Bratton Opens Luskin Lecture Series With Lively Talk

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By Max Wynn
UCLA Luskin Student Writer 

Former Los Angeles police chief William J. Bratton kicked off the new academic year’s UCLA Luskin Lecture Series last week with a speech that highlighted the ability of the police to be a force for positive social change. 

Community members and city leaders joined UCLA students, alumni and faculty at the Japanese American National Museum in Downtown Los Angeles to hear the former Chief speak. Bratton’s lecture linked the experiences of his 40 years of police work, during which he has also served as Police Commissioner in Boston and New York, with the evolution of the profession as a whole.

In no small part thanks to Chief Bratton’s contributions, policing has moved from responding to crimes that were committed, to preventing those crimes and improving the communities in which they occur. Crime prevention, and the importance of the relationship between the police and the community, were key elements of both his speech and the policies he implemented during his time as Los Angeles’ Chief of Police, which lasted from 2002-09.

LAPD Bureau Chief and UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs board member Gerald Chaleff said, during his introductory remarks, that these policies have “made the Los Angeles police department into a place where everyone else in law enforcement now comes to learn and be trained.”

Chief Bratton’s policies reduced crime in Los Angeles and repaired the reputation of the police department, but he believes that quality policing can have an even greater impact. 

“If we the police get it right in delivering public safety in a way that we build trust, in a way that improves race relationships, in a way that improves our efficiency,” he said, “then we are effectively a force multiplier for expanding on all the promises of democracy that go back to the creation of our country, and our constitution, and our Declaration of Independence.”

Throughout his speech Chief Bratton repeated his mantra “cops count, police matter”, and as his speech drew to a close he built upon this phrase, adding that “we can matter so much more if we do it the right way.”

Following the lecture Frank D. Gilliam Jr., Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, joined Chief Bratton on stage. The two had a conversation about a wide range of topics, among them terrorism, gun control, trends in crime statistics, and how to best enforce stop-and-frisk policies.

The Luskin Lecture Series continues with “A Conversation with Marian Wright Edelman.” The civil rights activist and founder of the Children’s Defense Fund will be speaking on December 4th at the California African American Museum. For more information and to RSVP, please click here.

The Luskin Lecture Series is designed to enhance public discourse on topics relevant to today’s societal needs. Bringing renowned public intellectuals and scholars together with national and local leaders, the Luskin Lecture Series presents issues that are changing the way our country addresses its most pressing problems. For more information on upcoming Luskin Lecture Series events, please click here.

 

A Secure Retirement for All Americans

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By Ramin Rajaii
UCLA Luskin Student Writer

“What kind of America do you want?”

This was the question posed by A. Barry Rand at the latest UCLA Luskin Lecture Series event. Rand is the CEO of AARP, the world’s largest nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for individuals over the age of 50.

“For us at AARP,” Rand said, “we want a society in which everyone lives with dignity and purpose, achieves their dreams, and enjoys lifelong financial security. Every individual should have the opportunity to achieve the American Dream, whether they are young or old.”

Rand believes that discussions regarding the future of aging in America have never been more pertinent; as the nation undergoes changes in health policy, we are pressed to contemplate their impacts on an aging society.

According to Rand, the idea of old age was transformed from a “life in purgatory” to a desired destination beginning in the 1950s. At once, old age became known as “leisure years,” a reward for a lifetime of hard work.

Changing demographics are challenging the reward of retirement, Rand said. “America is experiencing a dramatic change. This is the first time that minorities account for over half of all births in the past twelve months,” he said. “By 2030, racial and ethnic minorities will be 42% of the US population. This new ethnographic makeup becomes new ‘American mainstream’ – where minorities become the majority in the aging population.”

The goal of AARP, outlined by Rand, is primarily to help the growing aging population make a contribution to society while allowing them to be financially prosperous after retirement. In his eyes, three main strategies need to be employed.

First, as social security remains a critical foundation for income security, AARP seeks to promote a full-blown discussion of how it contributes to the wellbeing of older Americans, and how it can be modified to improve effectiveness.

Second, Rand believes it critical to continue lowering growth and healthcare spending system wide – a major tenet of the Affordable Care Act signed into law in 2010.

Finally, “in order to thrive and take advantage of life possibilities,” Rand explained, “people need to live in age-friendly communities.” From his perspective, the nation needs to become more welcoming to residents of all ages.

When asked what AARP should do to position themselves as national advocates for the growing U.S. aging population, Rand succinctly summarized their mission: “We strive to help people have access to affordable healthcare and be financially secure. We are focused on how to be creative in getting the costs down, while ensuring that all generations have the ability to enjoy social security benefits.”

Rand has long fought for social change. He has served as chairman and chief executive officer of Avis Group Holdings, CEO of Equitant Ltd., and executive vice president, Worldwide Operations, at Xerox Corporation.

Read Rand’s remarks (PDF)

The Luskin Lecture Series enhances public discourse on topics relevant to the betterment of society. The Series features renowned public intellectuals, bringing together scholars as well as national and local leaders to address society’s most pressing problems. 

Villaraigosa: “Education is the civil rights issue of our time”

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Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent John Deasy made an impassioned case for improving public education in Los Angeles at the latest UCLA Luskin Lecture Series event on Wednesday night.

The event – coming the day after city elections that narrowed the field of mayoral hopefuls and saw nearly $6 million in outside spending on races for three school board seats – served as a chance for Villaraigosa and Deasy to chart a course for the next administration. Villaraigosa’s final term ends June 30.

“The next mayor of L.A. has to understand that there’s not really an option,” Villaraigosa said. “He or she absolutely needs to be involved in the success of our schools.”

Since he took office eight years ago, Villaraigosa has spent much of his tenure trying to improve performance at the nation’s second-largest school district. He made an early-term attempt to wrest control of the LAUSD board – an effort that ultimately was defeated in court. Through the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, he implemented reforms at 22 of the district’s worst-performing schools, improving student performance and parent engagement. The mayor’s advocacy of parent-trigger laws gave parents greater control over the administration of troubled schools, at the expense of union protections for teachers. 

Although Deasy took the top job at LAUSD less than two years ago, he has helped implement Villaraigosa’s efforts, pushing reforms in charter schools and teacher performance evaluations.

“We’ve got to make it easier to get better teachers,” Deasy said.

In addition to focusing on teacher performance, Deasy has worked to improve student achievement through careful analysis of data. When statistics on student suspensions painted a bleak picture of school safety – suspensions are intended only for violence and other serious problems, Deasy said – he met with school leadership to learn more. 

“The tiniest fraction of suspensions were for serious issues,” Deasy said, “but an overwhelming proportion were for ‘defiance.'” Administrators were keeping students away from school for low-level problems, such as failing to bring materials or “answering in a defiant tone,” Deasy said.

Since increasing student performance depends on consistent student attendance, and minority populations have been shown to be suspended at higher rates than their peers, Deasy told administrators to suspend students only as a last resort. As a result, suspensions went down 50 percent.

Deasy said the episode was a lesson that school reform is incredibly complex.

“I learned that we didn’t have a drop-out problem. We had a push-out problem,” he said. “We were forcing these kids out.” Only by focusing on the ultimate goal of providing high-quality education for every LAUSD student could reform be achieved, he said.

“When you pay attention and want to drill down, you can instigate positive change,” Deasy said.

Villaraigosa said the stakes for the city are incredibly high. A quality education system that serves every Angeleno is key to the future success of the city, he said.

“This is the civil rights issue of our time. It’s the democracy issue of our time. It’s the economic issue of our time.

“It matters.”

The Luskin Lecture Series is designed to enhance public discourse on topics relevant to today’s societal needs. Bringing renowned public intellectuals and scholars together with national and local leaders, the Luskin Lecture Series presents issues that are changing the way our country addresses its most pressing problems. For more information on upcoming Luskin Lecture Series events, please click here.

 

Sadik-Khan: Change “Can Be Done”

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If city leaders clearly articulate a vision and pursue it in ways that rely on constant public engagement, transformational change is possible.

That was the message delivered by New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan Feb. 28, as part of the UCLA Luskin Lecture Series. Sadik-Khan spoke to an audience of more than 200 transportation planners and advocates at the 2013 UCLA Complete Streets Conference, an annual gathering produced by the UCLA Lewis Center and the Institute of Transportation Studies.

In a talk that touched on nearly every aspect of a “complete street” — pedestrians, bicycles, buses, plazas and parks, as well as private vehicles — Sadik-Khan reported on her five years as head of transportation in America’s largest city. Throughout her tenure, she said, change has been at the forefront of her job.

“These streets have been unexamined for too long,” she said. “We should be designing streets for 2013, not 1963.”

Sadik-Khan has overseen a major revitalization of the ways New Yorkers get around their city. Beginning with Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “PlaNYC” strategic document, Sadik-Khan has put into place a program of expanded amenities for pedestrians, cyclists and transit users while continuing to perform the tasks traditionally associated with a city transportation department — improving bridges, maintaining streets and filling potholes. “We’ve worked hard to bring balance back to the streets of New York,” she said.

In working for what she described as “a very data-driven mayor,” she has relied on a steady stream of surveys, evaluations and data analysis. When the city decided to close Times Square to vehicles and turn it into a pedestrian plaza, the administration was able to point to GPS data from New York’s 13,000 taxicabs to show that traffic had actually improved as a result of the closure. Pedestrian safety also improved, as did economic performance — Times Square is now one of the highest valued retail spaces in the world, Sadik-Khan said.

Other improvements across the city saw similar results. There were 47 percent fewer commercial vacancies after the city installed bike lanes along First Avenue. On streets where bus service has been refigured, retail sales have gone up 71 percent. “These are improvements of safety, livability and strong economic performance,” Sadik-Khan said.

Key to the success of her plans was the ability to implement change quickly and tangibly. “Change used to take years,” she said. “Now with paint, stones and street furniture, we can changes things overnight.” The improvements help the public see the potential of big ideas and accustom themselves to change.

“It’s not a rendering, it’s a real-world model,” Sadik-Khan said. “It lets people touch and point to it and say ‘I want that.'”

 

The Luskin Lecture Series is designed to enhance public discourse on topics relevant to today’s societal needs. Bringing renowned public intellectuals and scholars together with national and local leaders, the Luskin Lecture Series presents issues that are changing the way our country addresses its most pressing problems. For more information on upcoming Luskin Lecture Series events, please click here.

Luskin Lecture Series: Howard Dean

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By Ruby Bolaria
UCLA Luskin Student Writer 

On Wednesday evening former Vermont Governor Howard Dean spoke to a large and diverse crowd at UCLA as part of the Luskin Lecture Series.

The event, hosted by the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, brought together donors and invited guests – several of whom are currently UCLA undergraduates – at the Covel Commons on campus.

Governor Dean spoke about why “Campaigns Matter.” It boiled down to how 20-35 year olds, with the help of the internet, are already transforming not just our nation, but our planet.

The theme for the night was about how a growing sense of shared fate among young people is helping to transform the world, beginning in the United States. Governor Dean recalled his first year in college, in 1968, and how at that time it would have been absurd and crazy to consider the possibility of a black president.

“We did do a lot of things and we did transform this country,” he said, “but this new generation is going to transform the world, thanks to tools like the internet.”

He credited the younger generation for dismissing the usual concept of “us and them” and embracing all people as “us.”

“For the first time they understand that there is no other – the other is them,” Dean said.

Governor Dean, who was Vermont’s governor for five consecutive terms, explained how the Republican Party does not get this message and has ostracized many young voters by framing campaigns around social issues, criticizing the gay community, racial minorities, immigrants, etc.

“The problem is those people are all our kids’ friends,” he said. “If you can have an economic platform that is much more attractive – focusing on spending cuts and entitlement programs, that makes sense. But if you hate their friends they aren’t going to vote for you.”

He said voters under age 35 are more conservative than democrats, somewhat libertarian but are socially much more liberal than republicans.

Governor Dean went on to talk about his role within the Democratic National Committee in coordinating the widespread grassroots campaign to elect Barack Obama in 2008.

“More people under 35 years old voted than over 65. That has never happened in my lifetime. Barack Obama was elected by young people and that was a big surprise. He is a multicultural president and kids could identify with him.”

Governor Dean said republicans were better at running campaigns than democrats – they are more organized, disciplined and better funded. That started to change that in 2004 with his presidential candidacy which eventually transformed into the advocacy nonprofit Democracy for America (formerly known as Dean for America).

However, it was the Obama campaign in 2008 that made historic changes to the way democrats campaigned. It was a well-organized widespread grassroots strategy using new technologies.

A key tool used during the 2008 and 2012 campaigns, started within the DNC by young 20-somethings as Neighbor to Neighbor, software used to connect organizers and volunteers with voters. Governor Dean stressed that internet, although helpful, is not the end.

“The internet is not a substitute for person-to-person contact,” he said. “We used the internet as an organization tool so it was easier to touch people.”

He also stressed the importance of a solid ground game that is always prepared for the unexpected, saying “change favors the prepared mind.”

Dean went on to clarify how the Obama campaign strategy included all 50 states – a strategy first implemented by Dean in his 2004 campaign – even historically republican voting states like Utah and Texas. If time isn’t spent in a place like Utah now, there will be no chance to win that state in the future.

As an example, the Governor recalled how he initially told Obama not to bother spending money in Florida because it was a lost cause. He was glad to be wrong when Florida voted democrat.

Beyond political campaigns, Governor Dean praised young people who took action using tools including Change.org to petition Bank of America to reverse their decision to charge for checking accounts.

He also credited young people for incorporating more social responsibility and ethics into business models. Dean cited how some young business owners are making it part of their mission to “do good” and preventing shareholders from suing the company if they do not maximize profits.

“We are on the verge of a revolution; in fact it’s already started,” he said. “I don’t know where it’s going yet but it’s happening through the extraordinary power of the internet and it’s all about grassroots.”

He ended with a challenge of sorts – saying what young people are struggling with now is how to institutionalize the movement without denigrating the message or diluting the innovation.

The Luskin Lecture Series is designed to enhance public discourse on topics relevant to today’s societal needs. Bringing renowned public intellectuals and scholars together with national and local leaders, the Luskin Lecture Series presents issues that are changing the way our country addresses its most pressing problems. For more information on upcoming Luskin Lecture Series events, please click here.

 

 

UP Doctoral Students Receive Rishwain Social Justice Entrepreneurship Awards Two urban planning doctoral students were recognized for their outstanding contributions to community based social entrepreneurship

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The Center for Community Partnerships has announced the winners of the first Rishwain Social Justice Entrepreneurship Award:   Urban Planning doctoral students Ava Bromberg and John Scott-Railton were recognized for their outstanding contributions to community based social entrepreneurship, serving the community in ground-breaking ways.

Ava Bromberg created a Mobile Planning Lab, a converted camper designed to take urban planning issues to low-income residents in South Los Angeles. Working with the Figueroa Corridor Coalition for Economic Justice and the United Neighbors in Defense against Displacement, she created the project “Visions for Vermont,” which helps to engage residents in land use plans by providing a mobile, neutral, and local setting for neighbors and city planners to go over models, maps and data, and to discuss the future development and growth of their communities. Her project has given a voice to residents to show city planners the concerns and comments of the neighborhood in order to create sustainable development.

Halfway across the world, in Dakar, Senegal, John Scott-Railton has been working to solve “collective action” problems in villages as they seek to deal with unseasonable rains and devastating floods that are related to climate change. Using inexpensive handheld technology, John has partnered with Senegalese universities, climate scientists and their students, non-profit organizations, and community members to apply sophisticated mapping techniques, hybridized surveys, and linked satellite mapping to the village level toward developing more effective, long-term parcel-based solutions. As Railton continues his fieldwork, he plans to redouble efforts to steer local officials towards a pilot program in which community members and the government share responsibility for mitigating flooding.

A ceremony was held in Royce Hall to honor the recipients for their social justice entrepreneurial work with opening remarks by Dean Franklin D. Gilliam Jr. of the School of Public Affairs and a keynote address by Professor Jonathan Greenblatt, Anderson School of Management.

For more details see the recent article at the website for the UCLA Newsroom.

UCLA is the most highly published institution in the area of urban studies A recent study is indicative of UCLA's leadership in the field of urban planning

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By Joe Luk

A recent study indicates that UCLA contributed the greatest number of papers to the field of urban studies over the five year period from 2004 to 2008. Based on each institution’s percentage of 5,518 papers published in Thomson Reuters-indexed urban studies journals, UCLA ranked first with 76 papers, representing 1.38 % of the field.

Following UCLA are Ohio State University with 68 papers, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill with 65, and University of Michigan with 63.   The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and UC Berkeley were tied for fifth place with 62 papers each.

This data which is indicative of UCLA’s intellectual leadership in the field, is congruent with data presented in a  2004 study published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research which ranked  the UCLA Department of Urban Planning the top urban planning department in the nation on the basis of two combined indicators: the number of citations of faculty research and the number of publications in peer-reviewed journals listed in the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI).    That study entitled “Faculty Quality at U.S. Graduate Planning Schools,” was done by Professors Deden Rukmana, Bhuiyan Alam, and Bruce Stiftel.

UP doctoral student reveals a high rate of wage theft among low-paid workers 88 percent report being paid less than minimum wage and other pay-based violations

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An alarmingly high number of Los Angeles County workers at the bottom of the labor market are the victims of “wage theft” and other workplace violations by employers, who on average deprive workers of 12.5 percent of their weekly paycheck, according to a study released today, Jan. 6, by three researchers with the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at UCLA.

Approximately 88 percent of those surveyed reported at least one instance of being paid less than the minimum wage, working overtime and not being paid for it, working off-the-clock for free, or other pay-based violations during the previous work week.

The results of a 2008 survey of 1,815 workers in the county holding such low-wage jobs as nannies, bank tellers, retail workers, garment workers, janitors and gardeners show that most of these violations are more prevalent in Los Angeles than in New York or Chicago, where similar surveys were done. Detailed, hour-long interviews were conducted with the workers who were asked to describe their previous work week.

“This is a wake-up call to the community,” said Professor Ruth Milkman, lead author and a professor of sociology at UCLA and the City University of New York Graduate Center. Ana Luz Gonzalez, a doctoral candidate in urban planning, and Victor Narro, project director at the UCLA Downtown Labor Center and a lecturer in Chicano studies, are co-authors on the study.

Read the full article on UCLA Newsroom.

Cultivating Justice: Alvaro Huerta UP’ 06 Visiting scholar Alvaro Huerta creates new type of work, where he conducts research, writes, and teaches, but also works in the community

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He’s organized a hunger strike for gardeners but he’s also written children’s stories. He’s an accomplished academic but also a passionate activist who in 2005 was honored with the Charles E. Young Humanitarian Award for creating the Gardener Leadership Development Project. Alvaro Huerta ’03, M.A. ’06 is the face of the new America, bridging the gap between scholarship and social activism, bringing to both the insights and perspective of a son of Mexican immigrants.

Huerta, currently studying city and urban planning at UC Berkeley and a visiting scholar at UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center, says his goal is to understand “how people find ways to make an honest living and collect census information of undocumented workers, to figure out how they organize and how they survive in a hostile economy.”

“He’s heading into an entirely new type of work, what I’d call an academic practitioner,” says Leo Estrada, a professor in the Department of Urban Planning, who has known Huerta for over eight years. “He conducts research, writes, and teaches, but also has a foot in the community. He’s created this new kind of entity.”

Read the full article in UCLA Magazine.

Questions for Sidewalk Scholar Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris Urban Planning professor details the importance of the urban sidewalk in new book.

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Anastasia Louaitou-Sideris

Anastasia Louaitou-Sideris

Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, a professor of urban planning and a scholar of urban design and urban history at the Luskin School of Public Affairs, has researched the uses of all kinds of public spaces, from parks to plazas. Now she and her former Ph.D. student, Renia Ehrenfeucht, have tackled a most pedestrian subject, the lowly urban sidewalk. In their new book, “Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotation over Public Space” (MIT Press, 2009), Loukaitou-Sideris and Ehrenfeucht, now an assistant professor at the University of New Orleans, track the furious battles that have been fought on sidewalks over free speech, public access and conflicting uses. They have looked into policies governing sidewalks in five cities — Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Miami and Seattle — and found reasons why some cities have a vibrant sidewalk culture and in other cities, sidewalks are devoid of life.

The following is excerpted from an interview with UCLA Newsroom.

What first intrigued you about sidewalks?

Coming from Athens, Greece, where there is a very intensive use of sidewalks, I experienced a cultural shock when I first came to this country in 1983 as a graduate student and saw that sidewalks were empty in most places. This was so much in contrast to my own life experiences. I always had this question: Why are American sidewalks empty? What happened to the pedestrians? The book really responds to these questions.

In your book, you talk about sidewalk culture. What do you mean by that?

It’s the ability of people to territorialize this public space for positive uses because they feel that it is their own. As a citizen of a city, you feel you can jog, walk your dog or use this public space for public discourse, to display wares or communicate with your neighbors. But there are many instances where our laws have discouraged this sidewalk culture from developing. Cities now require permits for many uses of this public space. And these have intensified over the last decade.

Take street vending. It’s banned in Los Angeles, even though you can still find some street vendors in many communities, especially in East L.A. But we have banned not only street vending from sidewalks, but public demonstrations and celebrations. In the book, we document how over the years this emptying of sidewalks took place through regulations and ordinances.