The Employment Consequences of Alternative Transportation Technologies

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This report evaluates the employment impact of hypothesized shifts to alternative transportation systems, i.e., the trade-off between jobs and clean transportation. The results of the study show that the direct and indirect employment effects of shifting to alternative automotive technologies vary according to which technology is considered: the electric car, the super fuel-efficient vehicle, the hybrid, the alternate fuel vehicle (such as ethanol, methanol, propane, and methane gas), or mass transit systems. 


Our optimistic findings about the employment generation potential of mass transit, and the potential of maintaining current employment levels with alternative automotive technologies, must be understood within the context of these larger structural trends. Transportation planners at UCLA suggest that the most viable future transportation systems would incorporate a variety of mass transit systems, such as carpools, vanpools, shared ride taxis, jitney services, local buses and employer operated buspools. Buses are less expensive than rail systems, and because they are more operations-intensive, rather than capital-intensive, they generate more employment.


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The social ecology of acculturation

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Johnson, M. A. (2007). The social ecology of acculturation: Implications for child welfare services to children of immigrants. Children and Youth Services Review, 29(11), 1426-1438.

The Integrating (and Segregating) Effect of Charter, Magnet, and Traditional Elementary Schools: The Case of Five California Metropolitan Areas

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For most children the racial composition of their neighborhood determines the racial composition of their school. Segregated housing patterns translate into a highly segregated educational system, which can then result in disparities in educational opportunities and an institutionalized mechanism for the reproduction of racial inequality. To better understand the extent to which the racial composition of charter and magnet schools deviates from their neighborhood composition, we analyze public elementary schools in five California metropolitan. Our findings suggest that individual schools can expose children to a more racially integrated or segregated educational environment than their local neighborhood. Magnet schools, on average, provide students with a more integrated environment than the local neighborhood, while charter schools provide a more segregated environment.

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The Public Financing of Affordable Housing in the 21st Century: A Case Study of California’s Tax-exempt Bond Program and How It Serves California’s Most Populous County

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Housing is one of the most important assets to any city or region. Without decent housing, children do not learn, parents cannot hold down jobs, and the physical health of families cannot be maintained. However, as housing markets have boomed, more and more families are shut out of the housing market. For low-income families, this does not simply mean the inability to buy a home. It means the inability to rent a basic apartment. This problem is exacerbated in the urban areas of America where low-income families congregate because of proximity to jobs and services, but where land is scarce and home values are particularly high.

This report examines the government financing of affordable housing in one of the nation’s most robust housing markets: Los Angeles County. California subsidizes the production of affordable multi-family housing through a combination of stateadministered federal programs, voter-approved bonds, and local subsidies. One of the largest sources of funds for affordable housing production in California is tax-exempt bonds. The California Debt Limit Allocation Committee (CDLAC) allocates approximately $1.5 billion per year in tax-exempt bonds for affordable rental housing through the Qualified Residential Rental Projects bond pool. These bonds are used to finance the production of mixed-income and 100% affordable multi-family rental housing. This report examines how these bonds have been utilized in the past and how the bonds have met the need for affordable housing in Los Angeles County, the State’s most populous county.

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