Monkkonen, Lens on Flawed Approach to Fair Housing Compliance

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A Policies for Action article co-authored by UCLA Luskin faculty members Paavo Monkkonen and Michael Lens assessed California’s bumpy implementation of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, part of the U.S. Fair Housing Act. The rule, which sets out a framework for local governments and agencies to take decisive steps to promote fair housing, was codified into California law in 2018. Research by Lens and Monkkonen, along with co-author Moira O’Neill of UC Berkeley, found a lack of political will to comply with the law in some jurisdictions and a lack of clarity on the state’s expectations. The authors write, “Is it enough to do ‘better’? Given the deeply entrenched segregation in U.S. land-use plans, the reforms we’ve observed are not sufficient to achieve the ‘integrated and balanced living patterns’ envisioned by the Fair Housing Act.” They called on the state to create binding minimum expectations, including the use of metrics to track progress toward the goal of desegregated cities.

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Yaroslavsky on Deep Dissatisfaction Among L.A. Voters

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A CNN analysis about the potential for a right-tilting backlash among California voters who are discontented with public disorder cited Zev Yaroslavsky, a longtime public servant who now directs the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin. Yaroslavsky said the level of voter frustration is reminiscent of the late 1970s, an era of high inflation and soaring property tax bills that produced California’s Proposition 13 and helped propel Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980. He cited this year’s UCLA Quality of Life Index, a poll of 1,400 residents that showed deep dissatisfaction with life in L.A. County. The region’s struggle to meet the basic housing needs of its people is “a billboard that says failure,” Yaroslavsky said. “I think homelessness is both a real issue but it’s also a metaphor for everything else that’s gone wrong in society and government’s ability to address something that is so visible and so ubiquitous in the county.”

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Shoup on the Wisdom of Eliminating Parking Requirements

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Donald Shoup, distinguished research professor of urban planning, was mentioned in a New York Times opinion piece about the hidden consequences of parking requirements. In his book “The High Cost of Free Parking,” Shoup explained that rules that require developers to include a minimum number of parking spaces increase real estate costs. Furthermore, building more parking lots creates more urban sprawl, making cities less walkable and more car-dependent. Parking lots also exacerbate the effects of global warming by creating urban heat islands that absorb and reflect heat. Shoup has also noted that parking requirements worsen inequality by forcing people who can’t afford to drive a car to still pay for parking infrastructure. “People who are too poor to own a car pay more for their groceries to ensure that richer people can park free when they drive to the store,” Shoup wrote. Now, California is considering legislation that would eliminate or reform minimum parking regulations.

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Manville on Urban Design Impact of Caruso Properties

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A Los Angeles Times article on the origins of developer Rick Caruso’s real estate empire included comments by Michael Manville, associate professor of urban planning. Caruso, who is running to become Los Angeles’ next mayor, has deployed his political instincts, force of personality and sizable resources to sway constituencies to support high-end shopping centers and residences, the article noted. Manville spoke about malls such as the Grove and Americana at Brand, manicured outdoor centers where visitors are enticed to hang out. From the inside,“this is a very nice urban environment, but from the outside, it’s not,” he said. “They’re often surrounded by vast quantities of parking, and that is bad urban planning in many ways.” Manville asked, “What would a Mayor Rick Caruso bring to the public realm? Would he bring what he has tried to do within his properties, or would he bring what his properties suggest to the city from the outside?”

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Classrooms Need Cooling, Park Says

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Assistant Professor of Public Policy R. Jisung Park was featured in a Marketplace report about the impact of air conditioning on student performance. Park has conducted several studies investigating how heat affects student performance in the classroom, and his research shows that students learn less overall when they experience more hot days. “It’s a slow, hidden burn,” Park explained. “These little disruptions to learning, maybe we don’t notice them on a day-to-day basis, but over time they appear to add up to something meaningful.” Many of America’s school buildings do not have air conditioning, and some have no cooling at all. “The Goldilocks zone seems to be somewhere in the mid-60s” to achieve optimal learning outcomes, Park said. Now, many public schools are choosing to use some of their federal COVID relief funds to upgrade air conditioning, which improves air quality and should also improve student academic and health outcomes.

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Astor on Gun Violence: ‘We Can Do Something About This’

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News outlets covering the nation’s rash of mass shootings have called on Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor, an authority on the causes and prevention of school violence. Astor has weighed in on topics including mental health resources, the impact on grieving families, proposals to harden schools and arm teachers, and the potential for legislative change in a politically divided country. He also shared details of an eight-point plan for immediate government action, put forth by a coalition of scholars, with Spectrum News1, KTLA and NBC News. “We have decades of research, not just our research but research from all around the world, that actually shows we can do something about this,”  said Astor, who has a joint appointment with the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies. Other outlets citing Astor include the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, ABC News, WFYI, CNHI and the 19th. On India’s Mirror Now and Canada’s Global News, he has offered insights about U.S. gun culture to an international audience.

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Sheriff’s Approval Ratings Point to Risk at the Polls

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A Los Angeles Times story on L.A. Democrats’ failure to agree on a consensus candidate to back in the race for county sheriff cited results from this year’s UCLA Quality of Life Index, produced by the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin. The actions, policies and rhetoric of Sheriff Alex Villanueva have alienated local Democratic clubs and progressive advocacy groups, but infighting and indecision kept them from mounting a united campaign against the incumbent, the article said. The Quality of Life Index, directed by Zev Yaroslavsky and published in April, found that 37% of voters had a “very or somewhat favorable” view of Villanueva, 33% have a “very or somewhat unfavorable” view, and 30% have no opinion or are unfamiliar with him. The results suggest that Villanueva could have trouble getting 50% of the vote in the June 7 primary, needed to avoid a runoff. The index, a survey of 1,400 L.A. County residents, includes favorability ratings of local officials.

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Every Project Impacts Climate, Goh Says

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Associate Professor of Urban Planning Kian Goh spoke to Architectural Record about addressing social inequities in the work of climate justice. “Almost anywhere we look, the places architects practice have histories of injustice,” Goh said. “A core part of our practice is to be accountable to the fact that these are not neutral places.” She explained that built-environment professionals need to be more attuned to injustices within their own ranks, as well as to the embodied struggles that have given rise to the climate-justice movement. “So how do we not talk over or otherwise speak for these front-line vulnerable communities?” Goh asked. “And what practices can we embrace that take their claims for justice seriously, at the same time as we need to do big projects fast?” Goh hopes that urban planners will be able to use their expertise to contribute to and advance these movements for climate justice.

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‘No Political Will’ to Do the Work of Ending Homelessness

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A Guardian article about Los Angeles’ struggles to address homelessness cited researcher Hilary Malson and UCLA Activist-in-Residence Theo Henderson, who are both associated with the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy. “There is no political will to do the hard work of addressing systemic issues that cause homelessness,” said Malson, a doctoral student in urban planning. “There is more of a will to disappear the symptom of the problem of inequality.” She said many unhoused people in Los Angeles have to learn which districts are safe for them to sleep outside in based on the political stances of different council members. “Where is the enforcement of tenant rights that prevent people from becoming unhoused?” Malson asked. “Where is the enforcement of human rights to prevent people from experiencing multiple displacements and violations?” Henderson, a podcast host who has experienced homelessness, added that “there’s a lack of funding to do what is really necessary.”

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Akee and Ong on Long-Overdue Tuition Scholarships for Native Students

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Associate Professor of Public Policy Randall Akee and Research Professor Paul Ong co-authored a commentary in Indian Country Today about the University of California’s decision to waive tuition for Native American students. “Not only will the plan begin to address some of the education barriers that marginalize American Indian and Alaska Native people, it is also an acknowledgement that UC has benefited enormously from the sale of lands that were stolen through various means from Indigenous peoples,” they wrote. Campuses in the UC system are located on parcels that rightfully belong to tribal nations and communities, they wrote, noting the role of the Morrill Act in the creation of land-grant colleges resourced by the sale of federal lands. The authors hope that the new program will “help to close the persistent educational attainment gap suffered by American Indians and Alaska Natives” and serve as a call to action to other public, land-grant institutions in the United States.

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