’s recent vote to increase the disabled-parking fraud fine from $250 to $1,100, the Los Angeles Times spoke to two UCLA Luskin authorities. Fernando Torres-Gil, social welfare and public policy professor and director of the Center for Policy Research on Aging, said that increasing disabled parking places, stiffening the fine and stepping up enforcement will not solve the problem of disabled parking fraud. Donald Shoup, distinguished research professor of urban planning, added, “Someone who has a real disability should be very outraged at the lax enforcement of placard abuse and the lax enforcement of placard issuance.” Torres-Gil and Shoup advocate for a reform that would limit the number of disabled people who have access to the parking placards. They argued that the reform should not be feared. “Let’s just bite the bullet and deal with it now,” Torres-Gil said.

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