Pierce on Growing Threats to Clean Water

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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.”

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Brozen on the Importance of Building Bus Shelters

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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.” 

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Peterson on Complications Surrounding ‘Buy American’ Policies

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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.

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Yaroslavsky on the Hammer Museum as a ‘Living Organism’

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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.

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Astor on ‘Contagion’ of School Shootings

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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

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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.

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Lens on Desirability of California Living Amid Climate Disasters

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Michael Lens, associate professor of urban planning and public policy, was cited in an ABC News article weighing whether California remains a desirable place to live or visit as extreme weather takes its toll. Despite the constant risk of fire, flooding, earthquakes and drought, the state continues to attract residents and vacationers. Lens, who researches inequities in the housing market, noted that the rising cost of buying or renting a home is one indicator of California’s desirability. “That’s certainly part of why the cost of living is so high — we like living there,” he said. While some residents are relocating to more affordable states, most are choosing to stay put. The story noted that California home prices have continued their steep ascent even in the wake of devastating natural disasters.

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Anheier on Germany’s Uncertain Stance on the Russia-Ukraine War

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Helmut Anheier, adjunct professor of social welfare and public policy, wrote an opinion article for Project Syndicate regarding Germany’s indecision about the role it should play in the Russia-Ukraine war. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germans were split on what action to take, with some advocating for more military support for Ukraine and others favoring a settlement to prevent the war from extending to other European countries. Anheier stressed the importance of NATO working with China, India and midsize powers such as Brazil and Saudi Arabia to improve communication and security. By doing so, nations would understand how conditions in Ukraine could easily worsen if action is not taken soon. “This is no time for fence-sitting and free-riding. Everyone will lose out from a broader conflict. If Germans want the fighting to end, they should demand that their government do its part to bring other governments to the table,” he said.

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Astor on Reimagining School Safety

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Ron Avi Astor, professor of social welfare, co-authored an article on reimagining school safety for the American Federation of Teachers. Adapted from a chapter in the book “Our Children Can’t Wait: The Urgency of Reimagining Education Policy in America,” the article focuses on the aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic and recent forms of racial activism within the K-12 education spectrum. Astor and co-author Heather Reynolds promote creating sustainable systems and infrastructure to combat inequities within higher education. Through implementing mental health and student outreach resources, schools can address ongoing issues with victimization across campuses. For change to happen, there must be “a shift of funding and support from policing, punishment and surveillance to long-term investments in holistic prevention and empowerment of schools and communities,” the authors write.

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Taylor on State’s Efforts to Boost Transit Ridership

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A StreetsBlog article on transportation issues in California cited urban planning and public policy professor Brian Taylor, who testified at a joint hearing of the state Legislature. The hearing focused on how to build transit ridership after declines due to pandemic travel patterns, service cuts, safety concerns and rising rates of car ownership. Taylor spoke about systems for measuring how well a transit system is doing its job, including the amount of fares collected. “Farebox recovery requirements were set up as a performance measure in the 1980s to encourage agencies to build ridership” but have caused unintended problems in the years since, he said. ”If the goal is to increase transit ridership overall, it might make sense to change this threshold requirement. The government could reformulate funding and performance measures away from farebox recovery and towards the number of people being moved.”

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