Goh on Eco-Friendly Ambitions for Indonesia’s New Capital

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Assistant Professor of Urban Planning Kian Goh was mentioned in a Science article about the anticipated environmental burden of Nusantara, the planned new capital of Indonesia. Nusantara will replace the overcrowded and increasingly flood-prone Jakarta, and planners are envisioning an environmental utopia, including green recreational spaces, eco-friendly construction and energy efficiency. “The big question, of course, is how and if they’ll achieve these ambitions,” Goh said. “Planning scholars are by and large skeptical of plans for smart or sustainable cities ‘from scratch.’” The construction of Nusantara could also have a significant impact on the ecology of Borneo, and the residents of the old capital Jakarta will continue to suffer from rising sea levels and flooding due to climate change. “Jakarta will still be the economic center of Indonesia … and still have to take on its social issues and environmental issues,” Goh said.

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Callahan on Defining Objectives of Justice40

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Colleen Callahan, co-executive director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation,  spoke to E&E News about President Biden’s executive order regarding environmental justice in disadvantaged communities. The Justice40 Initiative calls for 40% of federal benefits from climate and energy programs to reach disadvantaged communities. Identifying and prioritizing these communities will be critical, said Callahan, who co-authored a report on implementing Justice40 with an equity lens. “There’s a fear that the states could have a big role in implementing the Justice40 dollars, but without a strong history of equity-centered investments in that type of area — clean energy, climate issues and environmental justice — we’re not actually going to achieve the outcomes that [Biden’s] executive order calls for,” Callahan said. “There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done to really define what our objectives are with Justice 40.”

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Manville on How Toll Roads Change Driver Behavior

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Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville spoke to Community Impact Newspaper about ways to reduce traffic congestion on roads and freeways. The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority has broken ground on its $612 million expansion of US 183 North in Austin, Texas. The project will add four express toll lanes and two general-purpose lanes, making it 18 lanes wide in some areas. While Manville said he sees advantages in express lanes, he is skeptical the project will actually reduce congestion because adding non-toll lanes will induce demand and cause more people to use them. Manville explained that he prefers toll roads because they force drivers to consider the time involved and how they make trips. “If you just changed the behavior of a small number of people who might get on that road, the road works a lot better, carries more people, there’s less congestion, and you actually have a high-quality service,” Manville said.

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On ‘Disappearing the Poor’ Ahead of the Super Bowl

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Research from the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy (II&D) was featured in a Guardian article about the displacement of people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles. Officials recently cleared a homeless encampment near SoFi Stadium, where this year’s Super Bowl will take place. Officials cited safety issues in the tent community; many of those displaced did not receive alternative housing or other services. “We see this time and time again. With sports capitalism, celebrations or other big events like the Super Bowl or Olympics, the city tries to make the city look better for investors coming from out of town. They’re very encouraged to try to disappear the poor from the streets,” said Annie Powers, research coordinator with II&D and organizer with NOlympics LA. A recent II&D report on behalf of the After Echo Park Lake research collective estimated that nearly 1,500 unhoused people died while living on the streets from March 2020 to July 2021.

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Tilly Offers Tips for Employee Retention

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In a New Hope article, Urban Planning Chair Chris Tilly offered three tips on how to keep businesses fully staffed in a challenging labor market. Health and safety concerns during the pandemic and complaints about poor working conditions have left many industries struggling to fill positions. Many workers have refused to settle for unsafe and stressful jobs that don’t pay enough. According to Tilly, “attracting good employees comes down to pay and respect,” so businesses must offer enough money to employees, as well as respectful treatment and appropriate safety conditions. He also recommended “selling the job during the interviews” and considering changes to make the job more attractive. To maximize employee retention, he recommended investing time and effort into hands-on training for new employees. “There is nothing more frustrating to a new employee than being thrown into a retail situation without enough background,” he said. 

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Astor on Parental Concerns for Child Safety in Israeli Schools

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A study co-authored by Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor about perceptions of child safety in Israel’s schools was featured on several international new outlets, including YNET News. Astor and his research partners analyzed 2,165 responses from a nationwide survey of the parents of children between kindergarten and 12th grade. The study, which assessed parents’ and children’s sense of protection in Israeli schools, found that only 10.6% of parents “feel their children are very safe in the educational institution.” According to the survey results, 40% of children were victims of physical harm at least once and several reported verbal harassment and social media shaming. The research team also highlighted parent dissatisfaction with educational institutions’ handling of violence.

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Tilly on Job Insecurity Even Amid a Labor Crunch

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Urban Planning Chair Chris Tilly spoke to the New York Times about “just-in-time scheduling,” a labor practice based on customer demand that leads to great fluctuations in employee work hours. While some part-time workers prefer the flexibility of this model, many say it leaves them with too little income or an erratic schedule delivered on short notice. Nationwide, companies are complaining that they can’t fill jobs. Offering more full-time jobs would create a more stable work force, but many businesses are resistant to doing so, believing that the market will correct itself. Tilly said the increased reliance on part-time workers, particularly in the retail and hospitality industries, began decades ago, in part because of the mass entry of women into the work force. “A light bulb went on one day. ‘If we’re expanding part-time schedules, we don’t have to offer benefits, we can offer a lower wage rate,'” he explained.

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Manville Sees Pandemic Shift in Parking Paradigm

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Associate Professor of Urban Planning Michael Manville spoke to Commercial Observer about how the pandemic opened up new possibilities to utilize streets and parking spaces. Many restaurants were able to save their businesses by expanding outdoor seating into parking lots and street parking spaces; other parking spaces have been converted to electric vehicle charging stations and even ghost kitchens. “The pandemic gave everyone this very vivid illustration of how much space, even in very vibrant parts of their area, is devoted to surface parking,” Manville said. “It helped them understand, more than any other sort of medium could, just how much of this scarce resource of urban land is devoted to holding empty cars.” These pandemic-triggered changes have accelerated a shift toward reevaluating the parking paradigm, including a Los Angeles city ordinance that does not require builders to add new parking and efforts to transform some downtown parking structures into affordable housing units.

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Leap Comments on Ebb and Flow of Crime

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Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap was featured in a Wrap article about the rise of violent crime in Los Angeles. Many homeowners in wealthy areas are investing in private security to protect their homes and families, especially after well-publicized home invasion robberies and the recent homicide of philanthropist Jacqueline Avant in Beverly Hills. However, Leap noted that violent crime strikes poorer neighborhoods more than affluent ones. “For every one Jacqueline Avant, there are probably 50 to 100 [homicides] in poor areas,” Leap said. Homicides in Los Angeles were the highest last year since 2006, but Leap noted that they are still much lower than in the mid-1980s and ’90s. She explained that the ongoing pandemic and resulting uncertainty, the 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody and subsequent civil unrest, plus the easy availability of guns have all contributed to people feeling more anxious, which leads to higher crime rates.

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New Activist-in-Residence Uplifts Voices of the Unhoused

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A recent Spectrum News report featured Theo Henderson, an advocate for unhoused people’s rights who was recently appointed as UCLA’s newest Activist-in-Residence. Henderson is the host of the “We the Unhoused” podcast, which aims to shed light on the experiences of those without a home. He created the podcast after years experiencing homelessness himself and now speaks at rallies highlighting social justice issues and leads a movement to create charging stations for the homeless. The Activist-in-Residence program, hosted by the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, provides community activists with a paid position, office space and other resources. Henderson plans to use the platform to “bring unhoused perspectives beyond textbooks by bringing students and faculty to encampments.” A Daily Bruin article noted that Henderson also plans to create a campaign for bathrooms for public use and host a town hall where progressive politicians can engage with students and people who are unhoused. 

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