Newton on Subdivisions, Strip Malls and Sprawl

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Public Policy lecturer Jim Newton commented on suburban sprawl in a New York Times article about the demonization of developers. Homebuilders, who once personified progress and opportunity in the United States, are now often vilified as unscrupulous characters driven by greed, the article said. In many cities, developers are blamed for the shortage of affordable housing; the irony is that remedying the shortage will probably require yet more development. Newton weighed in on the trend toward housing subdivisions and mass production to save time and money. “If you drive through the San Fernando Valley, you wouldn’t feel like someone did all of that because they were driven by a desire to create community, or that they were really modeling their housing on aesthetics,” he said. “It’s just a bunch of houses and strip malls.”

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Kaplan on Complex Epidemic of Gun Violence

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In the wake of mass shootings in Texas, Ohio and California, Social Welfare Professor Mark Kaplan shared his expertise on gun violence with KNX InDepth. About 300 people are shot, 100 fatally, each day in the United States, and two-thirds of all gun deaths are suicides, not homicides, he said. “The gun violence epidemic is not just one epidemic. It’s multiple epidemics,” he said. Limiting access to weapons could protect victims from catastrophic harm, Kaplan argued. The presence of guns “lethalize” violence and “that’s the central problem that we face today,” he said. Kaplan noted that “California is light-years ahead of most other states in terms of gun legislation” but that has not shielded it from weapons brought in across state lines. The state-by-state approach, with 50 often conflicting policies, is futile, he said. “It’s time that we begin thinking about a national approach to this problem, to this major, urgent public health problem,” he said on the program, beginning at minute 9:25.

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Peterson on Proposals to Eliminate Private Health Insurance

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Public Policy Professor Mark Peterson spoke to Elite Daily about the potential repercussions of eliminating private health insurance, a point of debate among those vying for the Democratic presidential nomination. The candidates disagree on whether to allow private insurers to coexist, and compete, with a government-run insurance system. Peterson noted that most other countries with state-run health-care systems allow private insurers to fill gaps in coverage or, for those willing to pay, receive speedier care. He added that eliminating private health insurance could cost millions of jobs. “Whether you think the private insurance industry and health care realm is evil or good, there are a lot of people employed,” he said. Peterson also noted that many Americans prefer that their health care needs be met through the private sector.  “For a lot of people in the United States there is a deep skepticism of government,” he said.

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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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