Millard-Ball on Street Design and L.A. Wildfires

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Adam Millard-Ball, professor of urban planning and director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, was a guest on a Next City podcast about street gridlock during the Palisades fire, which forced evacuating residents to abandon their vehicles. The program cited research by Millard-Ball and colleagues, discussed in a previous article, where they found that the United States has some of the least connected streets in the world. Ball noted that while Los Angeles is an exception, with a generally well-connected grid system, Pacific Palisades is not. For planners like Millard-Ball, rebuilding in the fire ravaged areas is an opportunity to rethink how L.A.’s streets are designed and work. “If all the traffic that’s coming out has to flow through one or two intersections, that’s a recipe for chaos in an emergency situation,” he said. “This is not what the streets were built for.”

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Levy on Solving L.A.’s Homelessness Problem

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UCLA Luskin lecturer Brian Levy contributed a Voices piece published in the Los Angeles Times about ongoing efforts to reduce homelessness in L.A. Levy, who formerly worked at the World Bank on initiatives to improve public sector capacity and implementation, writes that while tensions between the city and county have not been helpful, there are some promising signs. He notes that over the last nine months, public officials, as well as political and civic leaders, have collaborated to develop a road map for reducing homelessness, noting that central to this effort has been, “crafting a set of ambitious and achievable goals that can guide the region’s efforts,” and highlighted by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors endorsing three monitorable, top-line goals including specific targets for 2030. “In a fragmented governance environment like L.A.’s — and for a multifaceted problem like homelessness — goal clarification is a vital early step.”

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Leap on Policing and Police Reform in Los Angeles

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Jorja Leap, adjunct professor of social welfare at UCLA Luskin commented in a Rolling Stone feature about policing and police reform in Los Angeles. The story is focused on an effort in Watts by the LAPD to “make peace with its residents, build faith with its leaders, and break the gangs’ stranglehold on its corners,” by setting up units known as the Community Safety Partnership (CSP). Since it was launched in 2011, CSP has become a transformational power in Los Angeles, according to the story. A UCLA study by Leap, an expert on gangs, was released in 2020 and reported that in the first six years of the program CSP saved an estimated $1 million in taxpayer money in major crimes prevented. “…and that’s just in those three [Watts] developments,” said Leap, adding, “Its effects were so profound, we called on the city to expand it, and to mainstream its methods in the department.”

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Peterson on Rescinding Expanded Use of Medicaid

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Mark A. Peterson, professor of public policy at UCLA Luskin, commented in a California Healthline story about the use of Medicaid money for social services not traditionally covered by the federal program such as housing and nutrition. Initiatives designed to improve the health of vulnerable Americans have become popular nationwide — including in California — according to the story. While the previous two government administrations allowed for expansion of coverage, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which permits such experimental programs, rescinded the previous “broad directive” of the last administration. “What they’re arguing is Medicaid has been expanded far beyond basic health care and it needs to be cut back to provide only basic coverage to those most desperately in need,” said Peterson. “They’re making the case, which is not widely shared by specialists in the health care field, that it’s not the job of taxpayers and Medicaid to pay for all this stuff outside the traditional heath care system.”

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Sangalang on Intergenerational and Collective Trauma

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Cindy Sangalang, UCLA Luskin assistant professor of social welfare and Asian American studies at UCLA, authored a commentary for Nature on the future direction in research on intergenerational and collective trauma. In the piece, she highlighted key challenges in pushing this area of research forward, “particularly the need to attend to historical and cultural contexts in light of a growing emphasis on biological and epigenetic explanations.” Sangalang noted the hundreds of thousands of people killed in 2024 in international conflicts as well as more than 122 million people who remained displaced by violence and conflict in the first six months of last year — 5.3 million more than in the same period in 2023. “These collective traumas can leave emotional scars that shape the health, relationships and life chances of those who experience them, as well as affecting their children and future generations,” she wrote, explaining, “Understanding these generational effects can help individuals, families and communities to find ways to heal. But trauma studies are plagued by a narrow research focus that is hindering progress.”

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Pierce on Water Utility System Challenges in California

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Greg Pierce, research and co-executive director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, was a recent guest on a Brookings Institution podcast, joining a discussion on challenges faced by Southern California’s water systems as climate conditions become more severe. The Metro Blueprint episode focused on this year’s destructive wildfires which exposed long-standing issues with systems regionally and beyond. Pierce said that several challenges to water infrastructure stemmed from the L.A. wildfires, which were unlike any seen before until recent years. “In other ways, it’s been seven to eight years, so we’ve seen this a number of times, and we’ve seen where the fires, when they hit heavily populated areas, are really hitting all aspects of water infrastructure,” he said. “But it’s not only drinking water or water supply either. There’s profound impacts to stormwater, stormwater quality, especially because of the really toxic stuff that’s burning in urban fires, as well as stormwater quantity, because the ecosystem is changing.”

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Akee on How Federal Budget Cuts Affect Tribal Economies

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UCLA Luskin Professor of Public Policy Randall Akee is quoted in a Marketplace story on federal budget cuts and their impact on tribal economies in the U.S. The article focused on a new survey detailing how tribal economies have been impacted in the first months of the current federal administration. Survey responses include feedback on how federal grants that support vital services have been frozen, federal contracts that have been abruptly canceled, and how agencies that tribes work closely with are experiencing layoffs, according to the story. Akee, chair of the American Indian Studies Interdepartmental Program at UCLA, said that the new administration has offered mixed messages on its relationship with tribes. “This uncertainty is problematic in and of itself,” he said. “Tribal nations and governments are going through their days without knowing whether or not something is going to change. And that changes how they plan and forecast and invest.”

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Tilly on Impact of Tariffs on Products and Rebuilding in L.A.

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UCLA Luskin Urban Planning Professor Chris Tilly spoke to the Los Angeles Public Press for a story about the effects of the Trump tariffs in Los Angeles. Angelenos report higher prices on products including fruits and vegetables and experts say that they should expect to pay more imported goods. Those trying to rebuild after the region’s wildfires also may find it difficult due to higher prices on building materials. “Building a house takes a long time, so you have to know how much does this lumber cost now, and how much is it going to cost in six months or a year,” Tilly said. “And because Trump has shown he’s very arbitrary and unpredictable, but he’s very serious about imposing tariffs, that means that homebuilders have to think twice about taking on that added expense.” Tilly added that due to severe budget shortfalls, he does not expect additional monetary help from the state, county or city government.

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Leap on the Meaning of Tattoos

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Jorja Leap, adjunct professor of social welfare at UCLA Luskin, commented in a CNN story about Kilmar Abrego Garcia who was deported to an prison in El Salvador on the basis of tattoos purportedly linked to affiliation with the transnational criminal organization known as MS-13. Leap was among gang experts who disagreed with the government’s position that the tattoos — publicized on social media — alone constituted proof of membership.

“I see a bunch of symbols that could be interpreted any number of ways,” said Leap, who has previously served as an expert gang witness in court proceedings. “There is nothing in those tattoos that is definitively gang representative,” she said of the markings, which are also the subject of contention over whether they have been digitally altered to suggest gang affiliation. Leap also was quoted in New York Times coverage of the story.

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Manville on Transit System Cuts

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Michael Manville, professor and chair of Luskin urban planning, commented in a Bloomberg CityLab Perspective on service cuts that could be coming to regional transit systems nationwide. While focused on Pittsburgh’s transit system, which is considering reductions in service, systems across the U.S. are weighing service cuts due to growing deficits caused by increased costs, passenger counts below pre-pandemic levels, and the exhaustion of pandemic-era aid. For Pittsburgh, this would mean cutting bus routes, creating longer wait times for other routes, limiting running times as well as disconnecting a number of suburban townships from the network. Experts caution that severe service reductions could have effects that will last for years to come such as forcing low-income riders to purchase cars, straining budgets and contributing to regional congestion and pollution. “Once you buy the car, you’re not coming back to the train or bus, even if service is restored,” Manville said.

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