Former U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler brought a message of resiliency and resolve to more than 400 scholars, students, community leaders, and elected officials who came together at UCLA last week to take on California’s most entrenched problems.
“Too many Californians, too many Angelenos, are not OK,” Butler told the crowd gathered for the eighth annual UCLA Luskin Summit on April 15. But she added, “The people in this room, the communities that you serve, have already proven that change is possible. …
“I keep returning to this one thing that sustains me: It’s that hope is not a joyful feeling. Hope, UCLA, is hard work.”
Butler, who served as a labor leader, political advisor and UC regent before joining the U.S. Senate in 2023 to complete the term of the late Dianne Feinstein, delivered the keynote address following a morning centered on strengthening resilience and equity at the local level.
Sharing Research and Solutions
Researchers from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs teamed up with difference-makers in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to share the latest advances in four areas of concern:
- California’s housing strategy, including the state’s new zoning rules aimed at making shelter more affordable
- Environmental health and justice, including the impact of extreme heat as L.A. hosts a series of mega-events, and the toll plastic pollution takes on vulnerable communities
- Transportation security, including new strategies for elevating security, trust, and comfort among public transit riders
- Socioeconomic vulnerability, including strategies to bridge intergenerational inequities, and regulatory tools that can be used to promote more inclusive growth
Launched in 2019, the UCLA Luskin Summit provides a bridge between academia, policymakers, and civil society, with the goal of finding evidence-based solutions to California’s most pressing concerns. This year’s gathering highlighted recent research from the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, and departments of Public Policy, Social Welfare, and Urban Planning.
Master of Urban Planning student O’Philia Le said she chose to attend the summit to learn how UCLA Luskin research is put into practice in the world.
“A key takeaway for me was that large-scale racial justice and global environmental impacts really start with local solutions. However, those solutions don’t just happen on their own,” she said.
“They require political pressure, community engagement, and an intentional push to actually move forward. As an aspiring planner, I believe that this is key to the work that we do.”
From left, ABC7’s Josh Haskell, Miguel Santana of the California Community Foundation, and Zev Yaroslavsky of UCLA Luskin’s Los Angeles Initiative review results from the 2026 Quality of Life Index. Photo by Michael Troxell
Quality of Life Index Reveals Growing Strain
The summit also hosted the release of this year’s UCLA Quality of Life Index (QLI), a project of the Luskin School’s Los Angeles Initiative, directed by Zev Yaroslavsky. The survey found that Los Angeles County residents’ satisfaction with their lives has hit the lowest level in the QLI’s 11-year history.
“We’ve been through a lot in the last five years: COVID; punishing increases in the cost of living; last year’s catastrophic fires, the worst natural disaster in the history of this city; tariffs; and this year the destabilizing implementation of the Trump administration’s immigration sweeps, which started right here in our own back yard,” he said. “All of these have taken their toll on virtually every aspect of our lives in every part of our region.”
Cost of living continues to be the single biggest driver of residents’ quality of life, though its rating declined from 2025, according to the survey. Among the 1,400 Los Angeles County residents polled in March, housing affordability remained the dominant concern, while rising costs for utilities, groceries, and taxes were cited more frequently than in prior years.
Ratings fell across nearly every category compared with last year, with six areas reaching their lowest levels since the survey began in 2016: education, transportation and traffic, jobs and the economy, public safety, neighborhood conditions, and relations among different races, ethnicities, and religions.
A Call to Action for the Next Generation
In her remarks, Butler also addressed the sobering results of the QLI.
“Every year the Quality of Life Index holds up a mirror to Los Angeles County,” she said. “And every year, it asks us to be brave enough to look in that mirror.”
She stressed, however, that “alongside every data point of strain, there’s a counter story, one that doesn’t get enough attention — the story that happens when people organize, when coalitions hold, when accountability is real.”
To the service-minded students in the room, she issued a call to action, echoing the summit’s theme of empowering local communities. Some of them would go to Washington and some to Sacramento, where they are desperately needed, she said.
“But some of you — hear me — need to go to places that don’t make headlines. To neighborhoods where the data actually lives, to communities where the stakes are immediate, not to study them but to be accountable to them. …
“The communities most impacted by vulnerability are also most engaged in building solutions. … Survival demands participation.”
View more photos from the 2026 UCLA Luskin Summit on Flickr.
In particular, I was struck by the revitalization of former Japanese naval airbase buildings that were reused and retrofitted into civic and cultural spaces. This redevelopment created a climate-resilient cultural park that provided third places for residents and expanded business opportunities while also preserving the history of the land. It showed me that development and sustainability can move together, especially when historic buildings are thoughtfully repurposed and integrated into new uses.
