Category: For Faculty
Source: https://luskin.ucla.edu/news/for-faculty
Archived: 2026-04-23 17:26
Category: For Faculty
Archive for category: For Faculty
Former U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler brought a message of resiliency and resolve to more than 400 scholars, students, community leaders, and elected officials who came together at UCLA last week to take on California’s most entrenched problems.
“Too many Californians, too many Angelenos, are not OK,” Butler told the crowd gathered for the eighth annual
UCLA Luskin Summit
on April 15. But she added, “The people in this room, the communities that you serve, have already proven that change is possible. …
“I keep returning to this one thing that sustains me: It’s that hope is not a joyful feeling. Hope, UCLA, is hard work.”
Butler, who served as a labor leader, political advisor and UC regent before joining the U.S. Senate in 2023 to complete the term of the late Dianne Feinstein, delivered the keynote address following a morning centered on strengthening resilience and equity at the local level.
Sharing Research and Solutions
Researchers from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs teamed up with difference-makers in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to share the latest advances in four areas of concern:
California’s housing strategy, including the state’s new zoning rules aimed at making shelter more affordable
Environmental health and justice, including the impact of extreme heat as L.A. hosts a series of mega-events, and the toll plastic pollution takes on vulnerable communities
Transportation security, including new strategies for elevating security, trust, and comfort among public transit riders
Socioeconomic vulnerability, including strategies to bridge intergenerational inequities, and regulatory tools that can be used to promote more inclusive growth
Launched in 2019, the UCLA Luskin Summit provides a bridge between academia, policymakers, and civil society, with the goal of finding evidence-based solutions to California’s most pressing concerns. This year’s gathering highlighted recent research from the
UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation
,
UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies
,
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
, and departments of
Public Policy
,
Social Welfare
, and
Urban Planning
.
Master of Urban Planning student O’Philia Le said she chose to attend the summit to learn how UCLA Luskin research is put into practice in the world.
“A key takeaway for me was that large-scale racial justice and global environmental impacts really start with local solutions. However, those solutions don’t just happen on their own,” she said.
“They require political pressure, community engagement, and an intentional push to actually move forward. As an aspiring planner, I believe that this is key to the work that we do.”
From left, ABC7’s Josh Haskell, Miguel Santana of the California Community Foundation, and Zev Yaroslavsky of UCLA Luskin’s Los Angeles Initiative review results from the 2026 Quality of Life Index. Photo by Michael Troxell
Quality of Life Index Reveals Growing Strain
The summit also hosted the release of this year’s
UCLA Quality of Life Index
(QLI), a project of the Luskin School’s Los Angeles Initiative, directed by
Zev Yaroslavsky
. The survey found that Los Angeles County residents’ satisfaction with their lives has hit the lowest level in the QLI’s 11-year history.
“We’ve been through a lot in the last five years: COVID; punishing increases in the cost of living; last year’s catastrophic fires, the worst natural disaster in the history of this city; tariffs; and this year the destabilizing implementation of the Trump administration’s immigration sweeps, which started right here in our own back yard,” he said. “All of these have taken their toll on virtually every aspect of our lives in every part of our region.”
Cost of living continues to be the single biggest driver of residents’ quality of life, though its rating declined from 2025, according to the survey. Among the 1,400 Los Angeles County residents polled in March, housing affordability remained the dominant concern, while rising costs for utilities, groceries, and taxes were cited more frequently than in prior years.
Ratings fell across nearly every category compared with last year, with six areas reaching their lowest levels since the survey began in 2016: education, transportation and traffic, jobs and the economy, public safety, neighborhood conditions, and relations among different races, ethnicities, and religions.
A Call to Action for the Next Generation
In her remarks, Butler also addressed the sobering results of the QLI.
“Every year the Quality of Life Index holds up a mirror to Los Angeles County,” she said. “And every year, it asks us to be brave enough to look in that mirror.”
She stressed, however, that “alongside every data point of strain, there’s a counter story, one that doesn’t get enough attention — the story that happens when people organize, when coalitions hold, when accountability is real.”
To the service-minded students in the room, she issued a call to action, echoing the summit’s theme of empowering local communities. Some of them would go to Washington and some to Sacramento, where they are desperately needed, she said.
“But some of you — hear me — need to go to places that don’t make headlines. To neighborhoods where the data actually lives, to communities where the stakes are immediate, not to study them but to be accountable to them. …
“The communities most impacted by vulnerability are also most engaged in building solutions. … Survival demands participation.”
UCLA Luskin professor Veronica Herrera introduces a session on plastic pollution before a standing-room-only audience. Photo by Mary Braswell
View more photos from the 2026 UCLA Luskin Summit on Flickr.
This
f
all,
the UCLA Luskin School of Public
Affairs welcomes two new assistant professors to its Department of Public Policy: Isaac Opper and Carlo Medici. Both scholars are economists who use empirical research and data-driven methods to explore policy-relevant questions that shape education, labor markets, and public institutions.
“We are excited to have recruited two extremely talented economists who we expect will not only contribute to scholarly research but also contribute to informing policy,” says
Robert Fairlie
, professor and chair of the public policy department. “They are both studying topics of utmost relevance. Students in our program and more broadly at UCLA will benefit from their expertise in microeconomics, statistics, and policy topics around immigration, labor, education, and other topics.”
Isaac Opper
, an applied microeconomist, focuses on education policy and the statistical methods used to evaluate its effectiveness. “My largest body of work studies how education policy can be designed to improve student outcomes,” he said. This year, he will teach required statistics courses for both undergraduate Public Affairs and Master of Public Policy students. Opper added that he’s eager to “move from evaluating specific policy interventions to thinking more broadly about public policy,” continuing a career devoted to evidence-based reform.
Carlo Medici
, whose expertise spans labor economics, political economy, and economic history, studies the interaction between immigration, labor markets, and institutions. “I’m especially looking forward to working with colleagues and students who are passionate about how institutions and policies shape the economy,” Medici said. His research draws on both contemporary and historical data to illuminate the roots of modern policy challenges.
Vote16USA
—a leading national organization working to extend voting rights to 16- and 17-year-olds—hosted its largest-ever National Convening in partnership with the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs on August 5-6. The two-day event brought together youth organizers, educators, policymakers, researchers and community leaders from across the nation to reflect, strategize and mobilize around the movement to lower the voting age in local, state and federal elections.
The convening focused on strategic collaboration, hands-on workshops, and discussions about youth civic engagement and the future of American democracy. Panels featured youth organizers from Albany, San Francisco, and Oakland who shared insights into their successful local campaigns. Linh Le, an Oakland youth organizer, recounted the journey of Measure QQ—a 2020 ballot initiative that successfully lowered the voting age for Oakland school board elections to 16.
“This convening is really about bringing together all our youth organizers to reflect, learn best practices, and develop strategies for a strong 2026 campaign,” said LaJuan Allen, Executive Director of Vote16USA. “We’re laying the groundwork for ballot questions up and down the state of California and beyond. Young people want to be engaged. When you think about climate justice reform, common sense gun legislation, education policy, it is the young people at the forefront of these movements.”
Throughout the convening, small group sessions and breakout workshops offered participants practical tools for grassroots organizing, media engagement, and public policy advocacy. From mastering persuasive op-ed writing to crafting effective digital mobilization strategies, attendees honed their skills to strengthen local campaigns. Roundtable discussions fostered regional collaboration and action planning, ensuring that momentum from the convening would translate into real progress.
“The movement to lower the voting age is building across the U.S. and internationally, and this convening is happening at a pivotal moment, when more teenagers across the US and elsewhere are gaining rights to vote,” said Laura Wray-Lake, Professor of Social Welfare at UCLA Luskin. “The Vote16USA national convening will offer inspiration and tangible next steps for how to strengthen democracy by bringing more young people into the process.”
“The Vote16USA National Convening is a powerful testament to the innovation and resilience that youth bring to our democracy,” said Allen. “We are deeply grateful to the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs for hosting us and creating space for this movement to grow.”
An
article published in the Los Angeles Times
quotes Edith de Guzman, a climate researcher at UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation, highlighting how rising temperatures are undermining students’ ability to learn—particularly in underserved communities. A comprehensive review, analyzing data from 14.5 million students across 61 countries, found that heat exposure reduces cognitive performance, especially in complex subjects like math. Even moderately warm days, between 80 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, impair students’ attention, memory, and focus.
Heat doesn’t affect all students equally. Black, Latino, and low-income students experience up to three to four times more learning loss from heat exposure compared to white and affluent peers. This disparity is largely due to inequalities in infrastructure—many under-resourced schools lack adequate air conditioning, shade, or green space, making classrooms unbearably hot during warmer months.
“As classroom temperatures rise over time — especially during extended heat waves or in schools with less shade, poorer insulation and lacking access to air conditioning — students tend to show declines in attention, memory and test performance,” said Edith de Guzman, a climate researcher at
UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation
. Heat can also affect students’ abilities to enjoy outdoor recreational activities, having serious effects on their physical, mental and social well-being, she said.
The study also found that these effects are cumulative, with heat exposure throughout the school year having a greater impact on learning than just exam-day temperatures. Simple solutions—such as air conditioning, improved ventilation, and increasing tree canopy around schools—can dramatically reduce heat-related learning loss. However, many schools lack the funding to implement these upgrades.
The newest
BGI report reveals striking insights for Indonesia
, which faces complex governance dynamics as an archipelagic state and the country with the largest global Muslim population. Achieving full democratization proves a challenge for Indonesia, with the BGI report revealing a decline in democratic accountability. State capacity measures appear to remain stagnant, despite the country experiencing significant economic growth. However, this trend is not uncommon to its Southeast Asian neighbors- illustrating that Indonesia must continue to invest its economic gains in state capacity. Public goods provision has significantly increased, but the country’s complex regional governance system may prove a challenge to maintaining these gains. As Indonesia accelerates its development, it must face these challenges head-on– struggles which have been amplified due to authoritarian tendencies, crippling regional inequality, geopolitical challenges, and struggles with trade diversification as it emerges as a leader on the global stage.
Read the full report here.
by Peaches Chung
If you’ve ever been stuck in gridlock traffic on the 405 or circled the block looking for parking in L.A., you’ve experienced the kinds of problems
Michael Manville
has spent years researching and trying to solve. As professor and chair of urban planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, Manville is reshaping how we think about transportation and housing in a sprawling city like Los Angeles and turning his research into real-world impact.
At the center of Manville’s transportation research is a deceptively simple idea: the way we price things matters and how we price things shapes how we use them.
” Driving costs less than it should, because the full social costs of driving, like congestion, pollution, infrastructure wear, aren’t reflected in what we pay to use our roads.”
“Driving is too cheap, and housing is too expensive,” he says. “Driving isn’t cheap in the absolute sense of the word ‘cheap’ because cars aren’t cheap and gas isn’t free, but in the sense that it costs less than it should, because the full social costs of driving, like congestion, pollution, infrastructure wear, aren’t reflected in what we pay to use our roads.” The price of housing, meanwhile, is driven up by restrictive land-use policies that limit supply.
Manville’s first introduction into urban planning began in a newsroom while covering transportation and housing topics as a local reporter. When the newspaper he worked for went bankrupt, he joined the local planning commission. Eager to turn his newfound passion into a career, he enrolled in the urban planning master’s degree program at UCLA and after a summer as a research assistant, decided to pursue a Ph.D. Today, he leads the department that jumpstarted his second career.
Building on the groundbreaking work of his mentor Donald Shoup, former UCLA urban planning professor and pioneer in parking reform who famously argued that free or underpriced parking distorts urban development, Manville and many other experts in the field have expanded this logic more broadly, emphasizing that it’s not just parking that’s mispriced, it’s also the roads themselves.
One proven strategy to address this is congestion pricing, a transportation policy that charges drivers a fee to use certain roads during peak traffic times. A controversial idea that has gained some traction in recent years, the goal primarily is to improve traffic flow and lower pollution, although it can also generate revenue for public transit and infrastructure.
It’s the idea that using roads during peak times should come with a price, just like electricity or water. “We meter every other government-owned utility,” Manville explains, “but not roads.” “It’s the only system that we don’t charge prices for, and it’s not a coincidence that it’s the only system that colossally breaks down about two times a day.” Manville argues that the same basic principle we apply to everything else in our economy, pricing goods and services based on demand, should also apply to road usage.
“
We meter every other government-owned utility, but not our roads. It’s the only system that we don’t charge prices for, and it’s not a coincidence that it’s the only system that colossally breaks down about two times a day.”
Cities like Singapore prove it can work. In Singapore, dynamic tolling keeps traffic flowing at 45–55 mph even in a city as densely populated as San Francisco. Manville argues that Los Angeles could reap similar benefits if it embraced the idea. “We’ve normalized the dysfunction of our transportation system,” he says. “But there’s nothing inherently fair about free roads, or unfair about charging for their use.”
For Manville, reimagining cities isn’t just about policy; it’s about turning research into practical, real-world implementation. At UCLA Luskin, he says, that happens through teaching the next generation of planners, working directly with policymakers, and ensuring research is more accessible to community members. “The biggest impact we can have,” he explains, “is making sure our students leave with the ability to weigh tradeoffs—not chase perfect solutions.”
When asked what he hopes for the next generation of urban planners who will be tasked to solve some of the most complicated issues our cities face today, Manville had some wisdom from his own experience as a young planner.
“I came to UCLA convinced there were a bunch of right answers,” he reflects. “But the biggest lesson I’ve learned, and hope to pass on, is that progress comes from understanding the nuance and complexity of the issues we hope to solve. In a city as vast and diverse as L.A., differing perspectives are inevitable and real change begins with listening, especially to those you may not agree with.”
According to a new
MSN report
based on Consumer Affairs data, Washington, D.C. now ranks as the city with the worst traffic in the U.S., overtaking Los Angeles.The average commute time in D.C. is 33.4 minutes, edging out L.A., which now holds the No. 2 spot. While Los Angeles still leads in total weekday congestion hours (7 hours and 51 minutes), D.C. follows closely with 6 hours and 35 minutes.
Experts suggest that increased congestion may indicate a thriving economy. Professor and chair of the urban planning department Michael Manville explains that areas with economic opportunity attract more residents, and keeps current residents because of opportunities.
“Because we don’t do anything to regulate access, the roads in an area with a booming economy become overloaded and congested,” Manville added.
The exact causes of D.C.’s worsening traffic remain uncertain but could include a return to office mandates under recent federal policies. In contrast, cities with the least traffic include Rochester, Salt Lake City, Cleveland, Hartford, and St. Louis.
Dr. Minjee Kim, assistant professor of urban planning at UCLA Luskin, was featured on the
Building Better Cities podcast in the episode titled “Who Rebuilds LA? Planning Post-Fire Recovery with Dr. Minjee Kim.”
In the wake of the devastating LA wildfires, Kim presents this disaster as an opportunity to rethink how cities rebuild with long-term resiliency in mind. “The L.A. fires presented the opportunity to think large scale,” she says. “I see the Los Angeles fires that happened as an opportunity to think about urban planning and development in the long term… in terms of resiliency and fire resiliency, but also in terms of what is a good sustainable form of urban development.”
In conversation with host Kate Gasparro, Kim discusses how post-disaster recovery can serve as a launchpad for long-term, equitable urban planning—if supported by the right governance structures. Drawing from her research and experience advising the L.A. County Blue Ribbon Commission on post-fire recovery, she explores potential models for regional redevelopment agencies, citing examples from San Francisco, New York City, and Cincinnati.
Listen to the podcast here.
Dr. Minjee Kim
, assistant professor of urban planning, was featured in CNBC’s “Why Americans Keep Moving Into Gated Communities,” which aired on July 18. The segment explores the growing trend of Americans choosing to live behind gates and walls, driven largely by a desire for safety, stability, and control in uncertain times.
Kim highlights that gated communities are often marketed not just as secure, but as exclusive and desirable. “The whole point of creating HOAs and possibly gating, is to create that location premium,” she explains. “You are essentially creating this marketing that this place is a desirable place to live. You’re paying a premium to live in a homogenous environment.”
While residents may be drawn by the promise of safety and order, the broader societal impacts are more complex. Gated communities can deepen economic and racial segregation, divert resources away from public infrastructure, and contribute to social fragmentation by isolating residents from the wider civic community.
Watch the full feature here.
Los Angeles faces a growing challenge: heat. Record-breaking temperatures, combined with inadequate shade, are making it harder to walk to school, wait for a bus or play sports. Today,
ShadeLA
launches as a public campaign to raise awareness, spur action and create collaborations that will work to expand tree canopy and shade infrastructure while leaving a safer, more climate-resilient Los Angeles.
ShadeLA is led by
USC Dornsife Public Exchange
in collaboration with
UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation,
with participation by the city of Los Angeles, the county’s Chief Sustainability Office, LA Metro and the Los Angeles Organizing Committee for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, or LA28. The world will be watching Los Angeles over the next three years as the region hosts global sporting events like the 2026 FIFA World Cup and Super Bowl LXI, culminating with the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. ShadeLA plans to leverage this unique window of attention and investments to expand access to shade around communities that need it most, as well as Olympic venue sites and other shade deserts — areas lacking adequate shade — in Los Angeles’ most heat-vulnerable neighborhoods.
ShadeLA is structured around four goals, each rooted in research, policy and community engagement:
Expand shade through design competitions, new shade concepts and pilot projects
Preserve and maintain shade through tree maintenance toolkits and stewardship models
Guide the placement of new infrastructure using shade mapping, planning and other tools
Inform and mobilize people through community shade planning events, story campaigns and toolkits for residents, businesses and schools
“ShadeLA is a powerful example of how UCLA research and collaborations lead to real-world impact,” said UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk. “This project will greatly benefit communities across Los Angeles — and with the eyes of the world turning to our city in the lead-up to 2028, we have a unique opportunity to showcase what inclusive climate action can achieve.”
The campaign is powered by a growing
list of community collaborators
leading on-the-ground shade projects that help ensure solutions are locally driven and responsive to neighborhood priorities.
“For years, USC Dornsife Public Exchange has been leading the way on sustainable urban forestry. Now, we’re proud to be spearheading ShadeLA, an important initiative that leverages our cutting-edge research to improve quality of life for all of us in Los Angeles,” USC interim President Beong-Soo Kim said.
Heat is the
largest weather-related killer
facing Los Angeles, especially its vulnerable populations. A key solution: shade. It is one of the most effective, low-cost ways to reduce heat risk. Whether from a tree, canopy, awning or bus shelter, shaded areas can drop the “feels-like” temperature by
35 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit (or 20 to 40 degrees Celsius).
It is simple, scalable and can be integrated into everyday spaces where people live, learn, work and play.
Los Angeles County has less shade than the national average. Urbanized areas of the county have an average of 21% shade at noon compared with the national average of 27%, according to the Luskin Center for Innovation’s national
Shade Map,
which is part of American Forests’ Tree Equity Score.
“We’re at a critical juncture as L.A. gets hotter, and we are thrilled to partner with USC to lead with evidence and to collectively envision a livable future for our region,” said Edith de Guzman, water and adaptation policy cooperative extension specialist at the Luskin Center for Innovation.
“ShadeLA is about more than trees and structures — it’s about people,” said Monica Dean, climate and sustainability practice director at USC Dornsife Public Exchange. “This campaign addresses heat not just as an environmental issue, but as a public health, infrastructure and community challenge.”
LA28 has pledged to weave shade planning and heat mitigation measures into its planning processes.
“LA28 is committed to incorporating sustainable solutions throughout the Games footprint,” said Becky Dale, vice president of sustainability at LA28. “ShadeLA supports not only keeping spectators cool during the Games, but also leaving a legacy of a cooler, greener Los Angeles for all Angelenos.”
By expanding shade in coordination with local communities, USC and UCLA aim to model collaborative climate action while creating safer, healthier public spaces for decades to come.
The article was originally published on UCLA Newsroom.
Read the full article here.
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Archive for category: For Faculty
Former U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler brought a message of resiliency and resolve to more than 400 scholars, students, community leaders, and elected officials who came together at UCLA last week to take on California’s most entrenched problems.
“Too many Californians, too many Angelenos, are not OK,” Butler told the crowd gathered for the eighth annual
UCLA Luskin Summit
on April 15. But she added, “The people in this room, the communities that you serve, have already proven that change is possible. …
“I keep returning to this one thing that sustains me: It’s that hope is not a joyful feeling. Hope, UCLA, is hard work.”
Butler, who served as a labor leader, political advisor and UC regent before joining the U.S. Senate in 2023 to complete the term of the late Dianne Feinstein, delivered the keynote address following a morning centered on strengthening resilience and equity at the local level.
Sharing Research and Solutions
Researchers from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs teamed up with difference-makers in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to share the latest advances in four areas of concern:
California’s housing strategy, including the state’s new zoning rules aimed at making shelter more affordable
Environmental health and justice, including the impact of extreme heat as L.A. hosts a series of mega-events, and the toll plastic pollution takes on vulnerable communities
Transportation security, including new strategies for elevating security, trust, and comfort among public transit riders
Socioeconomic vulnerability, including strategies to bridge intergenerational inequities, and regulatory tools that can be used to promote more inclusive growth
Launched in 2019, the UCLA Luskin Summit provides a bridge between academia, policymakers, and civil society, with the goal of finding evidence-based solutions to California’s most pressing concerns. This year’s gathering highlighted recent research from the
UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation
,
UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies
,
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
, and departments of
Public Policy
,
Social Welfare
, and
Urban Planning
.
Master of Urban Planning student O’Philia Le said she chose to attend the summit to learn how UCLA Luskin research is put into practice in the world.
“A key takeaway for me was that large-scale racial justice and global environmental impacts really start with local solutions. However, those solutions don’t just happen on their own,” she said.
“They require political pressure, community engagement, and an intentional push to actually move forward. As an aspiring planner, I believe that this is key to the work that we do.”
From left, ABC7’s Josh Haskell, Miguel Santana of the California Community Foundation, and Zev Yaroslavsky of UCLA Luskin’s Los Angeles Initiative review results from the 2026 Quality of Life Index. Photo by Michael Troxell
Quality of Life Index Reveals Growing Strain
The summit also hosted the release of this year’s
UCLA Quality of Life Index
(QLI), a project of the Luskin School’s Los Angeles Initiative, directed by
Zev Yaroslavsky
. The survey found that Los Angeles County residents’ satisfaction with their lives has hit the lowest level in the QLI’s 11-year history.
“We’ve been through a lot in the last five years: COVID; punishing increases in the cost of living; last year’s catastrophic fires, the worst natural disaster in the history of this city; tariffs; and this year the destabilizing implementation of the Trump administration’s immigration sweeps, which started right here in our own back yard,” he said. “All of these have taken their toll on virtually every aspect of our lives in every part of our region.”
Cost of living continues to be the single biggest driver of residents’ quality of life, though its rating declined from 2025, according to the survey. Among the 1,400 Los Angeles County residents polled in March, housing affordability remained the dominant concern, while rising costs for utilities, groceries, and taxes were cited more frequently than in prior years.
Ratings fell across nearly every category compared with last year, with six areas reaching their lowest levels since the survey began in 2016: education, transportation and traffic, jobs and the economy, public safety, neighborhood conditions, and relations among different races, ethnicities, and religions.
A Call to Action for the Next Generation
In her remarks, Butler also addressed the sobering results of the QLI.
“Every year the Quality of Life Index holds up a mirror to Los Angeles County,” she said. “And every year, it asks us to be brave enough to look in that mirror.”
She stressed, however, that “alongside every data point of strain, there’s a counter story, one that doesn’t get enough attention — the story that happens when people organize, when coalitions hold, when accountability is real.”
To the service-minded students in the room, she issued a call to action, echoing the summit’s theme of empowering local communities. Some of them would go to Washington and some to Sacramento, where they are desperately needed, she said.
“But some of you — hear me — need to go to places that don’t make headlines. To neighborhoods where the data actually lives, to communities where the stakes are immediate, not to study them but to be accountable to them. …
“The communities most impacted by vulnerability are also most engaged in building solutions. … Survival demands participation.”
UCLA Luskin professor Veronica Herrera introduces a session on plastic pollution before a standing-room-only audience. Photo by Mary Braswell
View more photos from the 2026 UCLA Luskin Summit on Flickr.
This
f
all,
the UCLA Luskin School of Public
Affairs welcomes two new assistant professors to its Department of Public Policy: Isaac Opper and Carlo Medici. Both scholars are economists who use empirical research and data-driven methods to explore policy-relevant questions that shape education, labor markets, and public institutions.
“We are excited to have recruited two extremely talented economists who we expect will not only contribute to scholarly research but also contribute to informing policy,” says
Robert Fairlie
, professor and chair of the public policy department. “They are both studying topics of utmost relevance. Students in our program and more broadly at UCLA will benefit from their expertise in microeconomics, statistics, and policy topics around immigration, labor, education, and other topics.”
Isaac Opper
, an applied microeconomist, focuses on education policy and the statistical methods used to evaluate its effectiveness. “My largest body of work studies how education policy can be designed to improve student outcomes,” he said. This year, he will teach required statistics courses for both undergraduate Public Affairs and Master of Public Policy students. Opper added that he’s eager to “move from evaluating specific policy interventions to thinking more broadly about public policy,” continuing a career devoted to evidence-based reform.
Carlo Medici
, whose expertise spans labor economics, political economy, and economic history, studies the interaction between immigration, labor markets, and institutions. “I’m especially looking forward to working with colleagues and students who are passionate about how institutions and policies shape the economy,” Medici said. His research draws on both contemporary and historical data to illuminate the roots of modern policy challenges.
Vote16USA
—a leading national organization working to extend voting rights to 16- and 17-year-olds—hosted its largest-ever National Convening in partnership with the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs on August 5-6. The two-day event brought together youth organizers, educators, policymakers, researchers and community leaders from across the nation to reflect, strategize and mobilize around the movement to lower the voting age in local, state and federal elections.
The convening focused on strategic collaboration, hands-on workshops, and discussions about youth civic engagement and the future of American democracy. Panels featured youth organizers from Albany, San Francisco, and Oakland who shared insights into their successful local campaigns. Linh Le, an Oakland youth organizer, recounted the journey of Measure QQ—a 2020 ballot initiative that successfully lowered the voting age for Oakland school board elections to 16.
“This convening is really about bringing together all our youth organizers to reflect, learn best practices, and develop strategies for a strong 2026 campaign,” said LaJuan Allen, Executive Director of Vote16USA. “We’re laying the groundwork for ballot questions up and down the state of California and beyond. Young people want to be engaged. When you think about climate justice reform, common sense gun legislation, education policy, it is the young people at the forefront of these movements.”
Throughout the convening, small group sessions and breakout workshops offered participants practical tools for grassroots organizing, media engagement, and public policy advocacy. From mastering persuasive op-ed writing to crafting effective digital mobilization strategies, attendees honed their skills to strengthen local campaigns. Roundtable discussions fostered regional collaboration and action planning, ensuring that momentum from the convening would translate into real progress.
“The movement to lower the voting age is building across the U.S. and internationally, and this convening is happening at a pivotal moment, when more teenagers across the US and elsewhere are gaining rights to vote,” said Laura Wray-Lake, Professor of Social Welfare at UCLA Luskin. “The Vote16USA national convening will offer inspiration and tangible next steps for how to strengthen democracy by bringing more young people into the process.”
“The Vote16USA National Convening is a powerful testament to the innovation and resilience that youth bring to our democracy,” said Allen. “We are deeply grateful to the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs for hosting us and creating space for this movement to grow.”
An
article published in the Los Angeles Times
quotes Edith de Guzman, a climate researcher at UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation, highlighting how rising temperatures are undermining students’ ability to learn—particularly in underserved communities. A comprehensive review, analyzing data from 14.5 million students across 61 countries, found that heat exposure reduces cognitive performance, especially in complex subjects like math. Even moderately warm days, between 80 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, impair students’ attention, memory, and focus.
Heat doesn’t affect all students equally. Black, Latino, and low-income students experience up to three to four times more learning loss from heat exposure compared to white and affluent peers. This disparity is largely due to inequalities in infrastructure—many under-resourced schools lack adequate air conditioning, shade, or green space, making classrooms unbearably hot during warmer months.
“As classroom temperatures rise over time — especially during extended heat waves or in schools with less shade, poorer insulation and lacking access to air conditioning — students tend to show declines in attention, memory and test performance,” said Edith de Guzman, a climate researcher at
UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation
. Heat can also affect students’ abilities to enjoy outdoor recreational activities, having serious effects on their physical, mental and social well-being, she said.
The study also found that these effects are cumulative, with heat exposure throughout the school year having a greater impact on learning than just exam-day temperatures. Simple solutions—such as air conditioning, improved ventilation, and increasing tree canopy around schools—can dramatically reduce heat-related learning loss. However, many schools lack the funding to implement these upgrades.
The newest
BGI report reveals striking insights for Indonesia
, which faces complex governance dynamics as an archipelagic state and the country with the largest global Muslim population. Achieving full democratization proves a challenge for Indonesia, with the BGI report revealing a decline in democratic accountability. State capacity measures appear to remain stagnant, despite the country experiencing significant economic growth. However, this trend is not uncommon to its Southeast Asian neighbors- illustrating that Indonesia must continue to invest its economic gains in state capacity. Public goods provision has significantly increased, but the country’s complex regional governance system may prove a challenge to maintaining these gains. As Indonesia accelerates its development, it must face these challenges head-on– struggles which have been amplified due to authoritarian tendencies, crippling regional inequality, geopolitical challenges, and struggles with trade diversification as it emerges as a leader on the global stage.
Read the full report here.
by Peaches Chung
If you’ve ever been stuck in gridlock traffic on the 405 or circled the block looking for parking in L.A., you’ve experienced the kinds of problems
Michael Manville
has spent years researching and trying to solve. As professor and chair of urban planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, Manville is reshaping how we think about transportation and housing in a sprawling city like Los Angeles and turning his research into real-world impact.
At the center of Manville’s transportation research is a deceptively simple idea: the way we price things matters and how we price things shapes how we use them.
” Driving costs less than it should, because the full social costs of driving, like congestion, pollution, infrastructure wear, aren’t reflected in what we pay to use our roads.”
“Driving is too cheap, and housing is too expensive,” he says. “Driving isn’t cheap in the absolute sense of the word ‘cheap’ because cars aren’t cheap and gas isn’t free, but in the sense that it costs less than it should, because the full social costs of driving, like congestion, pollution, infrastructure wear, aren’t reflected in what we pay to use our roads.” The price of housing, meanwhile, is driven up by restrictive land-use policies that limit supply.
Manville’s first introduction into urban planning began in a newsroom while covering transportation and housing topics as a local reporter. When the newspaper he worked for went bankrupt, he joined the local planning commission. Eager to turn his newfound passion into a career, he enrolled in the urban planning master’s degree program at UCLA and after a summer as a research assistant, decided to pursue a Ph.D. Today, he leads the department that jumpstarted his second career.
Building on the groundbreaking work of his mentor Donald Shoup, former UCLA urban planning professor and pioneer in parking reform who famously argued that free or underpriced parking distorts urban development, Manville and many other experts in the field have expanded this logic more broadly, emphasizing that it’s not just parking that’s mispriced, it’s also the roads themselves.
One proven strategy to address this is congestion pricing, a transportation policy that charges drivers a fee to use certain roads during peak traffic times. A controversial idea that has gained some traction in recent years, the goal primarily is to improve traffic flow and lower pollution, although it can also generate revenue for public transit and infrastructure.
It’s the idea that using roads during peak times should come with a price, just like electricity or water. “We meter every other government-owned utility,” Manville explains, “but not roads.” “It’s the only system that we don’t charge prices for, and it’s not a coincidence that it’s the only system that colossally breaks down about two times a day.” Manville argues that the same basic principle we apply to everything else in our economy, pricing goods and services based on demand, should also apply to road usage.
“
We meter every other government-owned utility, but not our roads. It’s the only system that we don’t charge prices for, and it’s not a coincidence that it’s the only system that colossally breaks down about two times a day.”
Cities like Singapore prove it can work. In Singapore, dynamic tolling keeps traffic flowing at 45–55 mph even in a city as densely populated as San Francisco. Manville argues that Los Angeles could reap similar benefits if it embraced the idea. “We’ve normalized the dysfunction of our transportation system,” he says. “But there’s nothing inherently fair about free roads, or unfair about charging for their use.”
For Manville, reimagining cities isn’t just about policy; it’s about turning research into practical, real-world implementation. At UCLA Luskin, he says, that happens through teaching the next generation of planners, working directly with policymakers, and ensuring research is more accessible to community members. “The biggest impact we can have,” he explains, “is making sure our students leave with the ability to weigh tradeoffs—not chase perfect solutions.”
When asked what he hopes for the next generation of urban planners who will be tasked to solve some of the most complicated issues our cities face today, Manville had some wisdom from his own experience as a young planner.
“I came to UCLA convinced there were a bunch of right answers,” he reflects. “But the biggest lesson I’ve learned, and hope to pass on, is that progress comes from understanding the nuance and complexity of the issues we hope to solve. In a city as vast and diverse as L.A., differing perspectives are inevitable and real change begins with listening, especially to those you may not agree with.”
According to a new
MSN report
based on Consumer Affairs data, Washington, D.C. now ranks as the city with the worst traffic in the U.S., overtaking Los Angeles.The average commute time in D.C. is 33.4 minutes, edging out L.A., which now holds the No. 2 spot. While Los Angeles still leads in total weekday congestion hours (7 hours and 51 minutes), D.C. follows closely with 6 hours and 35 minutes.
Experts suggest that increased congestion may indicate a thriving economy. Professor and chair of the urban planning department Michael Manville explains that areas with economic opportunity attract more residents, and keeps current residents because of opportunities.
“Because we don’t do anything to regulate access, the roads in an area with a booming economy become overloaded and congested,” Manville added.
The exact causes of D.C.’s worsening traffic remain uncertain but could include a return to office mandates under recent federal policies. In contrast, cities with the least traffic include Rochester, Salt Lake City, Cleveland, Hartford, and St. Louis.
Dr. Minjee Kim, assistant professor of urban planning at UCLA Luskin, was featured on the
Building Better Cities podcast in the episode titled “Who Rebuilds LA? Planning Post-Fire Recovery with Dr. Minjee Kim.”
In the wake of the devastating LA wildfires, Kim presents this disaster as an opportunity to rethink how cities rebuild with long-term resiliency in mind. “The L.A. fires presented the opportunity to think large scale,” she says. “I see the Los Angeles fires that happened as an opportunity to think about urban planning and development in the long term… in terms of resiliency and fire resiliency, but also in terms of what is a good sustainable form of urban development.”
In conversation with host Kate Gasparro, Kim discusses how post-disaster recovery can serve as a launchpad for long-term, equitable urban planning—if supported by the right governance structures. Drawing from her research and experience advising the L.A. County Blue Ribbon Commission on post-fire recovery, she explores potential models for regional redevelopment agencies, citing examples from San Francisco, New York City, and Cincinnati.
Listen to the podcast here.
Dr. Minjee Kim
, assistant professor of urban planning, was featured in CNBC’s “Why Americans Keep Moving Into Gated Communities,” which aired on July 18. The segment explores the growing trend of Americans choosing to live behind gates and walls, driven largely by a desire for safety, stability, and control in uncertain times.
Kim highlights that gated communities are often marketed not just as secure, but as exclusive and desirable. “The whole point of creating HOAs and possibly gating, is to create that location premium,” she explains. “You are essentially creating this marketing that this place is a desirable place to live. You’re paying a premium to live in a homogenous environment.”
While residents may be drawn by the promise of safety and order, the broader societal impacts are more complex. Gated communities can deepen economic and racial segregation, divert resources away from public infrastructure, and contribute to social fragmentation by isolating residents from the wider civic community.
Watch the full feature here.
Los Angeles faces a growing challenge: heat. Record-breaking temperatures, combined with inadequate shade, are making it harder to walk to school, wait for a bus or play sports. Today,
ShadeLA
launches as a public campaign to raise awareness, spur action and create collaborations that will work to expand tree canopy and shade infrastructure while leaving a safer, more climate-resilient Los Angeles.
ShadeLA is led by
USC Dornsife Public Exchange
in collaboration with
UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation,
with participation by the city of Los Angeles, the county’s Chief Sustainability Office, LA Metro and the Los Angeles Organizing Committee for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, or LA28. The world will be watching Los Angeles over the next three years as the region hosts global sporting events like the 2026 FIFA World Cup and Super Bowl LXI, culminating with the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. ShadeLA plans to leverage this unique window of attention and investments to expand access to shade around communities that need it most, as well as Olympic venue sites and other shade deserts — areas lacking adequate shade — in Los Angeles’ most heat-vulnerable neighborhoods.
ShadeLA is structured around four goals, each rooted in research, policy and community engagement:
Expand shade through design competitions, new shade concepts and pilot projects
Preserve and maintain shade through tree maintenance toolkits and stewardship models
Guide the placement of new infrastructure using shade mapping, planning and other tools
Inform and mobilize people through community shade planning events, story campaigns and toolkits for residents, businesses and schools
“ShadeLA is a powerful example of how UCLA research and collaborations lead to real-world impact,” said UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk. “This project will greatly benefit communities across Los Angeles — and with the eyes of the world turning to our city in the lead-up to 2028, we have a unique opportunity to showcase what inclusive climate action can achieve.”
The campaign is powered by a growing
list of community collaborators
leading on-the-ground shade projects that help ensure solutions are locally driven and responsive to neighborhood priorities.
“For years, USC Dornsife Public Exchange has been leading the way on sustainable urban forestry. Now, we’re proud to be spearheading ShadeLA, an important initiative that leverages our cutting-edge research to improve quality of life for all of us in Los Angeles,” USC interim President Beong-Soo Kim said.
Heat is the
largest weather-related killer
facing Los Angeles, especially its vulnerable populations. A key solution: shade. It is one of the most effective, low-cost ways to reduce heat risk. Whether from a tree, canopy, awning or bus shelter, shaded areas can drop the “feels-like” temperature by
35 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit (or 20 to 40 degrees Celsius).
It is simple, scalable and can be integrated into everyday spaces where people live, learn, work and play.
Los Angeles County has less shade than the national average. Urbanized areas of the county have an average of 21% shade at noon compared with the national average of 27%, according to the Luskin Center for Innovation’s national
Shade Map,
which is part of American Forests’ Tree Equity Score.
“We’re at a critical juncture as L.A. gets hotter, and we are thrilled to partner with USC to lead with evidence and to collectively envision a livable future for our region,” said Edith de Guzman, water and adaptation policy cooperative extension specialist at the Luskin Center for Innovation.
“ShadeLA is about more than trees and structures — it’s about people,” said Monica Dean, climate and sustainability practice director at USC Dornsife Public Exchange. “This campaign addresses heat not just as an environmental issue, but as a public health, infrastructure and community challenge.”
LA28 has pledged to weave shade planning and heat mitigation measures into its planning processes.
“LA28 is committed to incorporating sustainable solutions throughout the Games footprint,” said Becky Dale, vice president of sustainability at LA28. “ShadeLA supports not only keeping spectators cool during the Games, but also leaving a legacy of a cooler, greener Los Angeles for all Angelenos.”
By expanding shade in coordination with local communities, USC and UCLA aim to model collaborative climate action while creating safer, healthier public spaces for decades to come.
The article was originally published on UCLA Newsroom.
Read the full article here.
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