Hill on Rejecting Hustle Culture for Radical Self-Care

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Jasmine Hill, assistant professor of public policy and sociology, spoke to Insider about radical self-care, a movement popular on social media platforms which rejects traditional forms of self-care tied to consumerism. Proponents of radical self-care focus on basic needs such as rest rather than wellness products for maintaining health and well-being. “Radical self-care, in this concept, is a rejection of hustle culture. It’s rejecting this idea that, as human beings, our worth is intrinsically tied to our work, and instead that we are worthy, independent of our participation in capitalism on its own,” Hill said. “We are people, we are not personal brands, so we have needs that relate to community, food, water and rest.” Hill emphasized the importance of this form of self-care for Black women, who “because of our place in the racial and gender hierarchy, are called upon to be constant laborers for our families, for our workplaces, for society.”

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Millard-Ball on Whether Driverless Cars Will Reduce Traffic Congestion

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In late December, a ride-hailing service using driverless vehicles was expanded in San Francisco, and a reporter for Al Jazeera was among those taking a first ride. Assisted by two staffers from Waymo, the writer completes a 15-minute trip from the Castro District to the NoPa neighborhood in a driverless car without incident. The article mentions that autonomous vehicle proponents envision that parking spaces will become less necessary because driverless vehicles will simply drop off passengers and continue on their way. But there’s a downside to such a scenario, notes UCLA Luskin’s Adam Millard-Ball, professor of urban planning and acting director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. Without the need to park, autonomous vehicles might actually increase congestion, cruising without passengers while awaiting riders. “There’s just not the physical space in most cities for unlimited free car use,” Millard-Ball says. “That basically destroys much of what makes cities livable and attractive.”

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Mukhija on Bringing Un-Permitted Housing Out of the Shadows

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A Los Angeles Times editorial calling on city leaders to make it easier to legalize backyard homes cited research by urban planning professor Vinit Mukhija, an authority on the informal economy of un-permitted housing units. Accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, are a relatively easy way for Los Angeles to add more housing at a lower cost. L.A. had at least 50,000 un-permitted secondary units on single-family lots in 2014, according to research by Mukhija, author of “Remaking the American Dream,” a new book on the transformation of an urban landscape once dominated by single-family homes. While recent state laws have eased the process of legalizing ADUs that were built without a permit, regulations in the city of Los Angeles continue to be complicated, time-consuming and expensive, the editorial maintained. It urged city leaders to do everything in their power to help property owners bring their un-permitted units and tenants out of the shadows.

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Yin on Growing Efforts to Wipe Out Medical Debt

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Wesley Yin, associate professor of public policy and economics, spoke to the New York Times about local governments’ efforts to address the high cost of health care by canceling their constituents’ medical debts. People with medical debt are less likely to seek needed care, and carrying a sizable debt load can damage credit and make it difficult to find employment, research shows. So across the United States, city and county officials are using funds from President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan to provide medical debt relief to eligible residents. Erasing this debt could be a “game changer” for some people, said Yin, who is studying the impact of medical debt relief programs on people’s livelihoods. He added, however, that governments should also address the root causes of medical debt, including high costs and limited access to good health insurance.

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Panofsky on Distortion of Science to Further a Racist Agenda

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Undark spoke with public policy professor Aaron Panofsky about soul-searching in the science community after the May 2022 shooting in Buffalo that took 10 lives. The gunman who targeted Black victims cited genetics research as a rationale for his white supremacist views. Panofsky noted that the shooter’s manifesto included “prepackaged, meme-ified research objects” from “various blogs, various components of Reddit and 4chan, and so forth.” Such ready-to-share memes are used by far-right bloggers, white nationalist outlets, amateur scientists and other fringe figures to willfully misinterpret science to further a racist agenda, said Panofsky, director of the UCLA Institute for Society and Genetics. The article also shone a light on large-scale genomic studies aimed at finding genetic solutions to public health and social problems. In addition to fearing that their findings may be twisted in dangerous ways, some researchers acknowledge that the emphasis on genetics might draw attention from the true drivers of these problems.

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Lens on L.A.’s Urgent Need to Construct More Housing

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A Los Angeles Times op-ed written by Michael Lens, associate professor of urban planning and public policy, argues that stemming the flow of people into homelessness requires building more housing of all types, including market-rate. With homelessness as her top priority, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has declared a state of emergency allowing her to expand the supply of temporary shelters and subsidized housing. Lens writes that these short-term solutions are not adequate to address the overarching problem that has driven up housing costs, and worsened homelessness, in Los Angeles: We do not build enough homes. Pointing to research showing that L.A. built fewer housing units in the 2010s than each of the two previous decades, Lens urged city officials to increase housing density in single-family and higher-income neighborhoods, among other recommendations. “If we don’t build more housing of all types, we are sustaining homelessness, not solving it,” he writes. 

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Yaroslavsky on the Evolution of L.A. Governance

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Zev Yaroslavsky, who served as city councilman and county supervisor in Los Angeles for 40 years, spoke with the California Sun about the evolution of L.A. governance. Politics today is “much more coarse, meaner … less of ‘how do we solve the problem’ and more of ‘how do I score a political point,’ ” he said. But he expressed faith in the county’s young, energetic voters who are holding officials accountable. “Voters are not as foolish as the political class thinks they are. They have a pretty good B.S.-sniffing meter, they’re attuned to what’s going on, and they know what they want,” he said. Now director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, Yaroslavsky shared results of the annual Quality of Life Index, which identified housing costs as residents’ top concern. Homelessness, he said, is “one of the great stains on our society,” caused by a wealth gap that lies at the root of most of our social problems.

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An On-the-Ground Partnership to Curb Violence

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A Politico article assessed the Community Violence Intervention Collaborative, a White House initiative that is undergoing an in-depth evaluation by a team from UCLA. With the goal of curbing gun violence, the 18-month initiative has provided funding, training and technical assistance to local officials and community groups around the country. Politico called it “a success story few have heard about,” one that could take years before its impact is fully realized. Adjunct professor Jorja Leap and Karrah Lompa, who lead the Social Justice Research Partnership based at UCLA Luskin Social Welfare, have been documenting the program’s activities in 16 jurisdictions and will report on the strategies that have proven most successful. The evaluation team included Social Welfare PhD student Livier Gutiérrez, who helped create a data snapshot of research collected to date. This month, Leap and Lompa met in Washington, D.C., with Biden administration officials, funders and community safety leaders to reflect on the initiative’s lessons.

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Turner on the Need for Disruptive Protest

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A Los Angeles Times column about recent clashes between L.A. public officials and protesters cited David C. Turner, assistant professor of social welfare. Scandals have enveloped City Hall, with three former council members facing federal corruption charges and continuing fallout from a leaked recording of a racist conversation among city leaders. In response, members of the public have been loud, aggressive and disruptive, and high-ranking officials have openly condemned their detractors. Turner said it’s a deeply troubling sign when elected leaders or their supporters attack their constituents and critics. All protest is by nature confrontational and no social movement has ever succeeded without violating the rules of decorum, he noted. “There’s always this dichotomy drawn between those who protest nicely versus those who are disruptive or confrontational,” Turner said. “But if you study social movements, you know that they need one another. Real change doesn’t happen without both.”

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On the Clear, Practical and Revolutionary Work of Don Shoup

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Donald Shoup’s travels down paths that other academics overlooked have profoundly changed the way we understand cities, and inspired a viable movement to improve them. That’s the message of an essay published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research that offers a personal glimpse into the life and scholarship of Shoup, the distinguished professor whose research has shed light on the consequences of misguided parking policies. The essay is written by Michael Manville, his colleague on the UCLA Luskin Urban Planning faculty, who describes Shoup as the unique academic who offers practical, specific solutions to policy puzzles. His work has led to a “monumental act of reform” in California, a new law abolishing parking requirements within half a mile of transit. “What truly sets Don apart is his relentless pursuit of clarity,” Manville writes. “Don has shown that when we give people knowledge, they will use it, and the world will, in small steps, get better.” 

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