Experts from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs are providing context and insight to news outlets covering Los Angeles’ catastrophic wildfires and the road to recovery. Here is a selection of their comments:
- Liz Koslov, assistant professor of urban planning, on the need for humane and reasonable policies for recovery after the fires: “Rather than dream we can retreat our way out of the crisis, we must relearn, and learn anew, how to live with fire.” — New York Times | More from Koslov: Bloomberg, Irish Times, The City
- Megan Mullin, professor of public policy and faculty director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, on the importance of setting community-driven priorities for post-fire recovery: “Without forethought and without coordination, we’re going to risk a rebuild that amplifies the region’s inequality.” — Marketplace | More from Mullin: Vox
- Paul Ong, director of the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, on the challenges of recovery in diverse neighborhoods: “Altadena is a litmus test about how committed we are to racial justice.” — CBS Evening News | More from Pierce: Los Angeles Times
- Veronica Terriquez, professor of urban planning and director of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, on the loss of Chicano historian Juan Gómez-Quiñones’s archives in the Palisades fire: “The loss of his papers, the loss of other people’s archives. … We’re losing something really precious.” — Los Angeles Times
- Gregory Pierce, co-executive director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, on water supplies needed to battle the flames: “It happened so quickly and ferociously, I’m not sure having any level of water would have made a difference.” — Washington Post | More from Pierce: NPR, New York Times, WhoWhatWhy, Today Explained, CNBC, Los Angeles Times
- Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, interim dean of the Luskin School and distinguished professor of urban planning, on the inequalities arising from Southern California car culture, including wildfire risks heightened by climate change: Smog-producing cars became so central to life in the region because of “transportation policy that has quite favored the automobile and given a tremendous amount of investment to build the freeways.” — The Atlantic
- Michael Manville, chair of UCLA Luskin Urban Planning, on the fires’ stressors on the Southern California housing market: “The upshot is that a lot of people who had been housed — who do have, for the most part, strong incomes — have just been thrust into the housing market, and they’re going to push up prices and rents, and also compete for contractors in an already tight labor market to get things rebuilt.” — Commercial Observer | More from Manville: Reason, New York Times
- Chhandara Pech, deputy director of the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, on research showing that language barriers prevented some Asian American residents from easily accessing emergency information during the fires: “Government agencies should not only focus on reaching the largest population that’s affected by the wildfires, but it should also prioritize supporting the most vulnerable and hard-to-reach communities.” — Los Angeles Times
- Paavo Monkkonen, professor of urban planning and public policy, on streamlining the bureaucracy of home-building, a reform long-sought by affordable housing advocates and now coming to pass only in fire-affected areas: “Now suddenly we’re going to get it — but just for this.” — New York Times | More from Monkkonen: Libération
- Michael Lens, professor of urban planning and public policy, on L.A.’s elevated housing prices: “Folks who haven’t had to really think about where they’re going to live next — who may have been living in, fortunately, stable housing situations for the last couple decades — are going to see a lot of sticker shock.” — LAist | More from Lens: Los Angeles Times, Fortune
- José Loya, assistant professor of urban planning, on the likelihood that more affordable housing options can be found farther from the fire zones: “L.A. is still a very, very large place.” — Los Angeles Times, Washington Post
- Silvia González, director of research at the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute, on an LPPI study finding that at least 35,000 Latino workers are facing loss of their livelihood due to the wildfires: ““This is going to be a five-, six-, seven-year recovery effort.” — Los Angeles Times | More from LPPI: CBS8, New York Times, Spectrum News 1, Univision, CalMatters, Streetsblog LA, The Guardian, Science News
- Edith de Guzman of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation on the perfect storm of conditions that led to the disaster: “There is an element of human hubris in this to think we can have full control. Nobody would blame officials for not stopping a hurricane — when a hurricane comes, it comes.” — The Guardian | More from De Guzman: NPR All Things Considered, ABC News, NPR Morning Edition, Los Angeles Times
- Stephen Commins, associate director of Global Public Affairs at UCLA Luskin, on the challenge of cleaning up homes and neighborhoods: “Every home has potential hazards — from older homes with asbestos to any home that contained paint cans, lithium batteries and other standard but toxic when incinerated household items.” — UCLA Newsroom
- Zev Yaroslavsky, veteran public servant and director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, on the city’s preparations for the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics: “What we cannot allow to happen is for the Olympics to take away the government’s attention from the most important thing, which is to rebuild after the fire.” — New York Times | More from Yaroslavsky: L.A. Times Today, New York Times
- Adam Millard-Ball, director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, on disconnected streets and disaster preparedness: “We’re seeing that the least-connected streets are in places that have historically been affected by fire. We know that the places that have burned in the past are also likely to burn in the future, and that’s true even in urbanized areas as well.” — Bloomberg | More from Millard-Ball: Streetsblog, Next City
- Minjee Kim, assistant professor of urban planning, on political rhetoric surrounding government requirements for rebuilding damaged or destroyed homes: “For any rebuilding that needs to happen, there shouldn’t be any additional ‘development permit’ that needs to be secured.” — Politico
