Archive for category: Public Policy

As part of a newly expanded focus on the structure and administration of digitally enabled urban environments, UCLA Luskin held a two-day conference April 24-25 titled “Who Owns the Digital City?”. Scholars, entrepreneurs and activists came to campus to explore innovations and share knowledge on digitally empowered publics, tackling questions of ownership, service, participation, equity and justice in equal measure.

Read the formal conference summary

The conference kicked off with a keynote address Thursday, April 24, as detailed in this report by UCLA Luskin student writer Max Wynn.

Rethinking Digital Ownership: The contrarianism of Jaron Lanier

Technologist and futurist Jaron Lanier, author of Who Owns the Digital Future, opened the “Who Owns the Digital City?” conference in front of a crowd gathered on UCLA Luskin’s rooftop terrace.

Lanier is a tech pioneer whose wide-ranging accomplishments include coining the term “virtual reality,” starting a number of successful tech companies, and possessing one of world’s most extensive collections of actively played rare instruments.

After an adjective-laden introduction from Dean Frank Gilliam, Lanier approached the microphone.

“Oh god, aren’t I impressive,” he asked with an air of mock conceit.

The gathered crowd laughed, but it was an appropriate introduction for what followed. Lanier’s talk, like his book, presented a scathing critique of the current Internet landscape, and of the big businesses that dominate it. However, it was a critique given in an off-kilter manner that was befitting of the dreadlocked man delivering it.

His argument centered on the concentration of technologically bred wealth in the hands of a digital elite. According to Lanier, these elites have positioned themselves at the hubs of digital networks, and have succeeded in monetizing the shared data of their users. The users, or “peasant class,” are not compensated for their role in this wealth creation process. The result has been a tech sector that is actively contributing to the continued destruction of the middle class.

As Lanier’s assault wore on, many of the titans of literature, business, philosophy and, of course, technology were both praised and criticized, often in the same breath.

Lanier’s eclectic interests were on constant display, and within the first ten minutes he discussed the works of Aristotle, Marx and Shelley. In doing so Lanier strayed from Silicon Valley’s typical catalog of cultural references, though Ayn Rand was mentioned briefly.

While Lanier referenced an extensive cast of literary figures, his talk veered well beyond the bounds of letters. At one point he linked “Maxwell’s demon,” a famous thought experiment in the field of thermodynamics, to macroeconomic theory and the history of American business.

The talk ended in an appropriately unexpected fashion. After readjusting the microphone, Lanier was joined onstage by the musician Paul Simon’s son, Harper. As the sun dropped below the Westwood skyline, the duo performed a series of musical compositions. Lanier played a number of exotically named instruments from his personal collection while Simon strummed on a guitar and swayed from side to side.

Afterwards, Lanier signed books and took questions from a crowd still slightly awed by the evening’s spectacle.

 

The Promises and Pitfalls of Digital Governance

Listen to Jaron Lanier here

 

Students in Public Policy, Social Welfare and Urban Planning are taking their shows on the road this Spring Break.

In pursuit of independently organized projects, groups of students will travel to Detroit, Mexico City and Tokyo. The trips are designed to encourage a broader understanding of issues of urbanization, governance, policy and social service.

In Detroit, a group of 10 students will explore the consequences of the city’s bankruptcy on urban policy. During their time in the city they have meetings scheduled with a host of city officials, including agency heads, nonprofit leaders and Mayor Mike Duggan. In their conversations the students hope to uncover lessons of governing a city in crisis, resources available to city managers and the role citizens can play in rebuilding an iconic city’s image. “Detroit represents the most extreme versions of problems in the urban core,” the students write on their trip blog. “This trip will serve to contextualize urban planning issues in the canonical distressed city.”

The Mexico City trip will cross disciplinary lines to understand transportation access in the context of a global metropolis. With many similarities in structure and environment as Los Angeles, 28 students from all three UCLA Luskin departments will use the Mexican capital as a source for new ideas in social justice, equity and community empowerment. The sessions packed into the five-day schedule, spanning such topics as bikesharing, parking management, women’s needs, sustainable development and public space programming, will be distilled into a post-trip event at UCLA Luskin. The group will also be posting updates to a dedicated website during the trip.

Two groups of students are heading for Tokyo. The first will follow a path established in previous years as they travel to the Tohoku region of Japan’s largest island, where they will engage with civic leaders responding to the 2011 earthquake that inundated the city of Sendai. More than three years after the disaster, the region still offers vital lessons of emergency planning, critical response and community rebuilding. The second group, traveling under the auspices of UCLA’s Urban Humanities Institute, will explore the role of transportation in crafting a community through an innovative interpretation of the neighborhood surrounding Shinjuku Station, the world’s busiest transportation center.

Beyond the March pause in classes, UCLA Luskin students spend summer breaks living and working overseas through the International Practice Pathway program.

Three years after a massive earthquake and tsunami struck Tohoku, Japan, students from all three departments have produced an anthology of personal reflection and academic analysis of the disaster’s impact on the community.

“Telling our Story: UCLA Luskin Japan Trip 2013” collects writing from 22 students in Public Policy, Social Welfare and Urban Planning that traveled to the region last year. In a weeklong trip over Spring Break, the students toured disaster sites, examined official and community responses to the tragedy, and documented the country’s progress toward recovery.

“We, the authors, made promises to our sponsors and hosts to never forget Tohoku, and sharing our academic observations and personal experiences here not only immortalizes them but makes them accessible to those who cannot travel to the region themselves,” write the editors — Urban Planning student Vicente Romero, Social Welfare student Elizabeth Schaper and Public Policy student Keitaro Tsuji. “It is our hope that this body of work will help us achieve our promise to increase this region’s global visibility.”

The students also documented their trip in a video piece produced by Public Policy student Dustin Foster.