Brozen on How to Increase Safety on L.A. Metro

/0 Comments/in /by

Madeline Brozen, deputy director of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, wrote a Los Angeles Times op-ed about ways to make L.A. Metro trains safer for riders. Agency officials have added more security and transit ambassadors to create a safe environment, but Brozen also suggested looking at ways to increase ridership, as the bus system has done. “The best way forward is to take lessons from the bus and get more people on board to enforce public transit’s social norms,” Brozen wrote. “The bus system’s relationship between more riders and less crime is proof positive.” Bus ridership is 77% of what it was in the days before COVID-19, while train ridership has remained below 50% of its pre-pandemic levels. The sparsely populated cars have led to concerning behavior, with some train riders smoking cigarettes or openly using drugs.

Read the op-ed

 

Zepeda-Millán on Effects of the LAUSD Strike

/0 Comments/in /by

Chris Zepeda-Millán, associate professor of public policy and chair of UCLA’s labor studies program, was cited in an article by The Progressive about how school staff won key victories after a major strike in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). In March, members of Service Employees Union Local 99 were able to negotiate with the LAUSD and approve a new contract that will increase the average annual salary from $25,000 to $33,000, increase the minimum wage to $22.52 and provide other benefits. Zepeda-Millán said that the labor action provided an advantage to the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) in their own negotiations with the district, which have led to a tentative agreement. UTLA is larger than Local 99 and helped elect many school board members.

Read the article

 

Lessons From California’s Record of Reducing School Violence

/0 Comments/in /by

News outlets including the Christian Science Monitor, Salon, LAist and K-12 Dive covered research led by Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor showing that day-to-day violence at middle and high school campuses in California has declined significantly over the past two decades. Some experts are looking at California’s expansion of social services and behavioral programs, to assess whether it could be a model for bringing down rates of school violence in other states. “When you look at the number of school social workers, psychologists, counselors that have been hired in these 18 years, it’s dramatic,” Astor told LAist’s “Air Talk.” He said the interplay between increasing instances of school shootings and decreasing reports of overall violence is a complicated one. “Kids could say, ‘My school is safe, my teachers are treating me well’ … and also be afraid at the same time of being shot at school in some random event.”

Listen to the "Air Talk" interview
Read the Salon article

 

Monkkonen on Coronado’s Lack of Affordable Housing

/0 Comments/in /by

Paavo Monkkonen, professor of urban planning and public policy, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the affordable housing crisis in Coronado, the exclusive island town known for its white sand beaches and luxury resort. To keep Hotel del Coronado running, nearly 200 housekeepers who cannot afford to live in Coronado must commute up to five hours to get to work. State law requires that the city zone for affordable housing, but NIMBYs, a lack of land and local officials’ delaying tactics have stalled progress for years. “Housing delayed is housing denied,” Monkkonen said. “With the urgency of this housing scarcity situation, inaction just makes it worse.” 

Read the article

 

Pierce Breaks Down the Importance of Wastewater Recycling

/0 Comments/in /by

Gregory Pierce, co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, was interviewed on a Wall Street Journal podcast about how wastewater recycling can help Californians with limited access to drinking water. Sometimes referred to as “toilet to tap,” the method has an image problem, but reintroducing treated wastewater back into the system could help ensure that 19 million people in Southern California have access to clean and safe water. “A lot of water everywhere is recycled water, so the fact that it’s coming more directly from wastewater doesn’t bother me, but I get it at the same time that it takes some learning and that people are hesitant,” Pierce said. California does not currently have rules about the addition of treated wastewater directly into drinking water systems, but the State Water Resources Control Board is expected to take up the matter in the fall.

Listen to the podcast

 

Cohen on the Unethical Detainment of Psychiatric Patients

/0 Comments/in /by

David Cohen, professor of social welfare, was cited in a book excerpt published by The Walrus about the forcible detainment of many psychiatric patients. In his five-year study, Cohen found that at least 600,000 detentions took place in 2014 under mental health laws. In addition, between 2012 and 2016, psychiatric detentions increased every year at a rate three times faster than population growth. Cohen discussed how there were apparent gaps in the data, even though medical records are electronic and should be easily accessible. He said many government and treatment providers apparently do not want to expose the reality that our mental health system has been used to incarcerate and control people. “There’s nothing pleasant about that. There’s nothing beautiful and pretty. It’s just exclusion: ‘Please take them away from me.’ And because we’re saying we’re doing it to help them, there’s a kind of systemic dissonance,” Cohen said.

Read the article

 

Ong on Census Miscount of Asian Americans

/0 Comments/in /by

Paul Ong, head of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA Luskin, spoke to National Public Radio about reports regarding an overcount of Asian Americans in the latest census. A recent analysis found that while national figures reflect an overcount, Asian Americans were actually undercounted in some rural parts of the country. Ong said miscounts should not be ignored because communities may risk losing representation in government, as well as federal funding for public services. “It goes along probably with the ‘model minority’ narrative that somehow there is some statistical result that says that there are no problems among Asian Americans and therefore we don’t need to pay attention to them,” he said. Ong said possible reasons for an overcount include college students being counted once on campus and once at home, and anti-Asian rhetoric that led to more people of Asian descent to check an Asian race box on census forms.

Read the article

 

Manville Explains Why Freeways Are Congested Again

/0 Comments/in , /by

Michael Manville, associate professor of urban planning, was cited in a Mercury News article about heavy traffic congestion on Bay Area freeways even though many jobs remain remote. The COVID-19 pandemic as well as remote and hybrid work schedules opened up highways and roads, which encouraged people to drive more until highways were once again full. “Traffic congestion is not only annoying — it acts as a deterrent,” Manville said. “If traffic goes down, then people are going to see the freeway is empty and get into the car and go somewhere else.” He explained that even though Californians are commuting less, there are still many reasons for them to continue driving on freeways. Some solutions to this issue are to break the habit of solo driving by encouraging people to use public transportation more often or by enforcing congestion fees to discourage people from driving at peak hours.

Read the article

 

Investments in Campus Climate Paying Off

/0 Comments/in /by

The Los Angeles Times, EdSource and KTVU News are among media outlets sharing research by Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor showing a marked decline in day-to-day violence on school campuses over the last two decades. Astor attributed the findings to investments in resources to improve campus climate and access to mental health services. Nationwide, billions of dollars have been spent on social-emotional programs for students; educating teachers and staff about how to create more caring, welcoming settings; and bringing more social workers, counselors, psychologists and other “people personnel” onto campuses. “I think there’s a deep sense of disillusion that every time there’s a shooting, there’s almost a feeling that we invested all this time and energy and nothing works, that our schools are getting worse,” Astor said. But the data do not bear that out, with students reporting that they are feeling more connected and safer, he said.

Read the L.A. Times article
Watch the KTVU report

 

Ong on Post-COVID Population Shifts

/0 Comments/in /by

Paul Ong, director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA Luskin, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about population shifts in California counties. Factors affecting the shifts include college students moving back to campus, the easing of COVID-19 protocols and employees moving back to the office. Ong said the “waning of the worst days of the pandemic has slowed the exit from major cities,” as crowded spaces are no longer a major source of fear. While urban centers have “once again become appealing to a new generation of young workers,” it is urgent that cities address problems regarding housing, homelessness, infrastructure and safety, Ong cautioned.  “Without correcting these flaws, major cities will continue to depopulate.”

Read the article