Making Blood Donation More Inclusive

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Ayako Miyashita Ochoa of the UCLA Luskin Social Welfare faculty spoke to ABC News about the lifting of restrictions that had prevented gay and bisexual men from donating blood. The strictest U.S. Food and Drug Administration rules, dating to the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, were based not on an individual’s risk but on belonging to a specific group. These policies were “incredibly blunt” and furthered stigma and discrimination, Miyashita Ochoa said. Now, a single risk-assessment tool that includes questions about sexual health is used for all would-be donors. While some may feel uncomfortable answering questions about sexual activity, “these questionnaires are intended to keep our blood supply safe,” Miyashita Ochoa said, adding that the rule changes promise to reduce stigma and encourage more people to donate. “I think that we are moving to a place where our policies are reflecting better the science and certainly our expectations as a society to not discriminate,” she said.

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How Stockton’s Asian Enclaves Fell Victim to ‘Progress’

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A Zocalo article authored by researchers from the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA Luskin tells of the thriving Asian enclaves of Stockton, California, that were razed in the mid-20th century in the name of “progress” — and efforts today to make amends. The city’s Chinatown, Japantown and Little Manila were once filled with stores, restaurants, religious institutions and communal gathering spaces. But discriminatory laws meant the Asian community had to live in crowded, poorly maintained housing. Stockton leaders deemed the enclaves “undesirable slums” and set out to replace them with mainstream commercial development. The effort was accelerated by California’s Division of Highways, now known as Caltrans, which razed the community to make way for the Crosstown Freeway linking Interstate 5 and Route 99. Caltrans is now proposing a project that would revitalize the enclaves displaced by the freeway. The authors note, “It’s too early to know if such rhetoric will prove to be tokenism or materialize as real restorative justice.”

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Blumenberg on Affordable Housing, Long Commutes

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Evelyn Blumenberg, director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies at UCLA Luskin, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the tradeoff between affordable housing and long commute times. Census data highlight two Los Angeles County areas where commutes are especially long: South Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. Blumenberg said residents of South L.A. typically live far from their workplaces and often lack serviceable public transit options. As for the Valley, “it’s a pretty dispersed environment and it takes a long time to get to destinations,” she said. Blumenberg noted that while more people are working from home, there has been an increase in traffic from delivery vehicles, such as Amazon trucks and cars used by UberEats. Congestion is currently less severe at peak hours but more widespread over the course of the average day, and “my hunch is that some of these new patterns are here to stay,” she said.

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Racial Disparities in Mortgage Approval Rates

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José Loya of the UCLA Luskin Urban Planning faculty spoke to CNN about disparities discovered in the mortgage approval rates at the largest credit union in the nation. CNN reported that Navy Federal Credit Union approved more than 75% of the white borrowers who applied for a new conventional home purchase mortgage in 2022, but fewer than 50% of Black borrowers who applied for the same type of loan. This is the widest disparity in mortgage approval rates between white and Black borrowers of any major lender, the news organization concluded. The disparities are alarming, said Loya, who studies racial gaps in mortgage approvals and reviewed CNN’s analysis. “It does surprise me that they’re doing significantly worse than other big lenders” because of Navy Federal’s status as a credit union, he added.

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Local Laws Limiting Gun Sales Fall Short

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A Los Angeles Times story on the limited impact of regulations restricting where and how firearm dealers are allowed to operate cited Jorja Leap of UCLA Luskin Social Welfare. There is little evidence that barring firearm retailers from certain neighborhoods or requiring them to install video cameras will significantly drive down gun violence. The newspaper cited research showing that only large-scale changes in the number of firearms dealers across multiple neighboring counties had a meaningful impact on local gun homicides. Leap explained that generations of racist economic policies and inequitable social structures correspond to higher rates of gun crime in certain areas. “People are poor. People don’t have resources. They don’t have mental health services,” Leap said. “A 12-year-old has lost a parent, or parents have walked out. He doesn’t go to therapy to deal with his feelings of anxiety and depression. He gets a gun.”

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Reducing the Risk of Collision Between Cars, Cyclists

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A Los Angeles Times article on “dooring,” the collision caused when a car door is opened in front of an oncoming cyclist, cited Madeline Brozen, deputy director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies at UCLA Luskin. The impact can lead to serious injuries, and cyclists and transit advocates call for greater awareness and better road infrastructure to reduce the risks. Some roadways feature green bike lanes, but Brozen said “protective infrastructure” — buffer zones that separate cyclists from parked cars and traffic — would further increase bicycle safety. At issue is the “political battle over convenience or delay for vehicles over the safety of people biking and walking,” Brozen said. “It’s really at the whim of the council member and the council member’s office to decide whether they’re willing to take on those battles or not.”

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Improving Accountability in L.A. City Government

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UCLA Luskin Public Policy Professor Gary Segura appeared on LAist’s “AirTalk” to discuss recommendations for reforming governance in Los Angeles after a series of scandals that have shaken voter confidence. Segura is co-chair of the LA Governance Reform Project, a group of scholars whose final report calls for the establishment of independent redistricting commissions and an increase in the size of the City Council, Los Angeles Unified Board of Education and Los Angeles Ethics Commission. The scholars conducted extensive polling and focus groups to collect feedback reflecting “every corner of the city, every demographic group, every interest, every point of view,” Segura said. One of the recommendations — the inclusion of five at-large seats in a 25-member City Council — would “increase the number of ways people can have their voice heard” and guard against abuses of power, he added. The reform coalition urges that the measures be put before voters in November 2024; if passed, new districts could be established for the 2028 elections.

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Chris Tilly on the Impact of Rising Minimum Wages

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UCLA Luskin Urban Planning Professor Chris Tilly spoke to the New York Times for a story about West Hollywood’s minimum wage — at $19.08 an hour, the highest in the country. Many West Hollywood businesses complain that high labor costs put them at a disadvantage compared to competitors in neighboring communities. Recently, workers in several California industries have seen significant pay raises, including fast-food workers, who will soon make a minimum wage of $20 an hour. Tilly, who studies labor markets and public policies that shape the workplace, said research shows that gradual and moderate increases to the minimum wage have no significant impact on employment levels. “The claim that minimum wage increases are job-killers is overblown,” Tilly said. But he added that there are possible downsides to dramatic changes in pay scales. “Economic theory tells us an overly large increase in the minimum is bound to deter businesses from hiring,” he said.

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Koslov on the Retreat From Climate-Threatened Zones

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Liz Koslov of UCLA Luskin Urban Planning and the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability spoke to Bloomberg CityLab about efforts to protect people from the risks of climate-related disaster through “managed retreat.” Communities threatened by flooding, wildfire and other emergencies face choices that can be emotionally and logistically difficult: Should they fortify their homes to withstand climate perils or retreat to safer locations? Koslov conducted extensive research into how this debate played out in coastal New York after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. With a National Science Foundation grant, she is now studying effective and equitable climate strategies for residents of areas with the highest wildfire risk. Coastal and wooded areas present different challenges, Koslov said. “With fire, a big contributor to fire risk is a lot of flammable overgrowth. If you just do a buyout with no attention to what happens to the land afterward, [you] could increase fire risk rather than reduce it.”

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Stalled Momentum in Reforming L.A. Governance

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UCLA Luskin Public Policy Professor Gary Segura spoke to LAist about a delay in the decision to move forward with reforms at L.A. City Hall. Segura is co-chair of the L.A. Governance Reform Project, a coalition of scholars who came together in response to a series of corruption scandals that have plagued the city. Their recommendations for better governance include increasing the number of seats on the L.A. City Council, currently made up of 15 members representing 4 million Angelenos. “One of the advantages of a larger council is that it makes it possible for smaller communities to maintain a voice,” Segura said. Council members are debating the anticipated impact of the proposed change on the delivery of city services, as well as on the balance of power between the council and the mayor. The decision to delay action and possibly hand the question over to a yet-to-be-created charter reform commission has stalled momentum and is deeply concerning, Segura said.

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