Ong on Fried Chicken and Gentrification

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Paul Ong, director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA Luskin, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the impact of Chinatown’s most popular restaurant, Howlin’ Rays. While Chinatown locals have struggled to stay afloat as office and housing costs rise,  the Nashville-style hot fried chicken restaurant has attracted masses of Los Angeles locals and visitors since it opened in 2016, resulting in lines up to five hours long. Ong explained that new businesses like Howlin’ Rays attract a specific clientele, prompting increased investment and property development in Chinatown that alienates locals. After realizing that many locals didn’t have the time or money to try Howlin’ Rays, L.A. Times reporter Frank Shyong waited two hours in line to buy chicken to distribute to nearby business owners. “The biggest challenge is understanding how we all play a role in a much larger dynamic,” Ong remarked. “More broadly, we have to talk about what we want our cities to look like.”

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Yaroslavsky Predicts Measure EE Vote Will Be Close

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A Daily News article discussing the upcoming June vote on Measure EE included comments by Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative. Measure EE is a proposed 16-cents-per-square-foot parcel tax that pledges to pay for lower class sizes, attract high-quality teachers, and improve programs and services for students within the Los Angeles Unified School District. Yaroslavsky explained that “typically, when you have lower voter turnout, and there’s a campaign on both sides, it makes it more difficult for the yes side to get a two-thirds vote.” Proponents of the bills argue that the tax is necessary to make up for inadequate funding from the state, while opponents blame the district for mismanagement of funds. “My instincts tell me this is going to be close,” Yaroslavsky said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it won, nor would I be surprised if it lost.”

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Umemoto on Japanese Americans Tracing Family History

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Urban Planning Professor Karen Umemoto spoke to the Chicago Tribune about third- and fourth-generation Japanese Americans’ resurgent interest in the internment of their ancestors during World War II. Umemoto went on her own pilgrimage to what remains of Manzanar, the camp where her father was held. “Any Japanese American who saw and understands what our parents and grandparents went through is left with a feeling that they don’t want to see anyone else go through that experience,” said Umemoto, director of the Asian American Studies Center at UCLA. “So when there is talk of Muslim bans, deportations based on race or ethnicity, or just the overall racial hatred being sown against immigrants … well, we know what terrible things that can lead to.” Umemoto said her visit made her father’s experience more real. “You feel how it might have been for the families who were put behind barbed wire with armed guards, not knowing when they could leave or what would happen to them,”  she said.

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Manville on Elon Musk’s Vegas People-Mover

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Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville spoke to the Los Angeles Times about Elon Musk’s underground people-mover for the Las Vegas convention center’s expansion. Musk’s Boring Co. secured a $48.7-million contract after the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board approved construction of the roughly mile-long transit loop. Manville was surprised to learn that an underground plan was more affordable than a proposed elevated rail because tunneling is often more expensive. Based on the few details released by the Boring Co., Manville said it would be difficult to assess the project. “This is kind of a market test for him. Can he now build something that is more commercially viable than what he’s done with his test tunnel in Hawthorne?” Manville said. “But there’s nothing intrinsically interesting about building a tunnel to move people around. That’s what a subway is, right?”

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Shah on Benefits of Decriminalizing Sex Work

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Public Policy Professor Manisha Shah was featured in a Vox “Consider It” episode discussing the issue of sex work in the United States. “For the most part, sex workers are women who are making the choice to do [sex work] as a source of livelihood. We can argue about how good or bad of a source of livelihood this is, but ultimately, sex work is work,” Shah said. “The sex market is often characterized as one of moral repugnance because of moral beliefs that we shouldn’t put a price on sex.” Nevertheless, public policy experts have found numerous benefits associated with the decriminalization of sex work. Shah explained that during the six years that indoor prostitution was decriminalized in Rhode Island, there was a decrease in gonorrhea incidents and reported rape offenses. “Based on current research, decriminalization of sex work is overall better for women,” Shah concluded.

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Zepeda-Millán on ‘Party of Five’ Reboot

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Associate Professor of Public Policy and Chicana/o Studies Chris Zepeda-Millán spoke to the Associated Press about the reboot of the 1990s drama “Party of Five.” Disney announced that the Freeform network will air the reboot, which has been updated to feature a Mexican American family whose parents are deported. Zepeda-Millán said that it is very telling that a mainstream television network would develop a show focused on immigration status, particularly because it is an American story that has been going on for decades. “Now it will get some mainstream exposure through the very powerful media of television,” he said. Although there are a few television shows that feature Latino characters, they are mainly comedies, Zepeda-Millán said. “I haven’t seen a drama, mainstream show like this,” he said. “Its success will depend on how the characters are portrayed.” The story was picked up by several news outlets, including the New York Times and The Telegraph.

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Monkkonen on Affordable Housing in the Bay Area

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Paavo Monkkonen, associate professor of urban planning and public policy, spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle about a new housing development in a wealthy Bay Area suburb. A multi-family housing development will be built in the city of Danville, creating 144 new units, 11 of which are to be set aside for affordable housing. The apartment building will accommodate lower-income people in the local workforce as well as middle-class residents priced out of most Bay Area real estate. Some cities say this type of multi-unit development is not feasible because they are built-out, with no more land available to develop. Monkkonen argued that suburbs use that as an excuse to not create more housing. “What they don’t tell you is that up to 90% of their land is zoned for single-family homes,” he said. If changing that “is not on the table, things aren’t going to change.”

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Loukaitou-Sideris and Wachs on High-Speed Rail Project

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An Agence France-Presse story featured comments by Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, professor of urban planning, and Martin Wachs, professor emeritus of urban planning, on the status of California’s high-speed rail project. The original plan to connect Los Angeles and San Francisco was revised by Gov. Gavin Newsom in February to link Merced and Bakersfield instead, a distance only a third of the originally planned route. Construction delays and unexpected budget increases have prompted criticism of the “train to nowhere.” Loukaitou-Sideris weighed in on the curtailed route. “It absolutely does not make sense,” she said. “Any transit project needs big [urban] centers as origins and destinations, and so to have something like that … all but kills the project.” Wachs agreed, arguing that “California should have capitalized on its existing rail network, including that currently dedicated to freight.” The AFP story was picked up by several news outlets, including Yahoo! News and Daily Mail.

Akee on Health Care Access for Undocumented Youth

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Associate Professor of Public Policy Randall Akee spoke to the Daily Bruin about Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2019-2020 state budget and its implication for undocumented youth. Newsom’s budget would allocate $98 million to extend Medi-Cal coverage until age 26 for undocumented youth, who currently are covered until they reach the age of 19. Medi-Cal is California’s part of the federal Medicaid program, which provides free or low-cost medical services to those with limited income. Akee conducted research on the effects of losing access to Medicaid and found that emergency room visits increase when the patient does not have access to health care. Newsom’s proposal would ensure preventative care and decrease the number of costly emergency room visits, Akee argues. “They have a guaranteed source of medical coverage so they would take the preventative care that otherwise results in increased emergency room visits down the line,” he said.

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Monkonnen on Rising Housing Costs in L.A.

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Paavo Monkkonen, associate professor of urban planning and public policy,  spoke to LAist about the root causes of homelessness in Los Angeles. Monkkonen pointed to rising housing costs exceeding income as the main contributor to homelessness. “People talk about [housing] like it’s a game of musical chairs, but I don’t think that’s really the right metaphor. Income differentials don’t matter in a game of musical chairs, but they do in this one,” Monkkonen said. Restrictive land-use policies have limited the amount of new housing available to accommodate a growing population, he said. Housing costs have increased because of a lack of supply of places to live and more high-income jobs that lead to gentrification and displacement in less affluent neighborhoods. “We’re building much less housing than we have at every other point in our history, in at least the last century or so,” he said.

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