Gary Orfield

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Gary Orfield is Distinguished Research Professor of Education, Law, Political Science and Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research interests are in the study of civil rights, education policy, urban policy, and minority opportunity.

He was co-founder and director of the Harvard Civil Rights Project, and now serves as co-director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA.

His central interest has been the development and implementation of social policy, particularly the impact of policy on equal opportunity for success in American society.

Orfield is a member of the National Academy of Education and has received numerous awards, including the Teachers College Medal, Social Justice Award of the AERA, the American Political Science Association Charles Merriam Award for his “contribution to the art of government through the application of social science research,” and honorary PhDs.

Orfield’s research includes 12 co-authored or co-edited books since 2004 and scores of articles and reports. In addition to scholarly work, he has served as expert witness or special master in more than three dozen class action civil rights cases, on school desegregation, housing discrimination and other issues, and as consultant to many school districts, federal, state and local governments, civil rights and teachers organizations. He and various collaborators have organized amicus briefs to the Supreme Court on the major school and affirmative action decisions over the last two decades.

Published books include:

  • The Walls Around College Opportunity: The Failure of Colorblind Policy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, (forthcoming 2022).
  • Accountability and Opportunity in Higher Education, ed. (with N. Hillman), Cambridge: Harvard Education Press, 2018.
  • Discrimination in Elite Public Schools: Investigating Buffalo, ed. (with J. Ayscue), New York: Teachers College Press, 2018.
  • Educational Delusions? Why Choice can Deepen Inequality and How to Make Schools Fair (with E. Frankenberg), Berkeley: University of California Press (2013)
  • The Resegregation of Suburban Schools: A Hidden Crisis in American Education (with E. Frankenberg), Cambridge: Harvard Education Press (2012)
  • Lessons In Integration: Realizing the Promise of Racial Diversity in America’s Public Schools (with E. Frankenberg), Charlottesville: UVA Press (2008)
  • Twenty-First Century Color Lines (with Andrew Grant-Thomas), Philadelphia: Temple University Press (2009)
  • Expanding Opportunity in Higher Education (with P. Gandara and C. Horn), Albany: SUNY Press (2006)
  • Latino Educational Opportunity: New Directions for Community Colleges, 133 (2) (with C. Horn and S. Flores), San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Wiley (2006)
  • School Resegregation: Must the South Turn Back? (with John Boger), Chapel Hill: UNC Press (2005)
  • Higher Education and the Color Line (with P. Marin and C. Horn), Cambridge: Harvard Education Press (2005)
  • Dropouts in America: Confronting the Graduation Rate Crisis, Cambridge: Harvard Education Press (2004)
  • Religion Race and Justice in a Changing America, ed. (with H. Lebowitz), Century Foundation Press, 1999
  • Dismantling Desegregation: The Quiet Reversal of Brown v. Board of Education. New Press, 1996
  • The Closing Door: Conservative Policy and Black Opportunity (with C. Ashkinaze), Univ. of Chicago Press, 1991
  • Must We Bus? Segregated Schools and National Policy, Brookings Insitute, 1978.
  • Congressional Power: Congress and Social Change, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975.

Robin Liggett

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Before retiring, Professor Liggett held a joint appointment between the Department of Architecture in the School of the Arts and Architecture and the Department of Urban Planning in the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA where she taught courses in quantitative methods and computer applications in Architecture and Urban Planning.

Professor Liggett received her PhD and MS in Operations Research from the UCLA Graduate School of Management and a BA in Mathematics from Pomona College.

Professor Liggett continues to participate in a number of research projects related to Transportation Planning and Computer-Aided Design. Her most recent projects include the evaluation of multi-modal street performance measures, predictors of bicycle and pedestrian crashes, and the development of computer tools for analysis of the energy implications of climate on the design of buildings.

 

SELECTED BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS

The Geography of Transit Crime. Documentation and Evaluation of Crime Incidence on and around the Green Line Stations in Los Angeles
Loukaitou-Sideres, A., Liggett, R., and Iseki, H., Journal of Planning Education and Research 22, 2002, pp. 135-161.

Very Simple Design Tools: A Web Based Assistant for the Design of Climate Responsive Buildings
La Roche, P., and Liggett, R., Architectural Science Review, Vol. 44, December 2001, pp. 437-448.

Journeys to Crime: Assessing the Effects of a Light Rail on Crime in the Neighborhoods
Liggett, R., Loukaitou-Sideres, A., and Iseki, H., Journal of Public Transportation, Vol. 6, No. 3, 2003, pp. 85-115.
Protecting Against Transit Crime: The Importance of the Built Environment
Liggett, Robin, Loukaitou-Sideris, Anastasia and Iseki, Hiroyuki, in Daniel J. B. Mitchell (ed.), California Policy Options 2004, UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research and The Ralph and Goldy Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, January 2004, pp. 139-156.

Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris

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Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris is Interim Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, a former Associate Dean, a Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning, and a core faculty member of the UCLA Urban Humanities Initiative.

Professor Loukaitou-Sideris’ research focuses on the public environment of the city, its physical representation, aesthetics, social meaning and impact on the urban resident. Her work seeks to integrate social and physical issues in urban planning and architecture. An underlying theme of her work is its “user focus”; that is, she seeks to analyze and understand the built environment from the perspective of those who live and work there. Dr. Loukaitou-Sideris’ research includes documentation and analysis of the social and physical changes that have occurred in the public realm; cultural determinants of design and planning and their implications for public policy; quality-of-life issues for inner city residents; transit security, urban design, land use, and transportation issues.

Recent and ongoing projects, funded in part by the U.S. and California Departments of Transportation, The California Department of Recreation and Parks, the Mellon Foundation, the Haynes Foundation, the Gilbert Foundation, and the Mineta Transportation Institute, include: documentation of varying patterns of use of neighborhood parks among different ethnic groups; proposals for the physical and economic retrofit of inner city commercial corridors, examination of gentrification and displacement in transit station neighborhoods, sexual harassment in transit environments, studies of transit security, and planning for parklets.

She has served as a consultant to the Transportation Research Board, Federal Highway Administration, Los Angeles Metro, Southern California Association of Governments, South Bay Cities Council of Government, Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative, Project for Public Spaces, the Greek Government, and many municipal governments on issues of urban design, open space development, land use and transportation, and she has been commissioned to author research papers by the National Academies and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Dr. Loukaitou-Sideris is the author of numerous articles, the co-author of the books Urban Design Downtown: Poetics and Politics of Form (University of California Press, 1998), Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space (MIT Press, 2009), Transit-Oriented Displacement or Community Divided? (MIT Press, 2019), and Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City (MIT Press 2020); and the co-editor of the books Jobs and Economic Development in Minority Communities (Temple University Press, 2006), Companion to Urban Design (Routledge, 2011), The Informal American City: Beyond Taco Trucks and Day Labor (MIT Press, 2014),  New Companion to Urban Design (Routledge, 2019), and Transit Crime and Sexual Violence in Cities: International Evidence and Prevention .

BOOKS

Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City.
Cuff, D., Loukaitou-Sideris, A., Presner, T., Zubiaurre, M., and Crisman, J., MIT Press (2020).

Transit Crime and Sexual Violence in Cities: International Evidence and Prevention
Ceccato, V., Loukaitou-Sideris, A., Routledge (2020).

Transit Oriented Displacement or Community Dividends?
Chapple, K., Loukaitou-Sideris, A., MIT Press (2019).

The New Companion to Urban Design
Banerjee, T., Loukaitou-Sideris, A., Routledge (2019).

“The Informal American City: Beyond Taco Trucks and Day Labor”
Edited by Vinit Mukhija and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris. (MIT Press 2014)

Companion to Urban Design
Banerjee, T. and Loukaitou-Sideris, A. (Eds.)
New York and London: Routledge (2011).

Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space
Loukaitou-Sideris, A. and Ehrenfeucht, R., MIT Press (2009).

Jobs and Economic Development in Minority Communities
Ong, P. and Loukaitou-Sideris, A. (Eds.) Temple University Press (2006).

Urban Design Downtown: Poetics and Politics of Form
Loukaitou-Sideris, A. and Banerjee, T., University of California Press (1998).

Lois Takahashi

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UCLA Luskin professor emeritus Takahashi’s research focuses on public and social service delivery to vulnerable populations in the U.S. and in Southeast Asian cities. Her expertise spans several issues, including homelessness and HIV/AIDS in Los Angeles, community opposition directed at social services (the NIMBY syndrome) in the U.S., social capital and health for vulnerable populations, and environmental governance in the U.S. and Southeast Asian cities.

She has been investigating the dynamics of social capital, especially related to health in impoverished and marginalized communities. Her environmental governance research (with her collaborators Amrita Daniere and Jeffrey Carpenter) has investigated the role of low-income residents and non-governmental organizations in environmental management and policy making in Bangkok, Thailand and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

She is a past Director of the University of California Asian American and Pacific Islander Policy Multicampus Research Program (UC AAPI Policy MRP), where she worked with state elected officials and community organizations to develop policy relevant studies that highlight areas of importance for California’s AAPI population. Recent reports have focused on educational disparities and victimization/incarceration patterns.

She has served as president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning.

She taught courses on Planning Theory and History, Locational Conflict; Homelessness: Housing and Social Service Issues and Urban Policy and Planning.

Takahashi served as interim dean during the time that a search was underway for a permanent successor to Frank D. Gilliam, Jr.

Brian D. Taylor

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Brian Taylor is Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy and a Research Fellow in the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA.

Professor Taylor’s research centers on transportation policy and planning – most of it conducted in close collaboration with his many exceptional students. His students have won dozens of national awards for their work, and today hold positions at the highest levels of planning analysis, teaching, and practice.

Professor Taylor explores how society pays for transportation systems and how these systems in turn serve the needs of people who – because of low income, disability, location, or age – have lower levels of mobility. Topically, his research examines travel behavior, transportation economics & finance, and politics & planning.

His research on travel behavior has examined (1) the social, economic, and spatial factors explaining public transit use, (2) ways to cost-effectively increase public transit use, (3) how and why travel patterns vary by race/ethnicity, sex, age, and income, (4) the emerging travel patterns teens and young adults, (5) gender divisions of household labor and travel, (6) the effect of travel experience on how people perceive opportunities, (7) the role of walking, waiting, and transferring on travel choices, and (8) the equity implications of new shared mobility systems.

A principal focus of his research is the politics of transportation economics & finance, including (1) alternative ways to evaluate the access and economic effects of traffic congestion on people, firms, and regional economies, (2) the history of freeway planning and finance, (3) emerging trends in pricing road use, (4) the equity of alternative forms of transportation pricing and finance, (5) linking of subsidies to public transit performance, and (6) measuring equity in public transit pricing and finance.

The politics of planning practice inform Professor Taylor’s teaching, which regularly includes courses on Transportation and Land Use: Urban Form, Public Transit and Shared Mobility, Transportation Economics, Finance, and Policy, courses in research design for planners, and, occasionally, the Comparative International Transportation Workshop. Prior to joining the UCLA faculty, Professor Taylor was a planning faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and before that he was a planner with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Some recent publications (current and former student co-authors listed in italics)

Cities, Roads, & Congestion

Taylor, Brian D., Eric A. Morris, and Jeffrey R. Brown. 2023. The Drive for Dollars: How Fiscal Politics Shaped Urban Freeways and Transformed American Cities. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 360 pages.

Venegas, Kimberly, Brian D. Taylor, Severin Martinez, and Yu Hong Hwang. 2023. “Take the High (Volume) Road: Analyzing the Safety and Speed Effects of High Traffic Volume Road Diets,” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, published online.

Ding, Hao and Brian D. Taylor. 2021. “Traffic Trumps All: Examining the Effect of Traffic Impact Analyses on Urban Housing,” Journal of Planning Literature, published online.

Taylor, Brian D. and Yu Hong Hwang.  2020.  “The Eighty-Five Percent Solution: A Historical Look at Crowdsourcing Speed Limits and the Question of Safety” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board,2674(9):  346-357.

Osman, Taner, Trevor Thomas, Andrew Mondschein, and Brian D. Taylor.  2018.  “Does Traffic Congestion Influence the Location of New Business Establishments? An Analysis of the San Francisco Bay Area,” Urban Studies, 56(5):  1026-1041.

Thomas, Trevor, Andrew Mondschein, Taner Osman, and Brian D. Taylor.  2018.  “Not so fast? Examining neighborhood level effects of traffic congestion on job access,” Transportation Research, Part A: Policy and Practice, 113:  529-541.

Mondschein, Andrew and Brian D. Taylor.  2017.  “Is traffic congestion overrated? Examining the highly variable effects of congestion on travel and accessibility,” Journal of Transport Geography, 64: 65-76.

Public Transit & Shared Mobility

Schouten, Andrew, Evelyn Blumenberg, Brian D. Taylor. 2024. “Are immigrants migrating away from transit? Immigrant transit use trends in California.“ Travel Behaviour and Society 36, 100817

Wasserman, Jacob, John Gahbauer, Fariba Siddiq, Hannah King, Hao Ding, and Brian D. Taylor.  2023.  Financing the Future: Examining the Fiscal Landscape of California Public Transit in the Wake of the Pandemic, Research Report.  Los Angeles:  UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies.  98 pages

Gahbauer, John, Jacob L. Wasserman, Juan Matute, Alejandra Rios, and Brian D. Taylor.  2024. “Using a Modified Delphi Approach to Explore California’s Possible Transportation and Land Use Futures,” Transportation Research Record:  Journal of the Transportation Research Board

Wasserman, Jacob and Brian D. Taylor.  2023.  “State of the BART:  Analyzing the Determinants of Bay Area Rapid Transit Use in the 2010s,” Transportation Research, Part A:  Policy and Practice, 172: 103663.

King, Hannah, Jacob Wasserman, and Brian D. Taylor. 2023. “Terra Incognita:  Transit Agency Perspectives on Demand, Service, and Finance in the Age of COVID-19,” Transportation Research Record:  Journal of the Transportation Research Board.

Dai, Tianxing and Brian D. Taylor.  2022.  “Three’s a Crowd? Examining Evolving Public Transit Crowding Standards Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic Public Transport” Public Transport, Published online.

Speroni, Samuel, Brian D. Taylor, and Yu Hong Hwang.  2022.  “Pandemic Transit:  A National Look at the Shock, Adaptation, and Prospects for Recovery,” in Pandemic in The Metropolis: Transportation Impacts and Recovery. Basingstoke, United Kingdom:  Springer Nature.

Transportation Equity

Siddiq, Fariba and Brian D. Taylor. Forthcoming.  “A Gendered Perspective on Ride-Hail Use in Los Angeles, USA,” Transportation Research, Interdisciplinary Perspectives.

Dasmalchi, Eric and Brian D. Taylor.  2022.  “Examining Shifts in the Balance of Riders and Bus Service Before and During the Pandemic in Boston, Houston, and Los Angeles,” Findings, April.

Paul, Julene and Brian D. Taylor.  2022.  “Pandemic transit: Examining transit use changes and equity implications in Boston, Houston, and Los Angeles,” Transportation, published online.

Lederman, Jaimee, Anne Brown, Brian D. Taylor, and Martin Wachs.  2018.  “Arguing over Transportation Sales Taxes: An Analysis of Equity Debates in Transportation Ballot Measures,” Urban Affairs Review, 56(2):  640-670.

Smart, Michael J., Anne Brown, and Brian D. Taylor.  2017.  “Sex or Sexuality? Analyzing the Division of Labor and Travel in Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Households,” Travel Behaviour and Society, 6(2017): 75-82.

Taylor, Brian D. and Eric A. Morris. 2015. “Public transportation objectives and rider demographics: Are transit’s priorities poor public policy?” Transportation, 42(2): 347-367.

Transportation, Land Use, & Urban Form

Gahbauer, John, Jacob L. Wasserman, Juan Matute, Alejandra Rios, and Brian D. Taylor.  Forthcoming.  “Using a Modified Delphi Approach to Explore California’s Possible Transportation and Land Use Futures,” Transportation Research Record:  Journal of the Transportation Research Board.

Siddiq, Fariba and Brian D. Taylor.  2021.  “Tools of the Trade? Assessing the Progress of Accessibility Measures for Planning Practice,” Journal of the American Planning Association, 87(4):  497-511.

Paul, Julene and Brian D. Taylor.  2021. “Who Lives in Transit-friendly Neighborhoods?  An Analysis of California Neighborhoods over Time,” Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 10:  100341.

Blumenberg, Evelyn, Anne Brown, Kelcie Ralph, Brian D. Taylor, and Carole Turley Voulgaris.  2019.  “A resurgence in urban living? Trends in residential location patterns of young and older adults since 2000,” Urban Geography, 40(9):  1375-1397.

Voulgaris, Carole Turley, Brian D. Taylor, Evelyn Blumenberg, Anne Brown, and Kelcie Ralph.  2017.  “Synergistic Neighborhood Relationships with Travel Behavior: An Analysis of Travel in 30,000 U.S.  Neighborhoods,” , 10(1):  437-461.

Ralph, Kelcie, Carole Turley Voulgaris, Anne Brown, Evelyn Blumenberg, and Brian D. Taylor.  2016.  “Millennials, built form, and travel: Insights from a nationwide typology of U.S. neighborhoods,” Journal of Transport Geography, 57: 218–226.

Transportation Policy & Finance

King, Hannah, Jacob Wasserman, and Brian D. Taylor.  2023.  “Terra Incognita: Transit Agency Perspectives on Demand, Service, and Finance in the Age of COVID-19,” Transportation Research Record:  Journal of the Transportation Research Board, published online.

Siddiq, Fariba, Jacob Wasserman, Brian D. Taylor, and Samuel Speroni. 2023. “Transit’s Financial Prognosis: Findings from a Survey of U.S. Transit Systems during the COVID-19 Pandemic” Public Works Management & Policy, 28(4): 393-415.

Siddiq, Fariba, Jacob Wasserman, Brian D. Taylor, and Samuel Speroni.  2023.  “Transit’s Financial Prognosis:  Findings from a Survey of U.S. Transit Systems during the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Public Works Management & Policy.

King, Hannah, Natalie Amberg, Jacob L. Wasserman, Brian D. Taylor, and Martin Wachs. 2022. “LOST and Found: The Fall and Rise of Local Option Sales Taxes for Transportation in California amidst the Pandemic,” Pandemic in The Metropolis: Transportation Impacts and Recovery. Basingstoke, United Kingdom:  Springer Nature.

Brown, Anne, Jaimee Lederman, Brian D. Taylor, and Martin Wachs.  2020. “Analyzing voter support for California’s local option sales taxes for transportation,” Transportation, 48:  2103-2125.

Lederman, Jaimee, Anne Brown, Brian D. Taylor, and Martin Wachs.  2018.  “Lessons Learned from 40 Years of Local Option Transportation Sales Taxes in California,” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2672(4): 13-22.

Travel Behavior

Morris, Eric, Samuel Speroni, and Brian D. Taylor. Forthcoming. “Going Nowhere Faster: Did the COVID-19 Pandemic Accelerate the Trend Toward Staying at Home?” Journal of the American Planning Association.

Morris, Eric A., Samuel Speroni, and Brian D. Taylor.  2023.  “Going Nowhere Fast:  Are Changing Activity Patterns Behind Falling Personal Travel?” Journal of Transport Geography, published online.

Manville, Michael, Brian D. Taylor, Evelyn Blumenberg, and Andrew Schouten.  2022.  “Vehicle access and falling transit ridership: evidence from Southern California,” Transportation, published online.

Schouten, Andrew, Brian D. Taylor, and Evelyn Blumenberg.  2021. “Who’s on Board?  Examining the Changing Characteristics of Transit Riders Using Latent Profile Analysis,” ,” Transportation Research Record:  Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2675(7):  1-10.

Schouten, Andrew, Evelyn Blumenberg, and Brian D. Taylor.  2021.  “Rating the Composition: Deconstructing the Demand-Side Effects on Transit Use Changes in California,” Travel Behaviour & Society, 25:  18-26.

Turley, Carole Voulgaris, Michael J. Smart, and Brian D. Taylor.  2017.  “Tired of Commuting? Relationships among Journeys to School, Sleep, and Exercise among American Teenagers,” Journal of Planning Education and Research, 39(2):  142-154.

 

Chris Tilly

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Chris Tilly studies labor markets, inequality, urban development, and public policies directed toward better jobs.

He is particularly interested in understanding how combinations of institutions and markets generate unequal labor outcomes, and in how public policy and collective action can successfully be directed toward improving and equalizing such outcomes. Within this framework, Professor Tilly has examined part-time and contingent work, gender and racial disparities, job mobility, and other issues.

While continuing to conduct research on workplace issues in the United States, Professor Tilly has increasingly undertaken comparative research on countries including Brazil, China, India, Korea, Mexico, and South Africa, along with several European countries.  His areas of greatest expertise are the United States, Mexico, and Latin America.

In addition to conducting scholarly research, he served for 20 years (1986-2006) as a coeditor of Dollars and Sense, a popular economics magazine, and frequently conducts research for advocacy groups, community organizations, and labor unions. He served on the Program Committee and later the Board of Directors of Grassroots International from 1991-2003, ending that time as the Chair of the Board.

Before becoming an academic, he spent eight years doing community and labor organizing.

PAPERS AND PUBLICATIONS

Abel Valenzuela

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Abel Valenzuela Jr. is the dean of UCLA’s Division of Social Sciences and professor of Labor Studies, Urban Planning and Chicana/o and Central American Studies. A member of UCLA’s faculty since 1994, Valenzuela has held several administrative leadership positions including chairing Chicana/o and Central American Studies, directing the Center for the Study of Urban Poverty and most recently serving as special advisor to the chancellor on immigration policy and as director of UCLA’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE).

During his tenure as director of IRLE, Valenzuela oversaw multiple units: Labor Studies, the Labor Center, the Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program (LOSH) and the Human Resources Round Table (HARRT), which are dedicated to advancing research, teaching and service on labor and employment issues in Los Angeles and beyond.

As one of the leading national experts on day labor, he has published numerous articles and technical reports on the subject. His research interests include precarious labor markets, worker centers, immigrant workers and Los Angeles.

In addition to the topic of day labor, Valenzuela has published numerous articles on immigrant settlement, labor market outcomes, urban poverty and inequality, and he continues to frame national public and policy conversations on immigrant and low-wage workers.

Valenzuela was born and raised in Los Angeles and currently lives in Venice Beach with his wife and three sons.

 

Selected Publications

Paul Apostolidis and Abel Valenzuela Jr.  2014.  “Cosmopolitan Politics and the Migrant Day Labor Movement.”  Politics, Groups, and Identities.  Vol. 2(2):222-244.

Valenzuela Jr., A.  2014.  “Regulating Day Labor: Worker Centers and Organizing in the Informal Economy.”  In The Informal City: Settings, Strategies, Responses (Eds) Vinit Mukhija and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sidris.  Cambridge, MA:  MIT Press.  Pgs 261-276.

Bostic, R.W., A. M. Kim, and A. Valenzuela Jr. 2016.  Guest Co-editors.  Symposium: Contesting the Streets.  Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research. Volume 18, Number 1: Pgs, 3-122.

Theodore, N., D. Blaauw, C. Schenck, A. Valenzuela Jr., C. Schoeman, E. Melendez.  2015.  “Day Labor, Informality and Vulnerability in South Africa and the United States.”  International Journal of Manpower.  Vol. 36 No. 6: 1-18.

Areas of Expertise: economy, jobs low-wage workers, day labor, immigration, urban poverty, urban planning, inequality

Leobardo Estrada

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Leo Estrada passed away on Nov. 3, 2018. A memoriam to his life and career published on the occasion of his June 2018 retirement can be found here.

Professor Estrada’s areas of expertise included ethnic and racial demographic trends, particularly in the Latino population of the southwestern United States, inner city redevelopment, and social policy analysis and research methods.

He twice had been asked to provide his knowledge on methodologies related to ethnic and racial groups to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, serving as Special Assistant to the Chief of the Population Division and as Staff Assistant to the Deputy Director.

He  participated in numerous national studies, including an evaluation of the U.S. Standard of Live Birth for the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics.

His areas of interest were (1) ethnic communities—Latino American; (2) geographic information systems; and (3) race and ethnicity. He taught courses on Planning for Minority Communities and Geographic Information Systems.

SELECTED BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS

The Dynamic Demographic Mosaic Called America: Implications for Education
Estrada, L. “The Dynamic Demographic Mosaic Called America: Implications for Education,” Education and Urban Society 25, no. 3 (1993).

The Changing Profile of Mexican America, A Sourcebook for Policy Makers
Estrada, L. The Changing Profile of Mexican America, A Sourcebook for Policy Makers. Claremont, CA: Tomas Rivera Center, 1986.

The Politics of the Census: A Reflection of the Dilemmas in U.S. Society
Estrada, L. “The Politics of the Census: A Reflection of the Dilemmas in U.S. Society,” Proceedings of the Joint Canada-United States Conference on Measurement of Ethnicity. Washington, DC: GPO, September, 1993

Eric Avila

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Eric Avila’s research interests include (1) History: 20th century, United States, urban, cultural, History of Los Angeles and the U.S. West, historiography; (2) Ethnic Studies: Chicano Studies, race and racialization, spatial segregation, identity formation, Ethnic Communities – Latino American; and (3) Architecture and urban planning: built environment studies, Los Angeles/Southern California.

His research has won various awards and prizes, including the recent inclusion of his article, “Popular Culture in the Age of the White Flight: Film Noir Disneyland, and the Cold War (Sub)Urban Imaginary” published in the Journal of Urban History, within a new publication by the Organization of American Historians featuring the ten best articles in American history written between the summers of 2005 and 2005. He has begun research for a book entitled, The Folklore of the Freeway: A Cultural History of Highway Construction.

SELECTED BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS

The Chicano Studies Reader: An Anthology of Aztlán
Noriega, Chon, Avila, Eric, Sandoval, Chela, Pérez Torres, and Dávalos, Mary Karen, 2001, The Chicano Studies Reader: An Anthology of Aztlán, 1970-2000 (Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center).

Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles
Avila, Eric, 2004, Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles (University of California Press).

Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Film Noir, Disneyland and the Cold War (Sub)Urban Imaginary
Avila, Eric, 2004, “Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Film Noir, Disneyland and the Cold War (Sub)Urban Imaginary,” Journal of Urban History (Sage Publications).

Evelyn Blumenberg

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Evelyn Blumenberg is the Director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies and an Urban Planning professor within the Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Her research examines the effects of urban structure — the spatial location of residents, employment, and services — on economic outcomes for low-wage workers, and on the role of planning and policy in shaping the spatial structure of cities.

Professor Blumenberg’s recent projects include analyses of trends in transit ridership, gender and travel behavior, low-wage workers and the changing commute, and the relationship between automobile ownership and employment outcomes among the poor.

Professor Blumenberg was honored in 2014 as a White House Champion of Change for her research on the links between transportation access, employment, and poverty.

Professor Blumenberg holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in urban planning from the University of California, Los Angeles.

She teaches courses on planning history and theory, research design, poverty and inequality, transportation and poverty, and urban policy.

RECENT WORK

Journal Articles

  1. Blumenberg, Evelyn, Fariba Siddiq, Samuel Speroni, and Jacob Wasserman (2024). “Putting Automobile Debt on the Map: Race and the Geography of Automobile Debt in California,” Transportation Research Part A, 19: 104230. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2024.104230
  2. Blumenberg, Evelyn, Fariba Siddiq, Samuel Speroni, and Jacob Wasserman (2024).  “Driving A-loan: Automobile Debt, Neighborhood Race, and the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Transport Policy, 155: 321-330. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2024.07.007
  3. Schouten, Andrew and Evelyn Blumenberg (2024).  “License to Drive: The Effect of State Driver’s Licensing Laws on the Travel of Unauthorized Immigrants,” Transportation Research Part A, 187: 104163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2024.104163
  4. Blumenberg, Evelyn and Samuel Speroni (2024).  “Employment Concentration, Dispersion, and the Changing Commute in the San Francisco Bay Area,” The Journal of Transport and Land Use, 17(1): 625-646. https://doi.org/10.5198/jtlu.2024.2456 
  5. Schouten, Andrew, Evelyn Blumenberg, and Brian D. Taylor (2024).  “Are Immigrants Migrating Away from Transit?  Immigrant Transit Use Trends in California,” Travel Behaviour and Society, 36, July.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tbs.2024.100817
  6. Yao, Zhiyuan, Evelyn Blumenberg, Madeline Wander (2024).  “Sex Differences in Child Care Travel,” Findings, April 9. https://doi.org/10.32866/001c.115790
  7. Blumenberg, Evelyn and Hannah King (2024, April).  “Young Workers, Jobs-Housing Balance, and Commute Distance: Findings from Two High-Housing-Cost U.S. regions,” Cities.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2024.104842 
  8. Blumenberg, Evelyn, Madeline Wander, and Zhiyuan Yao (2024).  “Decisions and Distance:  The Relationship between Child Care Access and Child Care Travel,” Journal of Transport Geography, 114.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2023.103756
  9. Giamarino, Chris, Evelyn Blumenberg, and Madeline Brozen (2024). “Who Lives in Vehicles and Why? Understanding Vehicular Homelessness in Los Angeles,” Housing Policy Debate.  34(1):  25-38.  https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2022.2117990 
  10. Paul, Julene, Miriam Pinski, Madeline Brozen, and Evelyn Blumenberg (2023).  “Can Subsidized Carshare Programs Enhance Access for Low-Income Travelers?”  Journal of the American Planning Association. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2023.2268064