Pierce on Long-Term Impact of State’s Wet Winter

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As California’s wet winter continues, Gregory Pierce, co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, has helped news outlets make sense of the long-term impact on the state’s water woes. Pierce told the Los Angeles Times that, while water conservation measures should continue indefinitely, some of the most extreme restrictions could be lifted. “We bought ourselves some more time so we don’t need to be in that hyper-emergency, but we’re always in a drought,” he said. Pierce, director of the center’s Human Right to Water Solutions Lab, also appeared on the podcast Water Talk to share information about green infrastructure, wastewater equity and the intersection of two of the state’s most pressing needs: clean water and adequate housing. “The biggest issue in the water-housing nexus is how can we build more affordable housing supply in California, which we absolutely need, but do it in places that have enough water and also don’t have too much fire,” he said.

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Leap on Need for Fair, Accurate Depictions of Mental Illness

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A Los Angeles Times story on the arrest of a man accused of two stabbings, including a fatal attack on a high school student, cited Jorja Leap, adjunct social welfare professor and expert on criminal justice. The suspect’s motives were unclear. City Councilman Kevin de León, whose district includes the site of the attacks, suggested that he suffered from mental illness and referred to the streets of Los Angeles as “the largest psychiatric ward in the United States.” Leap countered that it was “inaccurate and irresponsible” to paint Los Angeles with such a broad brush depicting mental illness. Law enforcement agencies do not track crimes committed by mentally ill people, she said, adding, “So many [people with mental health issues] cannot even care for themselves, let alone think about taking the life of another human being.”

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Brozen on New Metro Ambassador Pilot Program

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Madeline Brozen, deputy director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, spoke to CBS Los Angeles about the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s new ambassador pilot program. This program was implemented to reduce crime rates on Metro lines, which have been steadily rising since 2021. The program is one of the largest of its kind in the country, with nearly 300 ambassadors deployed throughout the Metro bus and rail system. They are specifically trained in areas including customer service, conflict de-escalation, emergency preparedness and disability awareness. “It’s just a real human touch that I think does have a lot of promise,” Brozen said.

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After Decades of Research and Advocacy, Parking Reform Is Finally a Hot Topic

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Donald Shoup, distinguished research professor of urban planning, is highlighted in the New York Times and Public Square, a journal of the Congress for New Urbanism, for his impact on parking policies nationwide. Decades of auto-centric planning in the United States have made it difficult to achieve walkable cities, but more and more local and state governments are overhauling their parking regulations. They include cities such as Pasadena and San Jose, which have joined the parking reform train to encourage walkable and bikeable spaces. The humble parking spot is suddenly a hot topic, the New York Times writes, even though Shoup has been promoting these reforms since the 1970s. His 2005 book “The High Cost of Free Parking” had an impact on the entire country and is now considered a classic in planning literature. “Shoup’s influence is a credit to persistence and focus in academic research,” Public Square noted.

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‘No Child Should Be Killed by Going to School’

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Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor spoke to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat after a 16-year-old student was stabbed to death during a classroom fight at a Sonoma County high school. While the nation has seen an increase in mass shootings on campuses, school violence more broadly has declined by more than 50% over the past two decades, Astor said. But he added, “Our norms are that this shouldn’t happen at all. No child should be killed by going to school.” Research on school violence often focuses on firearms, not knives and stabbings, he said. “It’s a concern because almost every child has access to a knife.” Tracking and analyzing data is key to understanding what interventions and policies work, said Astor, whose research has shown that providing schools with resources including school psychologists, restorative justice programs and more extracurricular opportunities for students has helped reduce day-to-day violence on campuses across California.

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Lens on More Renters as Elected Officials in L.A.

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Michael Lens, associate professor of urban planning and public policy, was interviewed by NPR about a shifting trend in the demographics of elected officials in Los Angeles, where more are identifying as renters as opposed to homeowners. Residents of Los Angeles rank housing affordability as one of their biggest concerns, with 30% of renters spending over 50% of their income on rent. As more renters are elected to office, they may do a better job of representing the voices of fellow renters who have gone unheard for years. Lens explained that attempts to diversify politics in Los Angeles have in the past focused on race, gender and sexuality. The renter demographic has not been represented until recent elections. “It does, I think, matter to have representation along that axis,” Lens said. “It’s a pretty fundamental part of who we are and how we live in a city.”

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A Call for Shelter for L.A.’s Bus Riders

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A lack of bus shelters in the Los Angeles region poses a health risk to those who frequent buses, according to new research by UCLA and advocacy group Move LA that has received attention in news outlets including Los Angeles magazine, the Los Angeles Times and Smart Cities Dive. “Heat already kills more people than any natural disaster, and that’s at the levels that we have now,” said Madeline Brozen, deputy director of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies and co-author of the study. “It’s going to be getting worse in the future as climate change worsens and L.A. County continues to get hotter and hotter.” Without shelter, many users of public transportation are at risk of cardiovascular, kidney and respiratory disorders. Most of the city’s bus stops are located in the hottest areas where low-income people of color often reside, and the decision to provide shelter is left to local jurisdictions, Brozen explained.

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How Transportation Departments Can Help the Unhoused

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Jacob Wasserman, researcher at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, spoke to Streetsblog USA about how state departments of transportation (DOTs) can help unhoused people. Researchers from the institute created a meta-analysis of how transportation officials respond to encampments on government property. “DOTs do tend to frame [this issue] as a safety problem, and they’re not wrong; these are often dangerous environments, particularly for unhoused people themselves,” Wasserman said. “But there are benefits, too. [Highway overpasses] are often sheltered environments where people can congregate, find community, have eyes on the street.” The report stressed the importance of baseline training for front-line transportation workers on how to interact with unhoused people in humane ways. Wasserman added, “When it comes to making repeat visits to encampments, building trust with unhoused people, giving [them] proof that your interventions are actually going to put them on a path to stability — that work is probably best done by service providers.”

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Taylor on Newsom’s Proposed Transit Funding Cuts

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Brian Taylor, professor of urban planning and public policy, was cited in a Sacramento Bee article about how the state’s funding cuts on transportation will negatively impact Californians. As ridership has decreased on public transit, Gov. Gavin Newsom is looking to make cuts to the current budget, but transit advocates argue that these cuts will only push more residents to become reliant on cars. With a large population of Californians commuting to work alone in their vehicles daily, the state’s plan to reduce car dependence may falter if transit budgets are cut. Taylor said that the state has a responsibility to continue providing funding for public transportation and suggested that a resolution to the funding issue could be to reform the current law that determines how much and where state funding is allocated, which is “structured in a way that limits the flexibility and the movement.”

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Monkkonen on How Tech Companies May Cause Gentrification in Culver City

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Paavo Monkkonen, professor of urban planning and public policy, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about Culver City residents who are fighting back against gentrification. As tech giants and streaming studios including Apple, Amazon, HBO and TikTok enter the city, neighborhood tensions flare as locals worry that they may be pushed out. “You have this kind of collective action problem where every small neighborhood or every municipality wants the jobs but not the new housing,” Monkkonen said. “So that pushes people out [with] farther commutes or gentrifying formerly lower-income neighborhoods nearby.” Culver City officials said they are attempting to address the housing issue by zoning for over 3,000 additional housing units by 2029 and enacting rent control ordinances like one from 2020 that caps annual rent increases to 5% for certain residential buildings.

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