Fairlie on Trend Toward ‘Pint-Size Startups’

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Robert Fairlie, chair of Public Policy at UCLA Luskin, spoke to the Wall Street Journal about “pint-size startups,” new business ventures that are operating with relatively lean staffs. While the number of people taking initial steps to launch a business surged during the pandemic, the average number of employees they hired fell sharply. Reasons for this trend include pandemic-related headwinds that have slowed hiring and entrepreneurs’ decision to keep operations small to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Keeping head count down can make it easier for young businesses to adapt to the ups and downs of the economic cycle, Fairlie said. “At some stages of growth for a small business, it can be pretty valuable. They have that flexibility,” he said. “At some stages of growth, it will hurt them.” Contractors tend to be less loyal than full-time employees, who are more likely to be committed to a company’s success, Fairlie explained.

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Astor on Common Traits of School Shooters

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A Newsweek story on the recent mass shooting at a Georgia high school called on UCLA Luskin’s Ron Avi Astor to share his expertise on campus violence. The suspected gunman, a 14-year-old boy, and his father have been charged in the shooting, which killed two teachers and two students and injured nine others. While the motive behind the George incident remains unclear, Astor described some common traits shared among school shooters. Many are suicidal, “but suicidal thoughts are fleeting,” said Astor, a professor of social welfare and education. He added that many shooters seek to sow terror on a national level. “It’s not necessarily always to target one person, or just somebody with mental health issues,” he said. “The goal is to commit terror for every child and parent in the United States, and they use the media to do that.”

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Leap Comments on California Governor’s Intervention in Policing

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UCLA Luskin Social Welfare’s Jorja Leap commented in a CalMatters article on efforts by California Gov. Gavin Newsom to influence local police agencies to change a number of law enforcement policies. Recent state intervention includes urging Oakland city leaders to change policy on police chases and the deployment of California Highway Patrol officers to Oakland and other California cities. National Guard prosecutors also have been sent to assist the district attorneys of Alameda County, San Francisco, Bakersfield and Riverside with drug cases. These efforts have drawn both support and criticism. Leap, an adjunct professor of social welfare who studies gang violence and community policing, described the state’s actions as a temporary fix for a deeply rooted problem. “We have a bunch of police chiefs who all stood up and said, ‘We can’t arrest our way out of the problem,’” Leap said. “And now we’ve got a governor going, ‘Yes, we can.’”

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Propelling L.A. Transit in New Directions

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News outlets covering Los Angeles’ pledge to host a transit-first Olympic Games spoke to experts from the Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) at UCLA Luskin. In addition to the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics, the city will be home to the World Cup in 2026 and the Super Bowl in 2027, creating a unique incentive to propel public transportation in new directions, ITS Deputy Director Juan Matute told The Guardian. “I think people are going to say: This is the time to pull off the band-aid to make public transportation more viable,” he said. Given L.A.’s sprawl and the massive influx of visitors, people will have no choice but to rely on public transit, though there is still much to be done before Los Angeles meets its expansion goals, Jacob Wasserman, research program manager at ITS, told the Spanish-language news service EFE. This year’s UCLA Lake Arrowhead Symposium will delve into the transit challenges and opportunities created by these mega-events.

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Anheier on the Direction of Democracy Worldwide

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Helmut Anheier, adjunct professor of public policy and social welfare at UCLA Luskin, co-authored a commentary about the current state and future of democracy for Project Syndicate. Anheier and his collaborators, Joseph C. Saraceno of UCLA and Edward L. Knudsen of the Hertie School in Berlin, consider what evidence of a global “democratic recession” means. “Realism requires us to reject doomsday predictions about the imminent demise of representative government,” they argue, while cautioning, “But it also means abandoning the teleological belief that liberal democracy will inevitably triumph everywhere.” Despite democracies providing better outcomes in quality of life and public goods they have provided over much of the last half-century, Anheier and colleagues point to research they helped conduct for the 2024 Berggruen Governance Index: Of the 145 countries included in the study, nearly half had both a rising quality of life and declining democratic accountability between 2000 and 2021.

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Establishing a Renter’s Right to Air Conditioning

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A Smart Cities Dive article examining local policies that establish a renter’s right to cooling equipment cited two experts from the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, Gregory Pierce and V. Kelly Turner. A number of cities are mandating cooling requirements, but in many cases tenants are still on the hook for their energy bills. Pierce recommended that cities and utilities work together to make cooling more affordable, particularly during hotter weather. Turner said any equity-oriented program must involve listening to community members about the tough choices they must make, and she encouraged local governments to act swiftly: “The question is, ‘Can we get something on the books to at least give people a fighting chance of having a safe thermal environment?” A separate article by The Good Men Project cited a Center for Innovation report that found that, in California, 29% of renters, compared to 20% of homeowners, do not have central or room air conditioners.

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A Tipster’s Alert May Have Averted School Attack

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CBS Austin spoke to UCLA Luskin’s Ron Avi Astor about a tip that may have prevented a school shooting in Texas. Authorities were alerted to posts from a 17-year-old girl who threatened to purchase weapons and attack her former elementary school. The girl was arrested and charged with the third-degree felony of making a terroristic threat. “I think thinking about these kinds of shootings as terrorism is actually really helpful,” said Astor, a professor of social welfare and authority on school violence. News coverage of the incident may encourage more people to report concerning social media posts in the future, he added. Decisive action taken by friends, acquaintances or family members who view a troubling post, text or email is “the No. 1 reason why these shootings are averted,” Astor said.

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Trump, Harris and the U.S. Housing Crisis

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A Fortune article assessing housing policies that could be expected under a Kamala Harris or Donald Trump administration called on UCLA Luskin’s Michael Lens for insight. Harris unveiled a plan calling for the development of 3 million homes, supported by tax incentives for builders and other federal policies — “a lot like what I would write down as a wish list for addressing housing affordability in this country,” Lens said. “It leads with the obvious long-term culprit: zoning and land-use barriers” but lacks details on how to overcome local policies that have stymied building in some parts of the country. Trump, who made his fortune in real estate, has sent mixed messages about housing policy. He once called zoning “a killer” but has also vowed to protect American suburbs by standing up for single-family zoning laws. Rhetorically, at least, Trump seems to side with a more protectionist, regulatory policies, said Lens, a professor of urban planning and public policy.

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Segura on Democrats’ Push to Win Over Latino Voters

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UCLA Luskin’s Gary Segura spoke to USA Today about efforts by Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign to reach out to Latino voters, who make up an estimated 15% of the U.S. electorate. “The first thing people have to do to win Latino votes is try,” said Segura, a professor of public policy and director of polling research. “For decades, candidates paid insufficient attention to Latino voters. I know the Harris campaign has prioritized this because of her California experience.” The article noted that the Latino electorate, which varies greatly by geography, income, education and immigration story, is crucial to Harris’ electoral chances. That’s true not just in states such as Arizona and Florida, where Latino voters make up a sizable portion of the electorate, but in states where the Latino population may be small but the margin of victory is expected to be tight — including Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

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