Crenshaw Project Stresses Community Voice

/0 Comments/in /by

Urban Planning chair Chris Tilly and three graduate students appeared on the radio program “Everything Co-Op” to share their experiences working with residents of Los Angeles’ Crenshaw District on a community development strategy. As part of the UCLA Urban Planning Community Collaborative, the master’s students partnered with Crenshaw residents to research and report on their top priorities. “Their No. 1 concern was increasing community control and Black self-determination, Black sovereignty, over a predominantly Black community,” Tilly said. In a conversation that touched on gentrification, environmental equity, food and housing insecurity, and the creation of high-quality jobs, Tilly and students Eliza Jane Franklin, Geoff Gusoff and Ernest Johnson stressed the importance of letting community members lead. During the collaboration, the students learned about cooperatives, affordable housing, community land trusts and other resources, Tilly said, but “the most important thing that students should be learning in this kind of project is how to work with people in the community.”

Listen to the podcast

 

Manville on Airbnb Boom, Affordable Housing

/0 Comments/in /by

The New York Times spoke to Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville for a story about local restrictions on Airbnb and other short-term rental companies. Limits on short-term rentals, usually defined as a stay of 30 days or fewer, are often framed as a way to maintain affordable housing in California, but some local officials are revisiting these rules after demand for the rentals exploded during the pandemic. Manville noted that if communities are truly interested in affordability for renters, “there’s a solution to that: build more housing.” He added, “If you believe that the available supply influences the price renters face, the surest way to address that is to build apartments. The most uncertain way is to limit short-term rentals.”

Read the article

 

Terriquez on Mobilizing Young Latino Voters

/0 Comments/in /by

A Sacramento Bee article on efforts to mobilize Latino voters ahead of the fall midterm elections featured California Freedom Summer, an outreach effort led by Urban Planning Professor Veronica Terriquez, director of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center. California Freedom Summer promotes the engagement of youth to increase overall voter turnout. College students trained in the spring are spending the summer mentoring other youth leaders. In the weeks leading up to the Nov. 8 midterms, when Latino turnout could be critical in determining the outcome of several California races, they will participate in bilingual and bicultural workshops and other community events. “We know that young people get together around culture, around the arts, and they’re excited to build community,” Terriquez said.

Read the article

 

Preparing for a Future of Rising Heat

/0 Comments/in /by

News media covering this summer’s record high temperatures have highlighted climate research by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. Fox40 News spoke to Rae Spriggs, the center’s climate action research manager, about a new heat mapping tool that allows Californians to visualize where and who will be most affected by severe temperatures. The California Healthy Places index was developed by the Center for Innovation and the Public Health Alliance of Southern California. The Hill spoke to center co-director V. Kelly Turner and graduate student researcher Emma French, co-authors of a study showing that major U.S. cities are unprepared to deal with the challenge of extreme heat. “If cities are not painting a complete picture of heat — how chronic it is and its disparate impacts on the ground — we’re not going to be able to fully protect residents, and we could end up exacerbating existing social and environmental injustices,” said French, an urban planning doctoral student.

Watch the Fox40 report
Read the Hill article

 

Interpreting U.S. Gun Culture for an International Audience

/0 Comments/in /by

International news outlets seeking insights into U.S. gun culture and the fallout for the nation’s educational system have called on Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor, an authority on school violence and student well-being. A special report by Beijing News included an extended video interview with Astor, who explained the prominent role of firearms in U.S. history, as well as recent trends and legislation. In a story in Britain’s Guardian about bulletproof steel shelters designed for classrooms, Astor noted that making schools more fortress-like can backfire, turning schools into places of fear that feed the school-to-prison pipeline. He instead called for developing programs that build connections between children and their schools, “so that every teacher knows a little bit about every child’s emotional life and a little bit about their parents.” These programs reduce the incidence of students bringing weapons to school, Astor’s research has found.

Watch the Beijing News interview
Read the Guardian article

 

A Tool to Aid Renters Fighting Eviction

/0 Comments/in , /by

Media outlets including CalMatters, Los Angeles magazine, Telemundo48 and Truthout covered the launch of the Tenant Power Toolkit, an online platform that helps renters facing eviction navigate a complicated legal process. The UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy (II&D) is one of several groups that collaborated on the toolkit, which helps California tenants who receive an eviction notice prepare an initial response under tight deadlines, protecting them against default judgments. The online tool also educates renters about their rights and connects them with advocacy groups that can provide legal assistance. More than 50 tenant advocates and attorneys worked on the Tenant Power Toolkit over the last two years. In addition to the Institute on Inequality and Democracy, they represented groups including the Debt Collective, co-founded by II&D Associate Faculty Director Hannah Appel; the LA Tenants Union; the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project; and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.

Read the CalMatters story
Read the Truthout op-ed

 

Matute on Measuring E-Scooters’ Carbon Footprint

/0 Comments/in /by

A Wired article assessing the green credentials of electric scooters cited Juan Matute, deputy director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin. Measuring the full environmental impact of e-scooters is a complicated task that must factor in how and where they’re operating, Matute said. Over an e-scooter’s lifecycle, carbon emissions come from the production of its materials and components; the manufacturing process; the shipping of the scooters to wherever they’re going to be used; the collecting, charging and redistributing of the scooters; and their disposal. To bring down their carbon footprint, some manufacturers are pursuing improvements to their equipment and operations, including developing scooters with a longer lifespan and introducing swappable batteries, which reduces the number of trips required to keep the fleets powered.

Read the story

 

Tilly on Rise in Union Organizing

/0 Comments/in /by

Urban Planning chair Chris Tilly spoke to the Wall Street Journal about a steep rise in the number of U.S. workplaces where employees have started trying to organize unions. In the first half of the year, workers at 1,411 U.S. workplaces filed petitions with the National Labor Relations Board, the first step in joining a union. That figure represents a 69% increase from the same period in 2021 and the most of any year since 2015. The story also cited a Gallup poll last year that found that 68% of Americans approve of unions, the highest share since 1965. Still, the share of American workers who belong to unions — roughly 10% — remains low by historical standards. Economists say workers, whether in unions or not, are benefiting from a significant labor shortage in some industries where employers are struggling to fill open positions. “Tight labor markets certainly are conducive to organizing and to workers having more leverage in general,” Tilly said.

Read the story

 

Astor on New York’s Efforts to Combat Gun Violence

/0 Comments/in /by

Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor spoke to the New York Times for a story about the large volume of guns, both legal and illegal, in New York state. Police determined that 13 guns were used in a shootout that killed a college basketball star and wounded eight others at a Harlem community barbecue in June. The article noted that New York is bracing for a surge in gun ownership after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a law that made it difficult to own or carry a handgun legally. “It kind of leaves the police with fewer strategies,” Astor said. In addition to determining whether someone is carrying a gun, officers will have to ascertain whether or not that weapon is legal. New York City’s police commissioner said gun arrests are at a 27-year high up to this point in the year.

Read the story

 

Manville on Car-Free Zones for L.A.

/1 Comment/in /by

Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the temporary closure of a road in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park to stop drivers — about 2,000 a day — from cutting through the park and to improve safety for cyclists, runners, hikers and equestrians. “It is good to make it easier for people to recreationally cycle and walk and feel safe in our own parks,” Manville said. “But the fact is that people also should be able to bike and walk safely throughout the city.” Los Angeles has historically prioritized car travel, as evidenced by projects to widen streets to accommodate more traffic and requirements that new developments include ample parking. The Griffith Park pilot program “accentuates the park’s original purpose as a respite away from the noise and activity of the city. … The city should be much more willing to consider things like [car-free stretches] on its actual streets,” Manville said.

Read the story