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Loukaitou-Sideris on Transit-Oriented Development and Displacement

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Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, interim dean of UCLA Luskin, appeared on the CitySCOPE podcast to discuss the benefits and unintended consequences of transit-oriented development. Denser development around transit hubs can help accommodate a city’s growth while meeting mobility and sustainability goals. Yet Loukaitou-Sideris’ research also shows that transforming these neighborhoods can have a negative impact on longtime residents. These risks “should be a red flag for planners and policymakers to be able to protect these neighborhoods from the risk of gentrification and displacement,” she said. Over two episodes of the podcast, Loukaitou-Sideris and research partner Karen Chapple of UC Berkeley shared findings from their book, “Transit Oriented Displacement or Community Dividends? Understanding the Effects of Smarter Growth on Communities.” They discussed topics including the heightened risk of displacement experienced by communities of color, the commercial and cultural gentrification that takes place when mom-and-pop stores lose their leases, and instances when grassroots local opposition has succeeded in holding back gentrifying forces.

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Loukaitou-Sideris on Gentrification Near Transit

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Urban Planning Professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris was featured in a Smart Cities Dive article about the growth of transit-oriented development in cities across the country. As transit ridership has declined and housing costs increase, cities have looked to mixed-use projects near bus and rail stations. This type of transit-oriented development aims to provide more housing and retail while making it easier for people to take trips on public transportation instead of by car. However, Loukaitou-Sideris pointed out that such developments sometimes replace affordable housing with luxury units where residents don’t use transit. According to her research, neighborhoods with transit stations are more likely to be gentrified than neighborhoods without. “What we are arguing is not to stop transit-oriented development because it can bring along the positives, but finding ways through policy to protect existing residents of these neighborhoods from displacement,” Loukaitou-Sideris said. She suggested anti-displacement measures such as rent control and eviction assistance for tenants.

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Loukaitou-Sideris on Signs of Gentrification in Inglewood

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Urban Planning Professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris spoke to USA Today about signs of gentrification in Inglewood since the opening of SoFi Stadium, which will host this year’s Super Bowl. Rent and home prices have surged in recent years, and corporate chains are moving in to the primarily Black and Latino city. While some local business owners are cautiously optimistic the changes will be good for the city, some community activists fear that Inglewood’s culture and character are at stake. Loukaitou-Sideris weighed in on the long-term effects of gentrification. “When you start seeing a sociodemographic group slowly disappearing, when you start seeing mom-and-pop stores that you grew up with being replaced by, let’s say, Starbucks, that is another aspect of what is happening,” she said. “People may no longer look like you — there is no longer a traditional Black or Latino neighborhood — but also the goods, the services and the stores may be different.” 

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Koslov on Managed Retreat for At-Risk Communities

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Assistant Professor of Urban Planning Liz Koslov was featured in a review of Mark Arax’s “The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California” in the Los Angeles Review of Books. “The Dreamt Land” focuses on the water dramas of the Central Valley in California, including the environmental degradation of the region and the state’s ongoing efforts to manage climatic variability such as drought and fire. Managed retreat refers to the planned unsettling of or relocation from a threatened area, which is becoming an increasingly popular idea among communities in coastal and fire-prone zones. “Retreat is a powerful and evocative word, one that signals a change in direction — something we share the need for as a society even though we do not all live in places that are immediately vulnerable,” Koslov wrote. 

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Ong Foresees Upscaling and Displacement in Crenshaw

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Paul Ong, research professor and director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, expressed his concerns about upscaling and displacement in a recent Curbed article on the community’s response to planned redevelopment in South Los Angeles’ Crenshaw district. Residents worry that the expansion of the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Mall will lead to higher housing costs, ultimately displacing low-income residents. Last year, Ong authored a study tracking economic progress in South Los Angeles over the past 50 years that found that 42 percent of renters in the region are “rent-burdened.” He predicted that the opening of the new Crenshaw Metro station will lead to a rise in housing costs in the area. “We certainly see that there are particular interests in developing that area that would lead to upscaling,” he said. The Crenshaw Subway Coalition, led by local community leaders, aims to inform residents about six major developments in the district and educate them about gentrification.

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Monkonnen on Rising Housing Costs in L.A.

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Paavo Monkkonen, associate professor of urban planning and public policy,  spoke to LAist about the root causes of homelessness in Los Angeles. Monkkonen pointed to rising housing costs exceeding income as the main contributor to homelessness. “People talk about [housing] like it’s a game of musical chairs, but I don’t think that’s really the right metaphor. Income differentials don’t matter in a game of musical chairs, but they do in this one,” Monkkonen said. Restrictive land-use policies have limited the amount of new housing available to accommodate a growing population, he said. Housing costs have increased because of a lack of supply of places to live and more high-income jobs that lead to gentrification and displacement in less affluent neighborhoods. “We’re building much less housing than we have at every other point in our history, in at least the last century or so,” he said.

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Loukaitou-Sideris and González Study Link Between Gentrification and Traffic Collisions

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Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, professor of urban planning and associate provost for academic planning at UCLA; Silvia R. González, a doctoral student and researcher at the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge; and Karen Chapple of UC Berkeley conducted a study to analyze the relationship between gentrification, traffic safety and transit-oriented development (TOD). The study, “Transit Neighborhoods, Commercial, Gentrification, and Traffic Crashes: Exploring the Linkages in Los Angeles and the Bay Area,” analyzed the number of collisions near rail stations in L.A. County and the San Francisco Bay Area in both gentrified and non-gentrified areas. The authors had hypothesized that residential and/or commercial gentrification leads to more traffic collision due to increased traffic and increased use of two or more modes of transportation, but the study did not find a significant relationship between residential gentrification and traffic safety in Los Angeles County or the Bay Area. It did, however, find that pedestrians and cyclists are at a higher risk of collision around commercially gentrified stations. Loukaitou-Sideris, González and Chapple suggest that policymakers and urban planners pay special attention to commercially gentrified areas. They conclude that “complete street strategies, traffic calming measures, protected bike lanes, controlled intersections, and other traffic safety improvements and regulations can help respond to this threat” of traffic collisions around commercially gentrified TOD stations. The study is part of an ongoing research partnership with the Urban Displacement Project, a research and action initiative at UC Berkeley.

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Loukaitou-Sideris Co-Authors New Book on Transit-Oriented Development

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A new book co-authored by Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, professor of urban planning at UCLA Luskin, takes a novel and critical look at the effects of compact development around urban transit systems. “Transit-Oriented Displacement or Community Dividends? Understanding the Effects of Smarter Growth on Communities” (MIT Press), is the work of Loukaitou-Sideris and Karen Chapple, professor of city and regional planning at UC Berkeley, who studied the “realities on the ground” surrounding the question of who wins and who loses with the creation of new transit accessibility. “Gentrification — and the often ensuing displacement — are not stable but dynamic and changing processes that are not often well captured by the collection of census data that occurs every five or 10 years,” Loukaitou-Sideris said. “We learned a lot about gentrification in specific neighborhoods — not readily obvious from census data — from interviews with community groups and from multiple visits to these neighborhoods,” she said. The authors note that, although gentrification does entail increasing land rents and housing prices, it is also about “losing the sense of place in a neighborhood that you grew up in and have lived for many years, that now looks different and serves different socio-demographic groups.” Loukaitou-Sideris said the intention of the book is not to “send the message that we need to stop building TODs and higher-density housing around transit stops, where appropriate. But we want to send a notice to planners and policymakers that they also need to enact or continue anti-displacement policies in these areas to protect existing residents from displacement.”

 

Roy on Decolonizing the University

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Ananya Roy, director of the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA Luskin, spoke to Next City about the institute’s efforts to link the university’s research and resources with social movements and racial justice activism. “We call this decolonizing the university. Turning the university inside out,” said Roy, a professor of urban planning and social welfare. Roy said the institute is not a movement itself but stands in solidarity with community residents and organizers. “They’re telling us where the gaps in knowledge are and how our research should address those gaps,” Roy said. The article mentioned the Housing Justice in Unequal Cities network launched by the institute and the Activist-in-Residence program, which creates space for activists, artists and public intellectuals.

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Gentrification and Displacement in Southern California UCLA urban planners release online mapping tool to help analyze impact of developments near Los Angeles area transit projects. The goal? ‘Progress that is fair and just’

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By Stan Paul

A team of researchers at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs has created an interactive mapping tool to help community leaders better understand the effects of new light-rail and subway projects and related developments — especially on low-income communities.

Researchers view the project as a resource to help communities and policymakers identify the pressures associated with development and figure out how to take more effective action to ensure that new construction isn’t always accompanied by current residents being priced out of their neighborhoods.

The Southern California portion of the joint UCLA-UC Berkeley Urban Displacement Project on gentrification and displacement in urban communities is available online.

“There has been a strong interest in neighborhoods around subway stations and light-rail stops,” said Paul Ong, director of UCLA Luskin’s Center for Neighborhood Knowledge and a professor of Urban Planning. “These locations have the potential for extensive private investments because transit gives people an alternative to using cars. This is particularly attractive to today’s young professionals.”

However, according to Ong, the downside to this “upscaling” is that changing the character of a neighborhood with additional transportation options can lead to lower-income disadvantaged households being pushed out.

“Sometimes, landlords aggressively — and perhaps illegally — force them out,” said Ong, who is also a member of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. “Higher rents make it difficult for low-income households to move into the neighborhood, so we see a net decline in their numbers. They are replaced by those who can afford the higher housing cost — people referred to as ‘gentrifiers.’”

Ong said that most of those who can afford higher housing costs do not purposefully want to displace people living in poorer households, “but, nonetheless, gentrifiers are a part of the larger socioeconomic process.” The goal of the Urban Displacement Project, according to the researchers, is not to stop neighborhood change because many people can benefit from these developments. “The challenge,” Ong said, “is ensuring that progress is fair and just.”

The UCLA team, funded in part by the California Air Resources Board, created a database for the Los Angeles County region that included information on demographics, socio-economic and housing characteristics in neighborhoods that are near transit projects and those that are not.

Key findings by UCLA researchers for L.A. County include:

  • Areas around transit stations are changing and many of the changes are in the direction of neighborhood upscaling and gentrification.
  • Examining changes relative to areas not near light-rail or subway projects from 2000 to 2013, neighborhoods near those forms of transit are more associated with increases in white, college-educated, higher-income households and greater increases in the cost of rents. Conversely, neighborhoods near rail development are associated with greater losses in disadvantaged populations, including individuals with less than a high school diploma and lower-income households.
  • The impacts vary across locations, but the biggest impacts seem to be around the downtown areas where transit-oriented developments interact with other interventions aiming to physically revitalize those neighborhoods.

Users of the mapping tool can examine neighborhood-level data on racial/ethnic composition, which areas have seen upscaling, gentrification, population density, percentage of people living in poverty, median household income and level of education. More specific data is also available, including the number of households with a Section 8 housing voucher and low-income housing tax credits.

“Our goal is that local and state governments will use the information to guide decisions regarding public investments that are just; community groups will use the information to help tell their stories of preserving the best parts of their neighborhood; and engaged citizens will become more aware of critical issues facing society,” Ong said.

As part of the study, the Bay Area team analyzed nine case studies and the UCLA team looked at six more in L.A. County to capture geographic diversity and to examine different stages of the gentrification and displacement process.

“Also, we want to focus in more detail on the phenomenon of commercial gentrification, which leads to the closing down of mom-and-pop stores and ethnic small businesses in some neighborhoods,” said Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, principal investigator on the Los Angeles team. Most of the existing studies focus only on residential gentrification said Loukaitou-Sideris, professor of urban planning and associate dean of the Luskin School.

For example, the UCLA team looked at studies based on the “live experiences of real communities” such as six disadvantaged neighborhoods located near Los Angeles Metro Rail stations. The also examined the impacts on Asian-American businesses near transit-oriented developments, as well as the impact of new outlets such as Wal-Mart and Starbucks on ethnic small businesses in L.A.’s Chinatown.

Loukaitou-Sideris said the researchers discovered one important difference between the strategies used by Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

“We found that Bay Area municipalities have in their books many more anti-displacement policies than municipalities in L.A. County,” she said. “However, we do not know yet how effective these policies have been in limiting displacement.”