Turner on Schools’ Potential to Provide an Oasis From Heat

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An LAist article on efforts to increase green spaces on Los Angeles school campuses to provide cool relief in a warming world cited V. Kelly Turner, associate director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. By 2050, parts of L.A. that are prone to extreme heat could see at least 30 additional days with temperatures above 90 degrees. Turner said it’s important to think about schools as community resources, especially for kids who come from historically disinvested and disadvantaged communities. “If kids live in a home without air conditioning or a cool place to go on hot days, then come to school, which also lacks cooling inside and shade outside, their core body temperatures are never getting down to safe levels,” said Turner, an associate professor of urban planning. “That’s going to cause them to have difficulty concentrating … and it’s going to be very, very hard for a child to learn in that context.”

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Pierce on Water Safety Near Tustin Hangar Fire

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An LAist story on contaminated debris from a massive fire at a World War II-era hangar in Tustin cited Gregory Pierce, co-executive director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. Lead, arsenic and asbestos have been detected in some ash and debris tested in the air and on the ground. While some groundwater has been contaminated, toxins are unlikely to make their way into drinking water systems, the story noted. Pierce, who directs the Human Right to Water Solutions Lab, said he has confidence in local water suppliers and official monitoring bodies to manage any potentially toxic effects from the fire on the water system. He added that the volume of toxic sediment that could reach waterways is likely small and diffuse and therefore unlikely to have a big impact on surface water quality.

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Taylor on Angelenos’ Travel Choices During Freeway Closure

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Brian Taylor, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin, spoke to LAist about how Angelenos coped with the temporary shutdown of the 10 Freeway. “If one piece of our network goes down, there’s a lot of opportunities for people to make changes and move around those things,” said Taylor, a professor of urban planning and public policy. “People adjust their behavior by changing their routes, changing the time of their travel, and changing the mode by which they travel, in that order.” Now that the freeway has been reopened, it’s unlikely these changes will stick, he said. The disruption may have had the positive effect of making people more aware of their commuting options, he said, “but it’s unlikely that the event itself … might cause people to reconsider their travel choices.”

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Seeking Safe Spaces for People Whose Cars Are Their Homes

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Madeline Brozen, deputy director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies at UCLA Luskin, appeared on an episode of KQED’s Forum devoted to the growing number of people who are using their cars for shelter. Brozen shared research showing that nearly 19,000 people in Los Angeles County are living in their vehicles, many of them women living with children, or older Americans, or people who are employed yet cannot afford rent. Some municipalities have set aside areas for safe overnight parking, but Los Angeles has only 500 such parking spots. While these sites provide a short-term solution at best, Brozen called on Los Angeles to act with creativity and flexibility to allow more of its vast stretches of paved spaces to be used to keep the vehicular homeless population safe. “The more rational and compassionate approach would be to allow a space for people to really have safety and security on a path to being housed,” she said.

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A Freeway Closure That Reverberates Around the Region

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Michael Manville, chair of Urban Planning at UCLA Luskin, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the traffic disruption caused by the closure of the 10 Freeway after a massive fire. Freeways carry a hugely disproportionate share of L.A. traffic, Manville said, and “when there are big interruptions to them, they really do have effects that reverberate around the region.” About 300,000 vehicles on average move through the affected stretch of the 10 Freeway each day, and officials at L.A. Metro have been working to entice affected commuters to try public transit. Manville said he is not confident that people will change their commute habits over the long term. “Most people’s experience with the freeway at rush hour is already pretty miserable — and that does not drive a lot of people to public transportation,” he said. “I think most people in Los Angeles understand that we are over-reliant on a bunch of roads that don’t perform well because they’re overused.”

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Astor on Schools’ Role in Preventing Bullying, Suicide

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A Washington Post story about legal actions taken by parents whose bullied children took their own lives cited Ron Avi Astor, UCLA professor of social welfare and education and an expert in school safety. Many families and political leaders argue that schools have a legal obligation to keep children safe. Across the country, several parents who lost children to suicide have won financial settlements from school districts, with some campuses enacting new anti-bullying programs and policies to protect students from harm. Astor said that suicide prevention efforts are also critical, especially as students increasingly report suicidal thoughts and plans. “Schools need to know that’s a separate and really important thing to do,” he said.

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Ong on How to Prepare for U.S. Demographic Changes

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UCLA Luskin’s Paul Ong spoke to the Associated Press about new Census Bureau projections showing an older, more diverse U.S. population by the end of the 21st century. Whether the nation’s total population increases or declines depends on immigration patterns, the bureau said, but in all scenarios, older adults will outnumber children and white, non-Hispanic residents will account for less than 50% of the population. The projections can help the U.S. prepare for change, including anticipating the number of schools that will need to be built and what resources will be required to meet health care demands of older Americans, said Ong, director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA Luskin. “As most demographers realize, population projection is not an inevitable destiny, just a glimpse into a possible future,” Ong said, saying the information opens up opportunities for action. “Over 80 years, birth and death rates, fertility rates and migration rates can be changed through policies, programs and resources.”

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Kaplan on Mass Shooting in Maine

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Mark Kaplan, professor emeritus of social welfare at UCLA Luskin, joined Spectrum News 1 to discuss the recent mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, the deadliest mass shooting this year in the United States. Putting the tragedy into a larger context, Kaplan noted that in 2023 there have already been more than 600 mass shootings across the nation, “and we’re not even done with the year yet.” That number is more than double the approximately 300 mass shootings from just five years ago, he said. Kaplan also discussed the national assault weapon ban, which was allowed to expire in 2004, citing a significant decrease in mass shootings during the decade the ban was in effect. “My research shows that the more guns, the greater the risk of these incidents occurring,” Kaplan said. “There’s empirical evidence that standardizing a federal ban on assault weapons could go a long way in reducing the mayhem, the carnage.”

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Turner on Cities’ Strategies for Staying Cool

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V. Kelly Turner, associate director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, spoke to Spectrum News about the importance of shade in providing relief from rising temperatures. “Shade is the most effective way we have to keep people cool outside,” said Turner, an associate professor of urban planning. “All else equal, someone standing in shade can be 20 to 40 degrees Celsius cooler than somebody standing in the full sun. And so we need to think of ways that include trees and non-tree shade structures to keep people cool.” Turner also spoke to CalMatters about artificial turf as a replacement for lawns, noting that the synthetic material can trap heat, at times making it hotter than asphalt. And she spoke to Grist about one downside of the use of cool-pavement technology: When the sun is at its highest, heat reflected off its surface can actually be absorbed by the people and structures nearby.

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Mullin on the Contradictions of Central California’s Climate Emergency

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Megan Mullin, faculty director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the San Joaquin Valley, where flagging resilience to drought, floods and heat have made it one of the front lines of climate change in America. The region is also the center of oil and gas production in California and skews conservative, creating many internal contradictions, said Mullin, co-author of a recent paper that found that climate change is projected to disproportionately affect Republican voters. The valley’s residents are “getting messages that action on climate is jeopardizing their well-being, jeopardizing their livelihoods,” she said, yet at the same time they face dried-up wells, dreadful air quality, huge flood risks and other perils. Mullin did point to Fresno as one area that is making climate gains through the state’s Transformative Climate Communities program, which funds hyper-local projects in places that have been disproportionately affected by legacy pollution and other environmental hazards.

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