When Personalized Service Collides With Staffing Cuts

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Urban Planning Professor Chris Tilly spoke to Forbes about staff cuts at Petco, whose business model relies on drawing customers into brick-and-mortar stores for services such as grooming, training and veterinary care. The staffing reductions come as Petco announced that it would be far less profitable this year than previously expected. “It’s ironic because Petco, like lots of other retailers, is saying our competitive advantage is we have stores where you can actually talk to somebody and they know your pet’s name,” said Tilly, co-author of  “Where Bad Jobs Are Better: Retail Jobs Across Countries and Companies.” “But it’s completely at odds with what they’re actually doing with their staff.”

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Europe’s Challenge of Fostering Growth, Sharing the Wealth

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Michael Storper, distinguished professor of urban planning, spoke to the podcast Regio Waves about strategies Europe can employ to foster growth without exacerbating social inequality. In parts of Europe, participation in the labor force is flagging and wages are stagnant. One factor contributing to the malaise is the rise of artificial intelligence. “This is the moment for Europe to shape its future with artificial intelligence and to make sure that it is deployed in a way that augments people’s skills,” Storper told the podcast, which is produced by the European Commission. “We have to think about the interconnectedness of all territories,” he said. “That means that even as we focus on making Europe dynamic and innovative, mostly in the big and middle-sized cities, we want to make sure the other territories are maintained in a way that makes their conditions of life good and makes the human potential of every new generation there ready to contribute to the overall European dynamic.”

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Yin on L.A. County Proposal to Erase Medical Debt

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UCLA Luskin Public Policy Professor Wesley Yin spoke to the Los Angeles Times about a proposal by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors to purchase and forgive more than $2 billion in medical debt owed by constituents. A growing number of local and state governments have launched similar efforts to purchase such debt at a steep discount, relieving patients and their families of a heavy burden. Yin, who has researched the impact of these programs, said they are particularly beneficial if they erase debt early on, when patients are still working to pay it off. If L.A. County focuses on purchasing the cheapest debt, the kind of years-old medical bills that most people have long forgotten about, “it might not impact people’s financial situations that much anymore,” he said. In addition to debt forgiveness programs, solutions such as hospital financial assistance programs and health insurance expansions would help ensure that bills are paid more quickly, Yin said.

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Reforming the L.A. City Council to Give Diverse Communities a Voice

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UCLA Luskin’s Gary Segura spoke to the L.A. Times about a proposal to expand the Los Angeles City Council in an effort to boost representation and discourage unethical behavior. Nearly a century has passed since L.A. residents approved the current number of council districts, 15. New proposals would increase that number to somewhere between 21 and 31. “Los Angeles is a complex city, far more diverse than most cities in the United States,” said Segura, a professor of public policy. “With huge numbers of ethnic and racial populations, it has become increasingly difficult to give different communities a voice.” Any change would require voter approval. Opponents of council expansion often cite concerns about higher costs, but “the truth of the matter is we spend very little on governance in Los Angeles,” Segura said. Even if the council more than doubles in size, the cost of staff, office space, cars and other needs would represent less than 1% of Los Angeles’ annual $13-billion budget.

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On Palm Trees and Climate Resiliency

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A Los Angeles Times article on cities reconsidering the value of Southern California’s iconic palm trees checked in with V. Kelly Turner, associate director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. Planting trees is a key element of many climate resiliency plans, but the towering palms don’t provide much shade or sequester carbon well. “A pole on the side of the street isn’t providing much shade. And a palm tree is kind of similar,” said Turner, whose work focuses on how cities adapt to hotter conditions. The article pointed to Center for Innovation research showing that shade can reduce heat stress in the human body from 25% to 30% throughout the day. Turner also spoke to Resources Radio about how heat impacts U.S. schools. The conversation touched on architectural and landscape design choices that can mitigate hot temperatures, funding sources for improving infrastructure and issues of equity in allocating such resources to schools. 

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Yaroslavsky on California’s ‘Formidable’ Pick for U.S. Senate

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Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, spoke to CBS Los Angeles about the appointment of Laphonza Butler as California’s next senator. Butler, who has deep experience in Democratic politics as a campaign strategist and labor organizer, was selected by Gov. Gavin Newsom to fill the seat of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein. “Laphonza Butler is a very serious and formidable individual in whatever position she takes,” said Yaroslavsky, who worked closely with Butler when she was a Los Angeles labor leader and he a county supervisor. Her work in the labor, nonprofit and private sectors demonstrated her “tremendous leadership qualities,” he said. The appointment fulfill’s Newsom’s vow that his next Senate appointment would be a Black woman. Said Yaroslavsky, “I don’t look at her just as an African American woman, I look at her as a formidable human being who has paid a lot of dues so far in her young life.” 

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‘A Ticking Time Bomb’ for California’s Water Systems

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Gregory Pierce, co-executive director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about failing water systems in California, which raise the risk of serious health issues for about 1 million residents. Concern over the availability of clean drinking water has grown as drought and climate change threaten traditional sources. “It’s a bit of a ticking time bomb,” said Pierce, who directs the Human Right to Water Solutions Lab. Many water systems must take urgent steps or “they’ll be out of compliance and be failing” under new regulations that will soon be in place. The article also cited Max Gomberg MPP ’07, a consultant working with environmental justice advocates. “I think with enough resources, money, people and political will, the human right to water is absolutely achievable in California,” Gomberg said. “But it’s going to take all of that to a degree that has not been provided in the 11 years since the Human Right to Water Act was passed.”

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Fighting Back Against Harassment on Public Transit

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A Governing article about a Bay Area Rapid Transit campaign to deter sexual harassment on public transportation cited research by Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, professor of urban planning and interim dean of UCLA Luskin. The BART program was designed and developed by young people of color to encourage people who witness sexual harassment on trains and buses to discreetly intervene. Loukaitou-Sideris has led extensive studies of sexual harassment in public places, which she describes as an “omnipresent and consequential” phenomenon. Public transit environments can be uniquely conducive to harassers engaging in unwanted verbal and physical abuse, her research has found. Crowded vehicles provide both proximity and anonymity, while empty vehicles or stations can be unsafe for other reasons. The BART campaign includes circulating cards saying, “I got you” and “You got me?” It also encourages ways of showing support including standing with the person who is being harassed, texting BART Police or contacting the train conductor.

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Tilly Navigates California’s Shifting Labor Landscape

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UCLA Luskin Urban Planning Professor Chris Tilly spoke to the California Sun podcast about the state’s shifting labor dynamics. High-profile strikes, concerns about inflation and the emerging role of technology in the workplace have raised the visibility of worker rights campaigns this year. “The cost of housing, of health care, of college tuition have risen on trajectories that are so out of sync with everything else, including pay,” Tilly said. One experimental approach to addressing these issues is a plan to raise the minimum wage for many fast-food workers in California to $20 an hour and create a nine-member council empowered to make future wage increases. “Having some space where labor interests and management interests and public interests can all sit down at the table and hammer out what might be a good way to go, I think that’s a good thing to do,” Tilly said. “If places like California don’t lead, the prospects for the country look a lot grimmer.”

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When Gun Violence Erupts, Social Workers Are First Responders, Advocates and Educators

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UCLA Luskin’s Ron Avi Astor spoke to Social Work Advocates for an article on the role of social workers when gun violence erupts on America’s streets and in schools, churches and homes. Social workers are both first responders and providers of continuing care. They also conduct research, lobby Congress and promote education on the responsible use of firearms. Astor, professor of social welfare and education, shared his research on strategies to prevent school shootings, including a study on the effectiveness of interventions implemented in California. “To our surprise, the numbers showed that there was a dramatic reduction, a huge, huge reduction in day-to-day victimization of kids in California over this 20-year period,” Astor said. “That’s an important story to get out there. What social workers are doing actually matters to kids in their day-to-day lives.”

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