L.A. Charitable Giving Still Lagging Behind Pre-Recession Levels The Center for Civil Society's new study, co-authored by Paul Ong, shows slow recovery in L.A. County's nonprofit sector

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Charitable giving in Los Angeles County has yet to return to pre-recession levels, according to a report released today by the Center for Civil Society at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Los Angeles County residents reported deducting $6.56 billion for charitable contributions from their federal taxes in 2012, 12.2 percent less than they reported before the start of the recession in 2006. This weak rebound in giving is consistent with the experiences of individual nonprofit and philanthropic leaders, according to the report.

The State of Donations: Individual Charitable Giving in Los Angeles (PDF) shows that overall support for Los Angeles nonprofit organizations, including individual giving, has seen incremental growth after a significant dip following the 2007 recession. This recovery, however, has been inconsistent. There is considerable volatility in major gifts and general giving patterns and the effects of the recovery are not being evenly distributed.

“Charitable giving is greatly influenced by economic expansions and contractions,” said Urban Planning professor Paul Ong, one of the authors of the survey. “Some trends are discouraging, as large swaths of the county are underperforming in terms of charitable giving. But some encouraging trends — such as improved giving among foreign-born residents — show that there could be a silver lining.”

The study shows that naturalized citizens are more likely to make contributions than the U.S.-born population, and by the 20-year mark of residence, immigrants are just as likely to give as U.S. natives.

Published with support from the Annenberg Foundation, The State of Donations is the latest annual State of the Los Angeles Nonprofit Sector Report produced by the Center. Previous reports have focused on rising demands and falling revenues of human services nonprofits over the past decade. The first State of the Sector report was published in 2002.

“There is great pressure on nonprofit organizations to raise more money through individual donations,” said Bill Parent, acting director of the Center for Civil Society. “This report helps show how many factors — the generational transfer of wealth, changing views of philanthropy, the squeeze of the middle class, growing Latino and Asian populations, and uneven economic growth across the county — are changing existing patterns of generosity.”

Among the report’s other findings:

  • Forty percent of Los Angeles residents report that they donate to charity, including donations to and through religious organizations.
  • Diversity matters, but it is complicated. Of the major racial and ethnic groups, whites and Asians in Los Angeles are more likely to give than African Americans and Latinos. There is, however, considerable variation within those groups — the more immigrants are incorporated into an area, for example, the more likely they are to give.
  • In Los Angeles County, older, more educated and wealthier populations are more likely to give.
  • Paradoxically, the highest levels of generosity — measured as the percentage of the population that donates to charity and the share of income donated — can be found in the county’s most and least wealthy neighborhoods.
  • In terms of major gifts, Los Angeles nonprofits are vying for the outsize generosity of a very small percentage of high net worth households, which are estimated to provide half of all individual giving to nonprofits.
  • Individual giving patterns reflect growing inequality. High net worth households are contributing more in actual dollars but less in terms of the percentage of their income donated to charity. In terms of major gifts over $1 million, higher education has the most recipients as well as donors.
  • Los Angeles is a key player in major giving, with more dollars flowing out of the area than are coming in.
  • Between 2006 and 2012, county residents who itemized their deductions contributed on average almost $1,500 to charitable causes, but that giving diminished significantly after 2007. Between 2006 and 2008, total tax-deductible contributions declined by $1.28 billion for the county as a whole, which translates to a decline of roughly $350 per tax filer.

“It is our hope that greater awareness of these trends might encourage more giving as well as more thoughtful giving across Los Angeles,” Parent said.

Highlights from The State of Donation: Individual Charitable Giving in Los Angeles will be presented during an October 28 event at the Center for Civil Society’s annual conference on the state of the Los Angeles nonprofit sector at the Skirball Center.

The entire report is available here.

 

Youth Internet Safety: Risks, Responses, and Research Recommendations Professor John Villasenor identifies gaps in existing knowledge concerning internet safety.

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176193280_0By Luskin Center for Innovation staff

As Internet use by children and teenagers increases, so do concerns about their online safety. Providing a safe environment requires an in-depth understanding of the types and prevalence of online risks young Internet users face, as well as the potential solutions for mitigating risks.

A team at the Luskin Center led by Public Policy professor John Villasenor conducted a review of existing research on online safety and then identified knowledge gaps and recommendations for specific areas of research to further the policy dialogue regarding online safety. These findings and recommendations are summarized in a paper released today by the Brookings Institution.

This paper is timely because, despite the significant amount of research on these risks, improving youth Internet safety remains a challenge. In part, this is because definitions of terms and categories relevant to online safety, such as “cyberbullying,” often vary, making the comparison of statistics and findings among sources imprecise. In addition, there are complex overlaps among different online safety subtopics.

The paper was authored by John Villasenor, graduate student Adina Farrukh and researcher Rebecca Sadwick. Read the full paper here.

 

The Do’s and Don’ts of Professional Etiquette Urban Planning alumnus Jonathan P. Bell will lead a workshop for all UCLA Luskin students on October 20.

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By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde, UCLA Luskin student writer

Urban Planning alumnus Jonathan Pacheco Bell will be leading a professional etiquette workshop on Oct. 20 for UCLA Luskin students seeking to make themselves more competitive in the job market.

Bell, who earned his masters degree in urban planning in 2005, has worked in the field for seven years. He is currently working for the Advance Planning Division of the County of Los Angeles’ Department of Regional Planning. He will share his employment experiences and cover topics like communication, networking and nonverbal cues.

“Proper professional etiquette will make or break your chances with potential employers,” Bell said. “This should seem obvious, yet some students discount the importance of etiquette and end up being memorable for the wrong reasons.”

The workshop, which Bell said will cover the “do’s and don’ts of professional etiquette,” aims to give students an advantage in obtaining jobs, internships, scholarships and other work experiences that will help them be successful in the workforce.

Career Services director Michelle Anderson said it is extremely helpful for students to know the rules of etiquette when entering the professional world and even when encountering opportunities while they are in school.

“Students are interacting with high-level individuals and having professional exchanges everyday. Whether it is speaking with a professor and employers or attending events or speeches, it is important for students to know what to do and how to present themselves,” Anderson said.

The workshop will be held from 4-6 p.m. in room 2343 in the Luskin School of Public Affairs. Food will be provided for attendees. The workshop is mandatory for students in the Alumni Leader’s Academy, but students seeking summer jobs or internships are strongly encouraged to attend. RSVP to careers@luskin.ucla.edu.

Is Revival of Downtown L.A. Real? Urban Planning professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and other panelists agree that balance of power is shifting.

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By Sarah Rothbard/Zocalo Public Square

This year, GQ called downtown Los Angeles “America’s next great city” and “the cool capital of America.”  The New York Times included downtown on its list of “52 Places to Go in 2014.” At a “Thinking L.A.” event copresented by UCLA and Zocalo Public Square at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Grand Avenue, a panel of people who have developed, designed, lived, worked and played downtown discussed whether downtown actually lives up to this (admittedly East Coast) hype.

Award-winning architect and UCLA professor Thom Mayne cautioned against the hype. The notion of “downtown,” he said “is already a misnomer” for Los Angeles, a county of many different cities and more than 10 million people. “‘Downtown,’ as a word, connotes a singular,” said Mayne, pointing to what the word means in cities like Kansas City, Cleveland and Chicago. But in L.A., downtown is just one of a number of downtowns.

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Two UCLA professors, architect Thom Mayne and urban planner Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, took part in an Oct. 14 panel discussion hosted by UCLA and Zocalo Public Square.

Los Angeles Times arts and entertainment editor Laurie Ochoa disagreed. Yes, L.A. has a lot of neighborhoods and tribes; she recalled that when the L.A. Weekly’s offices moved from Hollywood to Culver City, her colleagues “were tearing their hair out” over the identity crisis of becoming Westsiders. “To me, it’s one city,” she said. L.A. is united by its theaters, restaurants, its people. And downtown has long been a cultural hub, she said. Before there was Disney Hall, there was the Music Center.

Mayne recalled that for a long time, he lived in Venice and never went downtown. Crossing the 405 was like getting through the DMZ in Korea.

Ochoa again disagreed: Downtown’s not “suddenly interesting,” she said. “It’s always been interesting.” For a long time, only a certain kind of person lived downtown. Now it’s a destination for all sorts of people.

New York Times national correspondent Jennifer Medina, the evening’s moderator, asked the panelists to define success for downtown.

UCLA urban planning professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris said that success is having people live, work and play downtown — transforming it into a place with life on the weekends and after-work hours. Great cities have great downtowns, she said. Downtown is the symbolic heart of Los Angeles, which is why its success is so meaningful.

Downtown is just one of the hearts of L.A., Mayne added. “I think it can be absolutely successful without being dominant.”

Who exactly are the people living and playing downtown? Medina asked restaurateur Bill Chait, who owns businesses across the city, if he notices a difference between customers at his downtown restaurants versus his Westside restaurants.

His downtown clientele is “incredibly eclectic,” said Chait. They’re younger, more urban and mobile. Chait, who grew up on the Westside, recalled that he resisted opening restaurants downtown for years. It was strictly a daytime environment, he said. There wasn’t enough of a residential population to sustain a restaurant, he thought at the time. In 2009, however, he opened up Rivera near the new L.A. Live complex, and other restaurants followed.

Over the past five years, downtown has become a center for people across the eastern part of Los Angeles, said Chait. Yet for all its architectural glory, noted Mayne, there was not a soul on foot on Grand Avenue at 7 p.m.

Loukaitou-Sideris said that architecture remains a hurdle for downtown. There’s been an emphasis on creating architectural masterpieces, but not on what’s happening on the street. The buildings and streets “don’t talk to one another” or link to one another, said the urban planning professor.

One of Medina’s favorite places downtown is Grand Central Market, which also epitomizes downtown’s current transition. At Grand Central, she said, you can pay $6 for a latte or $6 for a dinner, including a beer. How can downtown deal with the tension between preservation and creation?

Chait said that a lot of downtown development is going in the right direction because more people and builders are reclaiming rather than knocking down and rebuilding.

The challenge also lies in preserving downtown’s social diversity, said Loukaitou-Sideris, making sure it doesn’t turn into another Westside.

However, Mayne said that changing the perception of downtown has to start on the upper end. If wealthy people come into the area, everyone else will follow. Building low-income housing is the last thing you do — not the starting point, he said.

Ochoa said a flow between high and low was needed, illustrated by the availability of expensive coffee and $2 gorditas at Grand Central Market, and the skateboarders at the Caltrans building Mayne designed on Main Street.

Chait said that downtown’s evolution is being driven by renters rather than by super-wealthy buyers. You’re never going to gentrify all of downtown, he said. The challenge is to create housing for the people who already live there instead of relocating them.

At what point, asked Medina, will downtown start attracting people over age 45?

It already is, said Chait — at least to eat. On a Saturday night at his restaurant Bestia in the arts district, there’s a moment when you’ll see people from the Westside: right before dark.

The balance of political power is shifting, said the panelists, pointing to Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar, who represents downtown and has a great deal of clout, particularly when it comes to urban planning.

In the question-and-answer session, an audience member asked the panel what can be done to make downtown feel safer.

Loukaitou-Sideris said that vibrant, more populated streets mean fewer opportunities for crime. She did a study of bus stops around L.A. and found that the 10 most dangerous stops were downtown — and they were often just a few feet away from stops on the same line with no crime. An open storefront adjacent to the stop versus an empty lot made all the difference, she said.

Another audience member asked the panelists to weigh in on downtown’s Grand Park. It feels “kind of one-dimensional,” the individual said. Is it going to be a truly great, central public space?

It’s not finished yet, said Ochoa, who was echoed by Loukaitou-Sideris.

“Give it a few years,” said Loukaitou-Sideris. It’s still quite sterile, but people — rather than design and planning — may change it.

Thinking L.A. is a partnership of UCLA and Zócalo Public Square. This piece has been adapted from one running on the Zocalo Public Square website.

 

UCLA Ranked in Top Five Urban Planning Programs The Department of Urban Planning was named the fourth best planning program in North America by Planetizen.

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UCLA Luskin’s Department of Urban Planning has been ranked No. 4 in North America, according to the latest survey of the nation’s top graduate programs in urban planning by Los Angeles-based planning and development network Planetizen.

Planetizen’s latest guidebook also ranks UCLA No. 4 on its list of best graduate planning programs according to educators and the No. 2 program on the West Coast. In addition, UCLA is in the top five schools for most diverse student body in an urban planning program.

In terms of specialty areas, Luskin’s urban planning department was named in nine of those areas, including: Community Development, Economic Development, Environmental/Sustainability Planning, Housing, International Development, Land Use/Physical Planning, Regional Planning, Transportation Planning, and Urban Design.

For more information on the rankings and Planetizen’s methodology, go here.

In other studies, UCLA has taken the top spot for faculty productivity and reputation. An analysis published late last year found that UCLA faculty members averaged the highest number of total citations, and the School ranked second for average citations per year for faculty. In that same study, Urban Planning Professor Michael Storper was also ranked the No. 2 most cited planning faculty member of any school. Confirming this finding, in July Professor Storper was named to Thomson Reuters’ list of the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds of 2014.  Researchers who published numerous articles that ranked in the top one percent of the most cited in their respective fields in the given year of publication made the list.

Newton to Write on Region’s Civic Life for UCLA Luskin The Los Angeles Times journalist begins a new role designed to deepen UCLA's ties to the region's civic life

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newton_slideVeteran journalist and author Jim Newton will join the faculty and staff of UCLA in a new role designed to deepen UCLA’s ties to the civic life of Los Angeles and the region.

Newton, is best known for his 25-year career at the Los Angeles Times, where he spent time as a reporter, editor, bureau chief, editorial page editor and columnist.

In his enhanced role, Newton’s first project will be to develop and launch a new quarterly university journal highlighting UCLA research in fields that are particularly relevant to Southern California. The journal will also highlight our region’s leading institutions and influential figures. The journal will serve as the centerpiece of a series of public events. It will be housed in the Luskin School of Public Affairs and jointly published with External Affairs Public Outreach.

Newton will also serve as an advisor for other UCLA public outreach programs, for which he has appeared several times as a moderator or panelist in recent years. At the same time, he will take on an increased teaching load in the Communication Studies Department, where he has taught journalistic ethics since 2010. In addition to that course, Newton will begin teaching a special course in writing starting next year. He will continue to serve as a UCLA Luskin Senior Fellow, a distinction he has held since 2008, mentoring and engaging graduate students in Los Angeles’ civic life.

In addition to his career as a newspaperman and academic, Newton is also an author, well-known for his biographies of California governor and Chief Justice Earl Warren (“Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made,” Riverhead, 2006) and President Dwight Eisenhower (“Eisenhower: The White House Years,” Doubleday, 2011), a national best-seller. His next book, which he co-authored with former CIA Chief and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, is being released this week.

American Women Less Likely to Bike Than Dutch Women, Here’s Why Domestic roles influence the cycling habits of women across the world.

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By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde
UCLA Luskin student writer

The UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies’ Herbie Huff and transportation policy and planning doctoral student Kelcie Ralph say that American women are less likely to bike than Dutch women, largely to differences in domestic roles rather than infrastructure.

In an op-ed that ran in The Guardian’s bike blog on Oct. 3, the researchers said that “Despite years of progress, American women’s lives are still disproportionately filled with driving children around, getting groceries and doing other household chores…that doesn’t lend itself easily to two wheeled transportation.”

Their claims that infrastructure does not account for the differences in male and female bikers are supported by Ralph’s research, which reveals disparities between Dutch culture and labor policies as well as the gender gap of bikers in the U.S.

To learn more about their solutions to these disparities, you can read the full article here.

 

There’s a Brand New Vocabulary on the Streets, Says NYC Planning Rock Star UCLA Regents’ Lecturer Janette Sadik-Khan Discusses Designing the 21st-Century City.

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By Stan Paul

New York has long been known for its colorful language, distinctive regional accents and even its own definition of time: the proverbial “New York minute.”

But, while New Yorkers are still in a hurry, “There’s a brand new vocabulary on the streets,” said UCLA Regents’ lecturer and former commissioner of New York City Department of Transportation, Janette Sadik-Khan, who spoke to a full house Wednesday evening at UCLA. The event was part of the UCLA Luskin Welcome Week.

Sadik-Khan, who was appointed in 2007 by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, ran the department until 2013 and is currently a principal with Bloomberg Associates.

“You will see that there is a sea-change in what the streets of New York look like. There’s a brand new vocabulary on the street that didn’t used to be there,” she said. Throughout the evening, Sadik-Khan provided case studies and data about the many innovations and improvements that have occurred in recent years. These included transforming Times Square – “a crossroads of the world” —  into a pedestrian friendly place, expansion of bus service routes, the creation of the largest bike share program in U.S. and the addition of 400 miles of bicycle lanes, to name just a few.

“New Yorkers now talk about traffic calming. New Yorkers now talk about bike sharing. New Yorkers now talk about way-finding, said Sadik-Khan, adding, “There is just a completely different set of transportation options and designs on the streets of New York. Once known as the ‘mean streets’ I think they’ve really changed.” She noted that younger people today are looking for choices that include not taking on the burden of car ownership. This is important because “The choices we make today about how we prioritize our streets…has worldwide implications for generations to come.”

Sadik-Khan is acclaimed for her work to transform the transportation system in New York City. The crowd that filled the hall was made up of students, alumni, faculty and city and community leaders who work in the field. At the start of the evening, Sadik-Khan was introduced to the podium by Evelyn Blumenberg, chair of the UCLA Department of Urban Planning at the Luskin School of Public Affairs, who acknowledged Sadik-Khan’s renown in the transportation world.

“So often we hear about the many urban problems facing large urban areas…bankruptcy, poverty, poor urban design, traffic congestion, pollution and on,” said Blumenberg. “It’s awesome when someone in my own line of work achieves rock star status and tremendous visibility for helping to address some of these problems.”

“I’m really honored to be here with you as the Regents’ Lecturer at the Luskin School. I think the work is extraordinary, what you are doing here,” said Sadik-Khan.

During her lecture, Sadik-Khan outlined how increasing the safety and sustainability of a city is not just a single strategy, but “a panoply” that includes creating plazas and walkways and even creating places for people to just sit, putting “new life into old spaces.”

“Streets are our most valuable asset in cities and yet our street designs haven’t taken into account the ways people want to use them,” she said. “This dysfunction has somehow become accepted. We’ve become used to our streets as being out of balance.”

Sadik-Khan concluded the lecture with a word of caution and advice. Recounting the ways the media reported negatively on the changes she implemented in New York City, she explained that, “when you push the status quo, it can push back.” She added: “We are simply not going to create healthier, safer, more sustainable cities with the strategies that we followed up till now, that ignore all the other ways that a street is used.”

Her recommendation to the diverse audience of planners, academics, citizens and those who work daily in city government on these problems was this: “All sorts of new options are taking hold and planners need to adapt to these new changes and understand the way people want to get around. And we’re really just starting to glimpse what this shared economy means for transportation and cities.”

Following her presentation, transportation planning expert and Urban Planning Professor Emeritus Martin Wachs led a lively and informative question and answer session.

In addition to her Regents’ Lecture, Sadik-Khan was a guest speaker at an Urban Planning graduate course at the Luskin School on Thursday.

 

UP’s Monkkonen Challenges Media View of Mexican Housing Crisis The Urban Planning professor recently presented new research in Mexico City talk.

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In the wake of the recent US housing market crash, images of abandoned homes on the urban periphery of American cities dominated international media coverage, and when Mexico experienced its own vacant housing crisis in 2013, media outlets such as the New York Times, the Economist, and the Wall Street Journal covered the story through this same narrative lens of half-empty developments and residents stranded in sprawl.

Yet while these pictures and stories make for compelling journalism, according to research by urban planning professor Paavo Monkkonen they capture only one aspect of the Mexican housing crisis, and more crucially, they serve to distract focus away from the most urgent problems confronting housing in Mexico, such as reforming the housing finance system and addressing vacancy in urban cores.

Monkkonen discussed his research and ideas in a recent presentation at the Institute of Social Research of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City on September 8. The talk, entitled “Housing Finance is Urban Policy: INFONAVIT, Vacant Housing, and Urban Growth” in Mexico, was based on two ongoing research projects Monkkonen is conducting in collaboration with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank. Both projects are motivated by the housing vacancy crisis in Mexico caused by a finance system that hinders both the construction of new homes and the improvement of existing units in city centers.

As part of a series called the Ciclo La coyuntura nacional a debate, Monkkonen presented a vision of how the Mexican government could shift its approach to housing finance. He submitted four general areas for reforming urban policy in Mexico, including reforming the housing loan allocation system, increasing investment in the institutional infrastructure of the primary housing market (for example, property registries and cadastres), raising property taxes and placing more effort into collecting them, and encouraging urban density by promoting public transportation, eliminating parking requirements for new buildings and increasing the cost of operating private automobiles.

Monkkonen’s talk and research was picked up by several Mexican blogs and media outlets, such as Entrelineas and Impulso Informativo (in Spanish). Coverage in English can be found at the Mexico Daily Review.

Dr. Monkkonen first examined Mexican housing in his doctoral dissertation. According to Monkkonen, the Mexican housing vacancy crisis stems in part from housing finance policies that began in the 1990s, and the first of his current research projects focuses on vacant housing through analysis of rates of vacancy in the center and periphery of the 100 largest cities in Mexico, as well as their determinants. Findings show that although the high rates of peri-urban vacancy are a problem, there are a greater number of vacant units in the centers of Mexican cities. Additionally, there is a strong association between central city vacancy and housing finance, suggesting that the country’s housing policies have facilitated a suburbanization of urban populations.

Monkkonen’s second project focuses on urban growth patterns in Mexico and changes in the distribution of people and jobs within cities. Preliminary results reinforce the findings of the vacancy study, showing a loss of population in the center of 70 of the 100 largest cities in Mexico, concurrent with robust urban expansion.

Both of these research projects reinforce the Mexican government’s current shift towards the support of urban infill and higher density development. However, Monkkonen argues that the goal of urban infill will only be achieved with larger and more comprehensive reforms of the Mexican housing finance system than those currently proposed.

UCLA Luskin Welcomes New Diplomat in Residence Michelle G. Los Banos represents the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Foreign Service.

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Foreign Service Officer Michelle G. Los Banos will serve as UCLA’s new Diplomat in Residence for the 2014 – 2016 academic years. She was appointed by the U.S. Department of State to serve as Diplomat in Residence for Southern California and Hawaii and will be housed in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Los Banos will serve as a resource to students and graduates interested in working in the Foreign Service and at the Department of State.  She will be attending career fairs and conferences, as well as holding informational sessions and meetings with students by appointment.

In addition to her duties as Diplomat in Residence, Los Banos will also serve the Luskin School of Public Affairs as a Senior Fellow mentoring students from across all three departments.

“I am extremely excited to support my organization and help strengthen our future diplomatic corps by recruiting talented and diverse individuals to work for the State Department,” Los Banos said. “Being a Senior Fellow and getting to work with students who might share similar interests is also very exciting. It will give me a chance to share the experience and knowledge that I’ve gained in the world of diplomacy with someone who might be passionate about public service.”

Los Banos holds a Master in Public Policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University. Her 12-year career in the Foreign Service has taken her to Ankara, Turkey; Managua, Nicaragua; Rome, Italy; as well as State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C, where she most recently served as Deputy Division Chief in the Cultural Programs Division of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Banos is also excited to be back in her home state.

“We are honored to have Ms. Los Banos join us here at Luskin,” said Dean Franklin D. Gilliam. “It has been our privilege to host Diplomats in Residence since 1998. Ms. Los Banos’ unique skills and experiences will be a valuable resource to our students who are dedicated to making an impact both locally and globally.”

For information about all upcoming events Los Banos will hold at UCLA and in the greater Los Angeles area, follow her on Facebook – DOS Diplomat in Residence Southern California. For individual or group appointments, you can email her at DIRSouthernCalifornia@state.gov.