Steinert-Threlkeld on Twitter, Algorithms and Transparency

An Atlantic article on Twitter’s decision to publicly share part of the source code that determines which posts are prioritized in a feed cited Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld, assistant professor of public policy and an authority on social media data. The glimpse at the algorithm revealed technical approaches that are “pretty standard these days,” Steinert-Threlkeld said. Twitter CEO Elon Musk has invited developers and the general public to suggest changes, and Steinert-Threlkeld noted that the company may be the biggest beneficiary of the decision to pull back the curtain on part of the code. “If bugs are discovered or improvements to the algorithms are suggested and accepted, Twitter will have found a way to replace the thousands of staff who left or were fired,” he said.


 

Solace Found in Data on School Violence

Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor wrote an op-ed for CNN that shines light on comforting data on school violence. While the contagion of mass shootings dominates the narrative on the safety of school campuses, research led by Astor shows that, overall, efforts to lessen violence in schools are working. “Our country deserves to know that mass shootings are just one part of the school safety story,” Astor wrote. “On a day-to-day basis, when looking at violence that is not related to school shootings, our kids are safer.” An expert on school safety, Astor appeared in a Swedish National Radio documentary series on campus violence and spoke to WKRN-TV in Nashville about the risks of creating a prison atmosphere in an effort to secure schools. Astor said that students who feel surveilled or see safety officers, police dogs, even see-through backpacks may come to this conclusion: “You’re the target or you’re the potential perpetrator.” 


 

After Years of Study, Parking Reform Gaining Ground

A Wall Street Journal piece on the growing number of U.S. cities rethinking the amount of space set aside for parking cited several UCLA Luskin experts. The article highlighted research by Michael Manville, associate professor of urban planning, that found that a 1999 ordinance exempting builders from adding new parking spots in downtown Los Angeles allowed them to add more residential units at a lower cost. Another study by Gregory Pierce, now co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, and C.J. Gabbe, currently a visiting scholar at the center, found that costs associated with parking mandates are often passed on to consumers through higher rents or retail prices, even as many of the spots go unused. Donald Shoup, the urban planning scholar who pioneered the field of parking research, summed up the efforts to reform parking policies: “The Dutch have reclaimed land from the sea, and I think we can reclaim land from parking.”


 

Taylor on Public Transit’s Pivotal Moment

Brian Taylor, professor of urban planning and public policy, spoke to Vox and CalMatters about the downward trend in public transportation ridership, which remains well below pre-pandemic levels. Taylor told Vox that the median American rides public transportation a total of zero times a year, so legislators may view it as a low priority for funding. Taylor suggests reframing the issue to cater to more of the public’s concerns. “When framed as a social service, transit hasn’t done well securing funding. But when it’s framed as an environmental benefit or as getting people off the road, that can work,” he said. Public transit is also grappling with an ongoing labor shortage, Taylor told CalMatters. Many transit operators retired or shifted to work with lower health risks, such as trucking, he said. One factor is that drivers don’t want to police behavior, including dealing with growing mental health, drug and homelessness crises showing up on public transit.


 

Pierce on Growing Threats to Clean Water

Gregory Pierce, director of the Human Right to Water Solutions Lab at the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, spoke to media outlets across the country about vulnerable infrastructure threatening access to clean water. A CalMatters article on questionable state oversight of mobile home parks in California cited Pierce’s research showing a high level of dirty drinking water, particularly at parks that run their own water systems. “I can tell you, especially from talking to people who are supposed to be overseeing and trying to fix issues where people don’t have clean water in the state, mobile home park-run water systems stand out,” he said. Pierce also spoke with WHYY in Philadelphia about the impact of climate change, including drought and sea level rise, on water safety. “I think every utility is going to have to make adaptations to climate impacts,” he said. “Precipitation patterns … are changing, and they’re changing even faster than we expected.”


 

Brozen on the Importance of Building Bus Shelters

Madeline Brozen, deputy director of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, spoke to dot.LA about a contract to build bus shelters in Los Angeles. Currently, less than 25% of L.A. bus stops provide shelter, leaving riders — many of them low-income people of color — to withstand high temperatures without shade. After some delays, including waiting for the city to approve a $30 million loan to start building the shelters, construction is projected to begin in the fall. “I can understand that the scale of doing bus shelters given the number of stops is really daunting. But bus shelters aren’t just a ‘nice to have,’” Brozen said. “This is really [about] protecting people’s health and welfare, and it’s important to think about the public health benefits as they’re figuring out how to address the disparity.” 


 

Peterson on Complications Surrounding ‘Buy American’ Policies

Public policy professor Mark Peterson was interviewed on LAist’s Airtalk about the possibility of creating policies to encourage buying products made in America. “It’s complicated because we have entered a globalized world in which the United States is one of the most advanced economies and therefore also one of the most expensive workforces in the world, and also a country that has been trying to lead on things like climate change and environmental interventions,” he said. If businesses move their operations to places where the cost of labor is low but employee health and environmental concerns are not a priority, this would be to the detriment of workers in the United States. Peterson supported the idea of organizing the global system in a different way in order to reap the benefits of free trade.


 

Yaroslavsky on the Hammer Museum as a ‘Living Organism’

A New York Times article on the $90 million renovation of UCLA’s Hammer Museum cited Zev Yaroslavsky, the longtime civil servant and patron of the arts who now directs the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin. “For a museum to really have longer-term impact on the community, it has to be a living organism,” said Yaroslavsky, who served on the L.A. City Council in the 1980s when the museum project was approved. “Annie and UCLA have ensured that this is a 21st-century space, not just a 1980s space,” he added, referring to Ann Philbin, who commissioned the renovation soon after she arrived in 1999 to assume the role of museum director. The New York Times said the renovation is part of a building boom that is transforming the vibrant Los Angeles museum world and caps the Hammer’s emergence as one of the more influential museums in the country.


 

Astor on ‘Contagion’ of School Shootings

Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor, an authority on school violence, spoke to media outlets in the United States and abroad after a mass shooting at a Nashville school that left three 9-year-olds and three adults dead. Astor told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the world is exhausted at what feels like a never-ending string of tragedies targeting children. Even as new research shows that day-to-day violence on school campuses has declined, mass shootings are on the rise. “I think what we’re experiencing right now, worldwide, is a contagion,” Astor said. People who tend to be suicidal and obsessed with firearms are “actually trying to break records and create a sense of terror in society and perhaps the world so that their names will be remembered.” Astor also spoke to Reuters, The 19th and Voice of America Eurasia (around minute 48) on topics including the Nashville shooter’s profile and the need to adopt safety measures without creating a militarized environment on campuses.


 

Zepeda-Millán on What’s Ahead for LAUSD

Chris Zepeda-Millán, associate professor of public policy, spoke to the Daily News about labor issues at the Los Angeles Unified School District and the road ahead for Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. After a three-day strike, LAUSD reached a contract with service workers including bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers and instructional aides. Now the district must negotiate a settlement with the teachers union, which has the upper hand, said Zepeda-Millán, chair of UCLA’s labor studies program. “The district knows [the unions] can shut [schools] down pretty easily,” he said. “That’s going to be in the back of both teams’ minds as they’re negotiating.” If successful,  the negotiations could strengthen the superintendent’s influence. “Carvalho has a chance to say, ‘I’m going to do things differently this time and let’s show the state and the country that if we have well-paid teachers, smaller class sizes — what all the research says works — we could have great public schools again,’” he said.