Luskin Forum Spring 2012

luskinforumA PUBLICATION OF THE UCLA MEYER AND RENEE LUSKIN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

22 Faculty ProFile

Michael Lens on Crime

and Subsidized Housing

24 alumni ProFile

Sarah MacPherson,

Queen of the Alley

29 PeoPle

Faculty, Students and

Alumni in the News

32 SuPPort

New Rosenfield Fellowship

Program Launches

SPRINg 2012

19 Informal CitiesWith UCLA Luskin Urban Planning’s Vinit Mukhija

LUSKIN FORUM | SPRINg 2012

2 ON THE COVER Urban Planning Associate Professor Vinit Mukhija

2 MILESTONES � Former Dean Barbara Nelson Retires from Luskin Faculty

� Faculty Transitions

� President Clinton Speaks at UCLA

5 FINDINgS � Housing Voucher Recipients Moving to Suburbs

� L.A. Human Services Nonprofits Struggling in Recession

� A Study of Inequality in California

� Jorja Leap’s Book Examines L.A. gangs

9 RECAP � Eric Avila on Zócalo Public Square Panel

� Charles Ogletree Opens UCLA Luskin Lecture Series

� The growing Demand for Water in Southern California

� Bringing Solar Energy to L.A.

� Complete Streets for California Conference 2012

19 FEATURES �Cover Story: Exploring Informal Cities with UP’s Vinit Mukhija

�Faculty Profile: Michael Lens on Crime and Subsidized Housing

�Alumni Profile: Sarah MacPherson, Queen of the Alley

� Student Profile: Carter Rubin, Planning is his Passion

� Luskin Students Study Tsunami Reconstruction in Japan

29 PEOPLE � News, Notes and Accolades From Faculty, Students and Alumni

32 SUPPORT � New Rosenfield Fellowship Program Launches

� Luskin Legacy

table of contents9

11

15

Dean Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr.

EDitorS Genevieve Haines, Bill Parent, Stan Paul

ContributorS Bill Parent, Stan Paul, Robin Heffler, Judy Lin, Jessica Nazar, Lindsey Miller, Alison Hewitt, Ayala Ben-Yehuda, Colleen Callahan, Alex Boekelheide

PhotoGraPhy Rick Schmitt, Todd Cheney, Reed Hutchinson, Stan Paul, Gary Leonard, , Stefanie Keenan

DESiGn Escott Associates

© Copyright 2012 uC regents

A publication of

www.publicaffairs.ucla.edu 1

As the 2011-2012 AcAdemic yeAr comes to A close, i am struck by how much the work of the UclA luskin school of Public Affairs matters.

earlier this spring, at the one-year anniversary of the Great eastern Japan earthquake, i had the honor of traveling to Japan to represent UclA among a group of select American, european, and Asian universities pledging cooperation in rebuilding efforts and developing best practices for disaster preparedness and mitigation. A little later, 22 UclA luskin students spent their spring break in Japan working on disaster resilience efforts in the sendai region. our experiences were a testament to what graduate study in public affairs — across our departments of Public Policy, Urban Planning and social Welfare — is all about: researchers, practitioners and policymakers all coming together to take lessons learned and turn them into new knowledge, better tools and smarter applications. this is where science meets the streets. this is how we play a part in making the world a better place — one thought, one action, one step at a time.

in each issue of LuskinForum, we feature the work of one of our departments, and in this issue the focus is on Urban Plan-ning. Again, i am reminded of the importance and relevance of our work in solving urban problems — housing, crime, trans-portation, poverty, infrastructure, public funding — that are common to los Angeles, tokyo and all the world’s cities. As just a year has passed since the devastation caused by the Japan earthquake and tsunami, and 20 years have passed since central los Angeles erupted in flames and rage, much of the healing and rebuilding has happened because we have new insights and knowledge about how the economics and politics of cities work, how to quickly rebuild, and how to learn from our mistakes in the past, whether they concern the location of nuclear power plants or corner liquor stores. this is the grist of Urban Planning. And at UclA luskin, it is powerfully complemented by the keen social policy insights gleaned from the study of social Welfare and the rigorous analysis of policy drawn from Public Policy.

Bringing all of this together more effectively and moving the school forward has been the aim of our major school initiative this past year, the “defining our Future Project.” We began in october with a thought leadership summit

dean’s message BY FRANKLIN D. gILLIAM, JR., dean

of leading political, phil-anthropic, business and academic leaders by asking the questions: what are the tools, the knowledge base and initiatives that will best position UclA luskin to be a leader in public interest research and teaching for the next quarter century?

that conversation has inspired and engaged our faculty, students, alumni

and friends in a wonderful year-long series of conversa-tions and plans that are shaping a new intellectual agenda for the school. that agenda will be built on a fresh commit-ment to: the challenges of civic engagement starting with los Angeles; global and international affairs; social justice, equity and opportunity; enhancing U.s. competitive capacity; and preparing a new generation for leadership in government and civil society. the final product of this effort, Defining our Future: UCLA Luskin’s Critical Advantage will lay out a 10-year vision for the school focused on strategic goals and initiatives that can be tracked and measured to assess our contribution to knowledge, training and service in the years to come.

As we continue, however, it is important to keep in mind that Defining Our Future is not simply about UclA luskin, it is about our responsibilities in the world and at home. it is about dealing with fractures in the earth and imbalances in the atmo-sphere as well as fractures in society and injustices in commu-nities. i invite you all to visit, engage with us, attend our public programs, learn from the research of our faculty and students, and help make the world a better place — one thought, one action, one step at a time.

PUBlic Policy Professor BARBARA J.

NELSON, the former dean of what is now the UclA luskin school of Public Affairs, is retiring from the school faculty. Nelson, with appointments in social Welfare, Urban Planning and Political science at UclA, served as dean of the school of Public Policy and social

research, which was renamed the school of Public Affairs, from 1996 until 2008.

during her time as dean, Nelson oversaw the imple-mentation of the merger of the school of social Work and the department of Urban Planning with a new department of Public Policy, creating a single school of Public Affairs. in those 12 years, the school hired 29 tenure-track faculty and nine social work field faculty, the graduate student body across all three depart-ments grew from 380 to 500, and undergraduate minor programs in Public Affairs and Urban and regional studies also were established.

Nelson’s initiatives as dean included establishing the center for civil society, endowing the UclA canadian studies program, and creating the senior Fellows program that connects students to leaders in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors, and the Bohnett Fellows program, which places students in year-long internships in the

city los Angeles mayor’s office. she also established the school’s first advisory board.

Also during her tenure as dean, Nelson served on the National commission to reduce infant mortality, and on the boards of trustees of the United Way for Greater los Angeles and UclA hillel.

Professor Nelson also led the concord Project, an inter-national initiative to strengthen “concord organizations,” which bring together people with fundamentally opposing views or identities for the purpose of promoting civil society. With linda Kaboolian, and Kathryn A. carver, she published The Concord Handbook: How to Build Social Capital Across Communities in 2003.

Prior to coming to UclA, Professor Nelson served as vice president and professor of Public Policy at radcliffe college, professor and director of the center on Women in Public Policy at the hubert h. humphrey institute of Public Affairs at the University of minnesota, and assis-tant professor at the Woodrow Wilson school of Public and international Affairs at Princeton University. her fields of expertise include conflict mediation in civil society, social and economic policy, organizational theory and behavior, and social movements. she is the author or co-author of six books and more than 60 articles and book chapters. Nelson and co-author Najma chowdhury won the 1995 Victoria schuck Award for their book Women and Politics Worldwide, bestowed by the Amer-ican Political science Association for the best book in the field of women and politics. she holds a Ph.d. in Political science from the ohio state University. �

Former Dean Barbara NelsonRetires from Luskin Faculty

2 LUSKIN FORUM | SPRINg 2012

From left to right, former Dean Barbara Nelson with Vice President Al gore, and with a group of undergraduate UCLA students


milestones

Faculty Transitions

gilda Haas Urban PlanningUrban Planning lecturer gILDA

HAAS has announced her retire-

ment, after more than 25 years

of teaching at UCLA. Haas is

an organizer, educator and

economic development profes-

sional who has been helping

grassroots organizations build

economies from the ground

up for 30 years. At UCLA,

she founded the Community

Scholars Program within the

Urban Planning department and

with the UCLA Labor Center.

Haas served as founding

executive director of Strategic

Actions for a Just Economy

(SAJE), an economic justice and

development organizationthat is

dedicated to building economic

power for working-class

people in Los Angeles. SAJE’s

achievements include leading

the effort to negotiate the

“Staples Agreement” between

the Figueroa Corridor Coalition

for Economic Justice and the

Anschutz Entertainment group;

creating the nation’s first

welfare-to-work bank account;

and organizing the autonomous

Figueroa Corridor Commu-

nity Land Trust. She is also a

co-founder of the national Right

to the City Alliance.

gilda Haas was recently

awarded two fellowships. The

first is the Durfee Stanton

Fellowship which will supports

a two-year effort to turn her

signature popular education

programs and other popular

economics into accessible and

interactive Web 2.0 format,

now available at drpop.org. The

second is the Synergos Senior

Fellows Program, an interna-

tional learning network of

people who have been working

on issues related to inequality

for more than a decade. �

Allen J. Scott Public Policy

ALLEN J. SCOTT retired this

academic year following a distin-

guished three-decade career at

UCLA. Scott, who holds appoint-

ments in Public Policy and

geography, was instrumental

in the early development of the

academic programs (research

and teaching) of the School of

Public Affairs and the Depart-

ment of Public Policy, serving as

the School’s first associate dean

of academic affairs. His awards

include the Anders Retzius gold

Medal from the Swedish Society

for Anthropology and geog-

raphy (2009) and the Carol and

Bruce Mallen Lifetime Achieve-

ment Award for Scholarly Contri-

butions to the Motion Picture

Industry (2008). He received the

2006 Meridian Book Prize for

his book On Hollywood: The

Place, the Industry, and the 2003

Vautrin Lud International Award

for geography.

The British Academy Fellow

and former guggenheim fellow

has focused his work on indus-

trialization, urban and regional

growth, and globalization,

and, most recently, he was

awarded an honorary doctorate

from the University of Jena in

germany for his outstanding

work in social science and his

contributions to urban theory.

In addition to his many years

at UCLA, Scott — who earned

an undergraduate degree from

Oxford University and an M.A.

and Ph.D. from Northwestern —

has taught at universities in the

U.S., Canada, France, England,

Brazil and Hong Kong. �

JoAnn Damron-Rodriguez Social Welfare

Adjunct Professor of Social

Welfare JOANN DAMRON-

RODRIgUEZ MSW ’88, PH.D. ’90 is

retiring after 20 years of teaching

at UCLA. Capping an impressive

career, Damron-Rodriguez has

been honored with a Lifetime

Achievement Award from the

California Council on gerontology.

Damron-Rodriguez spear-

headed the creation of UCLA’s

Honors Cluster class “Frontiers

in Human Aging: Biomedical,

Social, and Policy Perspectives,”

was instrumental in bringing the

undergraduate minor in geron-

tology to UCLA Luskin’s Depart-

ment of Social Welfare, and was

awarded the UCLA Distinguished

Teaching Award in 2006. She’s

been a core faculty member for

the California geriatric Educa-

tion Center (funded by the U.S.

Bureau of Health Professions)

since 1992, and was named

a Fellow of the gerontology

Society of America in 2005. �

President Bill Clinton delivers first Luskin Lecture for Thought Leadership at UCLA

President Bill Clinton with Carol and gene Block, left, and Meyer and Renee Luskin at Royce Hall.

“I never met a person who was entirely self-made. We live in an interconnected world.” —PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON

PresideNt Bill cliNtoN sPoKe to A PAcKed hoUse At royce hall in may, delivering the keynote speech for the inau-gural luskin lecture for thought leadership.

President clinton’s speech touched on the link between solving the country’s economic crisis and solving entrenched problems in developing countries around the globe. Both, he said, depend on turning our growing interconnectedness to our advantage. Between technology, trade, the global economy and other factors, globalization means we all affect each other more than ever, for good or ill, he explained.

“the good news, if you are an undergraduate or a graduate student at UclA, is that you are coming into the full use of your powers at the most interdependent time in human history,” he said. “our futures are bound together ... you’ve got to build a world of positive interdependence. And you can do it.”

creating networks to ease inequality, instability and climate change can help reform what’s wrong with American politics and build lasting infrastructure in the developing world, he said. Following his speech, President clinton sat down for a wide-ranging question-and-answer session.

Luskins Honoredthe annual luskin lecture for thought leadership gives the college of letters and science an unprecedented opportunity to promote dialogue among scholars, leaders and the greater los Angeles community on pressing national and global issues. the series was established in 2011 by longtime UclA supporters meyer and renee luskin as part of a transformative $100 million gift to UclA, including $50 million to the UclA luskin school of Public Affairs. the luskins’ extraordinary service to UclA was recognized at the event with UclA’s first Fiat lux Award.

more than 1,800 people filled royce hall at the sold-out event, including 500 students who received free tickets and another 371 students received complimentary tickets to view the speech via a live feed.

Call to actionPresident clinton told the audience his expectations for the country were optimistic — as long as Americans remember to persevere thoughtfully, not lash out, he said.

“everything that’s wrong with us is fixable,” he said. “We’re going to be fine. But denial is not an option. We have to embrace this moment, beat down the negative forces and build up the positive ones.”


milestones


headerfindings

AmericANs Who Use housing choice vouchers are increasingly choosing to live in the suburbs, and as that trend proceeds, metropolitan areas across the country need to work to make sure housing opportunities connect with employment, according to a new report co-authored by UclA luskin researchers and published by the Brookings institution metropolitan Policy Program.

the housing choice voucher program assists very low-income families, the disabled and the elderly with paying for housing. the program provides payments to landlords to make up the difference between rents and what the renters can afford. in certain circumstances, vouchers can be used to purchase a home.

Connecting housing with jobs“Jobs moved to the suburbs, and people followed,” said MICHAEL STOLL, a non-resident senior fellow at Brookings, chair of the department of public policy and one of the authors of the report.

Read the report: bit.ly/J8rFZa

“While HUD has made the voucher program more flexible, there is more to do. The idea was to help get

people out of urban poverty pockets, but we don’t want to simply plunk them down into new poverty pockets

in the suburbs.” —PROFESSOR MICHAEL STOLL

Black HCV recipients

suburbanized fastest over

the 2000 to 2008 period,

though white HCV recipients

were still more suburbanized

than their black or Latino

counterparts by 2008

Between 2000 and 2008, metro

areas in the West and those

experiencing large increases

in suburban poverty exhibited

the biggest shifts in HCV

recipients to the suburbs

Within metro areas, HCV

recipients moved further

toward higher-income,

jobs-rich suburbs between

2000 and 2008

Housing Voucher Recipients Moving to America’s SuburbsSHIFT

“While vouchers are giving people the chance to move where the opportunities are, voucher recipients are not moving into high-opportunity neighborhoods as often as they might.”

the report notes lower-income suburbs saw faster population growth, but slower employment growth over the last decade. Voucher recipients, according to the report, did not drive the rapid growth of suburban poverty

over the decade, but were part of it.

Recommendations for planning and policy“the old lines that distinguished cities and suburbs are blurring, which presents us with a new geography that will require changes in planning and policy,” said KENYA

COVINgTON, visiting faculty at UclA and a co-author of the report, which analyzes

data from the department of housing and Urban development and the American Community Survey.

Greater incentives for multi-family housing, re-evaluating local zoning regulations, improving enforcement of fair housing laws and facilitating the use of housing vouchers in higher-income suburban neighborhoods are among the report’s recommendations. �

Nearly half of all housing choice voucher (HCV) recipients lived in suburban areas in 2008.

roUGhly hAlF oF los ANGeles coUNty’s 6,300 hUmAN services nonprofits — which provide such services as emergency shelter, food, hospice care, and support for foster children, at-risk youth and the elderly — are struggling in the wake of the deep recession, according to a new study by the Center for Civil Society at UCLA Luskin.

“Stressed and Stretched: The Recession, Poverty, and human services Nonprofits in los Angeles 2002–2012” reveals that nonprofits’ capacity has been significantly diminished by cutbacks in government funding, delays in reimbursement, decreases in private giving and a corresponding increase in demand that came with rising unemployment and poverty during the economic downturn. Nonprofits serving the lowest income neighborhoods, and those serving African Americans in particular, have been hardest hit.

Programs cut and doors shut“this report shines a light on the new face of poverty,” said lead author ZEKE HASENFELD, professor of social welfare. “We are starting to see inner-city nonprofits that provide basic services cutting programs and closing their doors.”

The report, which was supported by the James Irvine Foun-dation, follows up on the center’s 2002 survey of los Angeles human services nonprofits. By returning to the participants in

the first survey, researchers have been able to better gauge the effects of the recession on the nonprofit community.

“There is a deep and persistent weakening of the nonprofit sector, which in terms of employment numbers, is almost as large as the entertainment industry in los Angeles county,” said BILL PARENT, acting director of the center.

Region called to actionthe report recommends better data collection and tracking of the work and value of human services nonprofits, a call for increased private charitable giving in the region, greater focus on nonprofits’ work with low-income families and families in poverty and strength-ening the capacity of nonprofits for advocacy. in April, Parent provided an impetus for the Weingart Foun-dation, the Parsons Foundation and the california community Founda-tion to hold a conference to allow vulnerable nonprofits to explore collaborations and mergers. �

“The safety net as we know it

is smaller and weaker, particu-

larly for those most in need.”

—BILL PARENT, CENTER FOR CIvIL SOCIETY

Of the human services non-

profits first surveyed in 2002...

15% no longer exist

81% reported signifi-

cant staff turnover in the

past three years

41% had cut programs

10-20% of surviving

nonprofits were so under-

staffed and stressed that

they had trouble finding the

time and the data needed to

complete the current survey

Read the full report at ucla.in/zr0tac

Half of L.A. Human Services Nonprofits Struggling


findings


header

A receNt iNdePeNdeNt study of californians’ overall well-being — one that pres-ents troubling disparities in the Golden state and ideas to narrow the gap — was discussed by representa-tives of the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors before students at UclA luskin.

Presented by the center for civil society and the conrad N. hilton Foundation, the forum kicked off with a review of findings from the American human development Project’s study, “A Portrait of california, california human develop-ment report 2011.”

the study assessed the well-being and access to opportu-nity of people statewide by using a “human development

A Portrait of Inequality in California: How Should Nonprofits and Philanthropy Respond?

Human Development Index gap

For the 1% at top of the human development index — in “Silicon

Valley Shangri-La” — the study found that life expectancy is 85.3

years, 70.1 percent have a bachelor’s degree and median earnings

are $63,106. Among “The Forsaken Five Percent,” at the bottom of

the index, which included areas of Los Angeles and the San Joaquin

Valley, life expectancy is 76.1 years, 8.3 percent have a bachelor’s

degree and median earnings are $18,343.

Read the full report: www.measureofamerica.org/california/

index,” a composite measure of health, education and income. it also introduced the concept of “Five californias” to highlight differences among the population.

Five CaliforniasFor the 1% at the top of the index, in “silicon Valley shangri-la,” the study found that life expectancy is 85.3 years, 70.1 percent have a bachelor’s degree and median earnings are $63,106. Among “the Forsaken Five Percent,” at the bottom of the index, which included areas of los Angeles and the san Joaquin Valley, life expectancy is 76.1 years, 8.3 percent have a bachelor’s degree and median earnings are $18,343.

in between are: the largely affluent 18 percent who reside in the “metro-coastal enclave california”; the 38 percent in “main street california” with an increasingly tenuous grip on middle-class life; and “strug-gling california,” another 38 percent who find it nearly impossible to improve their lives despite hard work.

Informing the debatethe report recommends investing in public health campaigns and food subsidies for fruits and vegetables, investing in preschools and targeting the worst-performing high schools with the highest dropout rates, and taking steps to address gender

inequality and wage discrimi-nation in the workplace.

edmund J. cain, vice pres-ident of the hilton Founda-tion, highlighted the report’s role in informing the grant-making process and political debate. “We want to see poli-ticians asking, ‘why is this group at the bottom of the human development index?’” he said, “and citizens asking, ‘why aren’t you doing in our state what others are doing in theirs?’”

Making a differencesouthern california Grant-makers President sushma raman suggested four ways foundations can make a difference:

1. Focus on countering disparities, such as those involving race and gender;

2. call for greater govern-ment accountability;

3. Use their flexibility to take more risk in spending their endowments; and

4. call for more civil public discourse and inclusion of voices left out. �

—Robin Heffler


headerfindings

JORJA LEAP coUld Write A book on her work as a gang expert extraordinaire, citing statistics from her longitudinal studies of homeboy industries and other gang-intervention programs aimed at giving the 80,000 members of l.A.’s esti-mated 1,200 gangs a new start.

she could write about her posts as a gang policy adviser to mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, l.A. county sheriff lee Baca and the National institute of Justice. An adjunct professor of social welfare since 1992, she could write a scholarly book.

Leap has written a book, but Jumped In: What Gangs Taught Me About Violence, Drugs, Love, and Redemption (Beacon Press) sprints way past scholarly, aiming for the outright transformational. And it’s not gang members she is looking to transform as much as the rest of us, far removed from a world where a child or teenager is killed by gunfire every three hours and homicide is the leading cause of death for young black males.

Immersion in L.A.’s toughest neighborhoods her book is an action-packed trek through 10 years as a gang anthropologist on the streets of l.A.’s toughest neighborhoods, where leap introduces us to people she has come to know and even love, like Mike Cummings. Now reformed, “Big Mike” was a notorious gangster in Watts during the late 1980s and early 1990s — the “decade of death,” said leap. “We saw homicides of 1,000 per year in los Angeles. it was a nightmare, a war zone.” Big mike, at 6 feet tall and 300 pounds, took leap under his wing when she first hit the streets.

her affiliation with UclA, she said, boosted her safety. “UclA has this tremendous relationship with the community.” When introducing herself to people on the streets, she said, “i’m never ‘Jorja leap’ but ‘Jorja leap from UclA.’ once i say i’m from UclA, they feel i’m not a snitch.”

Progress and hope Gang conflict has declined over the past decade, leap said, thanks to a push by law enforcement to contain gangs in limited “hotspots,” coupled with groundbreaking work by gang-intervention groups. the mayor’s office also played a role, said leap, who gives special credit to deputy mayor Guillermo cespedes, director of the Gang reduction and youth development program and a senior fellow at the Luskin School.

“these are our brothers and sisters,” said leap of the gang members she met through her research. “they’re not the ‘super-predators,’ not horrible, evil people. People who are caught up with gangs are just like us. Truly.” �

— Judy Lin for UCLA Today

Getting Schooled By the Gangs of L.A.

Michael “Big Mike” Cummings

joins Jorja Leap at a launch

event for her new book

Jumped In: What Gangs

Taught Me About Violence,

Drugs, Love, and Redemption,

held at UCLA.

“These are just people who got caught up, as the homies say. They got caught up,

and it could be you or me. I am utterly convinced of that.” — JORGA LEAP

Read an excerpt of the book: huff.to/xKjSDN


recap

How Los Angeles Created the good Life

Urban Planner Eric Avila on Zócalo Public Square PanelFrom beaches to convertibles to pop music, Los Angeles has popular-

ized many of the enduring symbols of the quintessentially American

laid-back life of leisure. Movies and television shows beamed images

of teenagers lying on the sand or joy-riding down the Pacific Coast

Highway. And although surfing originated in Hawaii, it quickly

became associated with the laid-back beach culture of the L.A. region.

eric aVila, associate professor of Chicana/o studies, history

and urban planning, recently appeared on Zócalo Public Square

as a panelist to discuss the topic “How Los Angeles Created the

good Life.” The panel was part of Zócalo Public Square’s half-day

conference “exploring how Los

Angeles’ unique culture was

built and how it spread to the

rest of the world.”

Moderated by Tom Crow of

the Institute of Fine Arts and an

art historian at New York Univer-

sity, the panel included Kirse

granat May, author of Golden

State, Golden Youth: The

California Image in Popular

Culture, and Jennifer Watts,

curator of photographs at The

Huntington Library. �

Watch the video: bit.ly/GGypJI

Read the brief at ucla.in/GTCajq

Second Chance for Juvenile OffendersThe UCLA Juvenile Justice & Reentry Project has released a policy

brief on California Senate Bill 9, the California Fair Sentencing for

Youth Act. SB9 would give juvenile offenders in California who are

sentenced to life without the possibility of parole the opportunity

to request a new sentencing hearing.

“We believe that SB9 constitutes a modest proposal that

upholds public accountability, while also providing a chance for

those who committed crimes when they were young to show

personal growth and change, and for the State of California to

assert itself as a responsible steward of its future,” writes Associate

Professor and Project Director laura aBramS and alea Bell

MSW ’13, a volunteer with the Project. �

From Probation to Education and EmploymentAN iNterdisciPliNAry UclA reseArch teAm led By toDD FranKe, associate professor of social welfare, has been awarded $500,000 by the california community Foundation to evaluate the impact of the Bloom project (Building a lifetime of options and opportunities for men).

the goal of Bloom is to redirect Black male youth (ages 14-18) involved with the los Angeles county probation system toward a path that produces improved education and employ-ment opportunities.

Franke’s team includes JorJa leaP, adjunct associate professor of social welfare, and tyrone howard and tina christie from the UclA Graduate school of education and information studies (Gseis). dr. howard also is the director of the Black male institute in Gseis and dr. christie is one of the foremost evaluation experts in the country.

the five-year award will “provide both quantitative and qualitative data to support an in-depth analysis of the progress nonprofit partners are making in improving opportunities for system-involved Black male youth at the individual, community and society levels,” said Franke. � Associate Professor Eric Avila


recap

“Martin Luther King had a dream.Now we must have a plan.”

Harvard Law professor

Charles Ogletree

speaks at the UCLA

Luskin Lecture Series

Harvard Law Professor and Obama Mentor Charles Ogletree Opens UCLA Luskin Lecture Series with Call to Social Justice

HARvARd LAw SCHooL PRoFeSSoR CHARLeS J. ogLeTRee launched the UclA luskin lecture series with a stirring address that wove personal, political and historical themes of the African American civil rights movement before an audience of more than 250 people at the california African American museum.

ogletree set the tone for his remarks by recognizing UclA luskin professor MICHAEL DUKAKIS in the audience, whose 1988 presidential campaign was hampered by the infamous Willie horton commercial that created a genre of political advertising exploiting “race as the dividing line,” ogletree said.

Mentoring a PresidentAmong the lighter moments in the talk, ogletree revealed insights on his former law-school students Barack and michelle obama, offering a dead-on imitation of Barack obama taking over the facilitation of class discussions. he spoke with admiration of michelle obama’s commitment to volunteer work in a legal aid office when she was a student.

he also offered a fresh telling of the arrest of fellow harvard professor henry louis Gates in 2009, the topic of ogletree’s book Presumption of Guilt. he used the case to analyze race, class and crime in the U.s., but amused the audience with the insight that in the heat of the moment, Gates, a university professor in his own kitchen, “forgot he was a black man” as he challenged the white officer by shouting, “do you know who i am?”

“race trumps class” is the lesson of the incident, olgetree said.

A challenge to pursue social justice “martin luther King had a dream,” ogletree said. “Now we must have a plan.” he pointed out that the achievement of the nine students who integrated central high school in little rock, Ark., was not their enrollment in the school, but their gradu-ation and matriculation to college. (one of the nine, terrence James roberts, earned his msW from UclA in 1970 and went on to earn a Ph.d.)

“the next time you go through the door, leave it open for somebody else to follow,” he said. �

The UCLA Luskin Lecture Series is designed to enhance public discourse on topics relevant

to today’s societal needs. The Series brings together scholars and renowned thought

leaders to engage in conversation on our country’s most pressing problems.

LuskinLecture SerieS


“It was a great micro view of the messy but

fruitful process that is local politics.”

—BRAD ROWE MPP ’13

Luskin Students Study L.A. Unemployment Rate at Annual City Hall DayCity Controller WENDY gREUEL ’93 hosted graduate students

representing public policy, social welfare and urban planning at

the eighth annual UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs Day at Los

Angeles City Hall. This year’s topic was “What can City Hall do to

generate jobs in Los Angeles?”

“The challenge was that the unemployment problem is broad in

scope, and that local actors, up to and including the city govern-

ment, have very limited tools for turning it around,” said Urban

Planning professor CHRIS TILLY, who served as faculty adviser.

“given the severity of that challenge, I was very pleased that we

got a great mix of decision-makers from the private sector, elected

and appointed officials, nonprofits and organized labor to share

their knowledge and ideas with Luskin students.” �

More than 400 people converged

on the Pacific Island Ethnic Art

Museum in Long Beach for

“Teaching the Pacific,” a daylong

event highlighting the living

arts of the Pacific Islands. Spon-

sored in part by the Department

of Urban Planning, the event

featured talks by UCLA faculty,

hands-on demonstrations by

carvers and weavers, and refresh-

ments from authentic Pacific

Islander food vendors.

The event spotlighted the

emerging field of Pacific Islander

Studies and marked the launch

of the Pacific Island Ethnic Art

Museum’s educational programs

and the publication of the UCLA

Asian American Studies Center’s

latest issue of the Amerasia

Journal, “Transoceanic Flows:

Pacific Islander Interventions

Across the American Empire.”

Learn more about the journal

at www.amerasiajournal.org/

blog/ �

Event spotlights Pacific Islander Studies


recap

Water Summit Highlights

� A look at the current use

of local water sources

� The promise and

challenges of emerging

technologies — including

ocean desalination and

indirect and direct

potable reuse of

wastewater and

contaminated ground-

water — as well

as improvements in

water conservation

programs

� Communicating the

social benefits of

new technologies

� Forming public-private

partnerships to assist

agencies in developing

new water sources

� New coalitions and

organizational strategies

around water source

development

The Future of Water in Southern California

“A growing population, climate change and the rising cost of transporting

water is increasing the need for a more self-sufficient water future for

Southern California.” —J.R. DeSHAZO

soUtherN cAliForNiA’s growing population, climate change and projected gaps in imported water supplies will increase the need for local water source development in coming years.

this need brought more than 250 leaders from water agencies, universities, the private sector, government and nonprofits to a summit hosted by the luskin center for innovation, the UclA institute of the environment and sustainability, and UclA’s Water technology research (Water) center. california senate President pro tempore darrell steinberg provided the keynote address.

Cross-disciplinary approachAttendees reviewed the latest research, technologies and policies in water source devel-opment and explored options for replacing more imported water supplies with local alter-

natives. recycled wastewater for potable and non-potable reuse, cleaned-up ground-water, desalinated ocean water and more effective conserva-tion measures were discussed.

the summit comes at a critical time for the region, according to robert lempert of rANd corporation. “southern california’s demand for water could increase by as much as 50 percent by 2060. By that time, almost half of the region’s water supply will need to come from new local sources and conservation to meet that potential demand.”

Real-world issuescost will affect the future of local water source develop-ment. Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the metropolitan Water district of southern california, said that the utility’s water rates have effectively tripled since 1990. Adding to the equation, James mcdaniel of the los

Angeles department of Water and Power estimated that by 2035, the cost of importing water will begin to exceed that of delivering nonpotable reclaimed water.

the luskin center’s J.R.

DeSHAZO offered an encour-aging analysis, pointing to how the science, policy and public acceptance challenges of sourcing more water from local alternatives may have turned a corner. “local source development promises greater reliability, water security and progressively more cost-effec-tive sources of water.” �

— Reporting by Ayala

Ben-Yehuda and Colleen Callahan


UCLA Hosts Mayoral SummitLOS ANGELES MAYOR ANTONIO vILLARAIGOSA AND MAYORAL HOPEFULS

City Council President Eric Garcetti, City Controller Wendy Greuel and City

Councilwoman Jan Perry spoke at the Los Angeles Business Council’s annual

Mayoral Housing, Transportation and Jobs Summit held at UCLA.

At the event, J.R. DeSHAZO, professor of public policy and director of

the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, and USC professor Manuel Pastor

presented their research for an L.A. Business Council report. Their research

teams found that thousands of workers are trained and ready to create a solar-

panel revolution in Los Angeles, if only city policies would give them a boost.

UCLA Luskin Senior Fellow and Los Angeles Times editor-at-large

JIM NEWTON also moderated a panel on housing, jobs and the workforce

featuring Garcetti, Greuel and Perry. �

UCLA Luskin Senior Fellow Jim Newton moderates a panel with Henry Cisneros, executive chairman, CityView, and former

secretary, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, L.A. City Council President Eric garcetti, L.A. City Controller

Wendy greuel and L.A. City Council Member Jan Perry.

Luskin Center Analysis Fuels New L.A. Renewable Energy PolicyFollowing the Mayoral Summit,

the L.A. City Council approved a

pilot program that would make

it easier for businesses and

residents to install rooftop solar

panels and sell surplus energy

to the L.A. Department of Water

& Power. J.r. DeSHaZo’s

research helped guide the city in

developing a blueprint for such

a program, called a solar feed-in

tariff program.

Read the report, “Empow-

ering L.A.’s Solar Workforce:

New Policies that Deliver Invest-

ments and Jobs,” at bit.ly/

K3FB3c

J.R. DeShazo

Read the report: bit.ly/K3FB3c


artwork TK

the ideA oF “comPlete streets” — that is, streets designed with all users, not just cars, in mind — isn’t a new one, but it hasn’t caught on everywhere yet. the plan-ners, engineers, advocates and students who convened at the second annual UCLA complete streets for california hoped a widespread focus on complete streets in California could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging more walking and biking, and also promote healthier life-styles.

the head advocate was keynote speaker gIL

PENALOSA MBA ’84, executive director of the nonprofit 8-80 Cities and former commis-sioner of parks, sport and recreation for the city of Bogotá, colombia. in Bogotá, Penalosa opened 50-plus miles of car-free city roads for more than 1.3 million people to use on sundays for walking, running, skating and biking; it is the model for los

Angeles’ CicLAvia. Penalosa made a case

for designing cities where people age 8 to age 80 would feel safe and able to move around. “mobility is a human right,” he said.

he reminded attendees that californians aren’t unique in their attachment to automobiles, and that some of their attachment may be a myth — one-third of l.A. residents do not drive.

Challenges facing Los Angelesin l.A. there’s a unique combination of challenges, not the least of which is a minimum of four different agencies own the streets, said TIM PAPANDREOU MA UP ’02,

deputy director at the san Francisco municipal trans-portation Agency.

still, Papandreou believes a change in favor of more pedes-trian and bicycle-oriented streets is possible. “the polit-ical environment will change. in san Francisco, you were crazy to run on a complete streets platform 10 years ago. Now, you’re crazy not to.”

Progress reporteddespite the constraints, some progress has been made in the city since last year’s confer-ence. A complete streets program was made official with the Model design Manual for Living Streets (see sidebar). the sunset triangle pedestrian plaza, the first of its kind in

The Complete Streets Initiative is a joint effort among UCLA’s Lewis Center for

Regional Policy Studies, Institute of Transportation Studies, Luskin Center for

Innovation and UCLA Luskin. The initiative uses research, education and

community engagement to create streets that provide mobility, improve

environmental sustainability and form healthy, economically vibrant communities.

Conference highlights L.A.’s progress: A student perspective

l.A., opened at sunset and Griffith Park boulevards and plans are underway for three new “parklets” downtown (see sidebar).

the complete streets initiative, though, is still getting started. BRIAN TAYLOR, professor of urban planning and director of UCLA’s Lewis center, noted that the idea has generated a lot of excite-ment and that we may well be in a transition period from an era of street design focused on cars to an era of street design focused on people. �

—Lindsey Miller MURP ‘12.

A version of this story originally appeared in Los Angeles Streetsblog.


header

New Project to Explore “Parklets” the “PArKlets For los ANGeles” project received a big boost from the rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation with an award of a $75,000 research and implementation grant to UclA luskin’s complete streets initiative. ‘Parklet’ is a term describing a parking space, or spaces, re-purposed to use

as open, public space for people. Parklets are beginning to appear in san Francisco, New york and Philadelphia.

in the first phase of the project, led by Associate dean ANASTASIA

LOUKAITOU-SIDERIS, the complete streets initiative will create a “Parklet toolkit” to assist cities, including los Angeles, with practical guidance for developing small-scale parks. A second phase, conducted in collabo-ration with the downtown los Angeles Neighborhood council, will construct a demonstration parklet. �

—Jessica Nazar for UCLA Today

New manual to expand biking, walking on city streets cities Are GettiNG GUidANce oN expanding opportunities for people to bicycle and walk, thanks to a new manual from Ryan snyder and Associates, the luskin center for innovation and the los Angeles county

department of Public health’s reNeW lA county program.the “model design manual for living streets” provides guidance for

cities seeking to update their existing road standard manuals with new techniques to reflect a greater emphasis on active transportation.

Written by a team of national, regional and local experts in traffic engineering, transportation planning, land-use planning, architecture, public health and other fields, the manual can be adapted or adopted in full by cities across the nation free of charge. the luskin center, led by J.R. DeSHAZO and COLLEEN CALLAHAN, coordinated the streetscape ecosystems chapter with support from mUrP ’12 students JULIA

CAMPBELL and gRACE PHILLIPS. this chapter provides tools for cities to create streetscapes that sustainably enhance the local environment, its resources, the community and the local economy. �

Read the manual: www.modelstreetdesignmanual.com

recap

The Complete Streets Conference included

discussion about CicLAvia, the tempo-

rary opening of Los Angeles streets

to create a web of temporary public

space free of car traffic.

PHOT

O: g

ary

leO

nar

d


Gerontology minor added The UCLA Luskin School of Public

Affairs’ Department of Social

Welfare, in collaboration with

the UCLA School of Medicine

Division of geriatrics and the

UCLA School of Public Health,

has added the gerontology

Interdisciplinary Minor (gIM)

to the School’s offerings. As of

the Winter 2012 quarter, UCLA’s

undergraduate students may

enroll in the interdisciplinary

program, enhancing the academic

experience on issues of aging.

The restructured gIM is designed

to offer an understanding of

the current state of the science

related to the biopsychosocial

aspects of human aging.

“We are excited to have

UCLA’s gerontology minor

associated with our Depart-

ment of Social Welfare and I

commend the efforts our faculty

and campus partners, especially

LENé LEVY-STORMS and JOANN

DAMRON-RODRIgUEZ, put into

restructuring and re-instating this

minor. This is a valuable addition

to undergraduate education in

this important field as well as

a great opportunity for UCLA’s

undergrads to enhance their

UCLA experience and learn about

issues of aging,” said FERNANDO

TORRES-gIL, chair of the Depart-

ment of Social Welfare. �

recap

“You don’t really understand [elder care] until you

begin to go through it. Then you know how it takes

over your life.” —STEvE LOPEZ

With A 30-PlUs yeAr career in journalism, steve lopez has been around the world and seen much. And for more than a decade he has shared what has been on his mind informatively, respectfully, indignantly, passionately and publicly in his column in the Los Angeles Times.

And he has had a lot on his mind. recently lopez has focused on issues including the pending

Los Angeles Times’ Steve Lopez shares what’s on his mind

Los Angeles Times writer Steve Lopez

speaking at the Luskin School

closure of adult day health care facilities serving older adults, end-of-life care, working conditions of hotel housekeepers and the occupy l.A. movement. he shared his thoughts this spring as part of a speaker series presented by the department of social Welfare.

elder care has not been an abstract policy issue for him, but based on personal experience in the last months of his father’s life. he shared this journey with his readers, chronicling the challenges and frustrations as well as the many other issues that confront families and the dying when a life is coming to an end.

“you don’t really under-stand until you begin to go through it. then you know how it takes over your life,” said lopez, whose father tony passed away not long after lopez gave his talk.

Just writing about medi-care costs and finding ways to support medicare coverage of palliative care does not attract the atten-tion of readers, he said. however, “if you’ve got a person that you can stick in that story — that anyone who is dealing with this can identify with — then you’ve got a chance. so i’ve thought that to be as brutally honest as i can be about my family might draw more people into that.”

lopez said, “i think there is a great opportunity in this country for us to switch more to palliative care and hospice. i can’t figure it out but those of you who are in this school and who will become policymakers — i hope that you can figure that sort of thing out.” �

—Stan Paul


Social Welfare students selected to present at Legislative Lobby DaysiN oNe oF the lArGest GroUPs eVer to AtteNd From UclA, nearly 60 students converged on sacramento in April to participate in the annual legislative lobby days sponsored by the california chapter of the National Asso-ciation of social Workers (NAsW).

the social welfare students represented one of only two california social work programs selected to give a special presentation based on their program proposal, “the mental Well-Being of Undocumented youth.”

“this is indeed an honor for our students and our program,” said MARY KAY OLIVERI, social welfare field faculty member and president of the california chapter of the NAsW. the proposal was developed in field education faculty TOBY HUR’s social Welfare 240 course by first-year msW students Betsy estudillo sevlian, Jenny Williams, eun ha suh and elizabeth luna, and was put forth by second-year student liaisons emily Blake and Jennifer Vallejo. �

Senior Fellows host students in the nation’s capitalA PriVAte meetiNG With secretAry oF trANsPortAtioN ray lahood. An afternoon at the World Bank. A morning sit-down at the Urban institute. these are just a few of the inside-the-Beltway experiences senior Fellows dr. derick W. Brinkerhoff, distinguished fellow with international Public management at rti international, and therese W. mcmillan, deputy administrator at the Federal transit Administration, arranged for seven UclA luskin students this spring.

the senior Fellows program invites a distinguished group of leaders from the public, private and nonprofit sectors to bring the school’s problem-solving academic departments to the real-world challenges being faced by civic leaders at the local, regional and national levels. �

“The Senior Fellows D.C. trip was incredible. I think

it has been the most influential experience to impact

my future career.” —SARA PILGREEN MSW PH.D. ’13

First-year MSW student presenters Jenny Williams,

Eun Ha Suh, Betsy Estudillo Sevlian, and Elizabeth Luna

From left: Hristo Marakov MPP ‘12, Sara Pilgreen MSW Ph.D. ‘13, World Bank analyst

John garrison and Brandy Barta MSW ‘12

Time’s Role in Transportation and Health Topic of Annual Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture in Transportationmei-Po Kwan, distinguished

professor of social and behavior

sciences at The Ohio State University,

delivered this year’s Martin Wachs

Distinguished Lecture in Transporta-

tion on May 10 at the Luskin School.

Kwan discussed the notion of time

and its implications for transportation

in her lecture “What About Time in

Transportation and Health Research?”

Her talk suggested that time is

at least as important as space for

understanding how individuals of

different social groups experience

access to facilities and exposure

to contextual or environmental

influences. Time and behavior go

hand in hand, she argued, as a

person’s experience of an environ-

ment depends on what he is doing

within it.

The annual lecture honors Dr.

Martin Wachs, who previously served

three terms as chairman of the

Department of Urban Planning at

UCLA, by bringing innovative scholars

and policymakers who share their

research in transportation and urban

planning issues. �


recap

Clockwise from upper left: Mr. Luskin and first-year MURP student Chloe green; Barbara Kaplan MA ’79, Peter Valk MA ‘79 and

Catherine Tyrrell MA ‘79; Juan Matute MA MBA ‘09, Diego Cardoso MA ‘87 and Judy Silva MA ‘10; Viviana Franco MA ‘95 and Urban

Planning’s Vinit Mukhija; Ramon Mendez MA ‘92, Lara Regus MA ‘96, Mr. Luskin, Sara Tsay MA ‘96 and Russell Horning MA ‘92

UCLA Luskin Urban Planning sponsors American Planning Association’s national conferenceUrban Planning alumni from around the world joined a UclA luskin reception held in conjunction with the American Planning Association’s National Planning conference in los Angeles in April.


cover story

Life in the Informal Cityit’s a Saturday afternoon in West Los angeles. a bartender leaves the afternoon shift with $80 in tip money in her

pocket. She stops at a food truck parked just off Santa Monica boulevard where it often idles between construc-

tion site stops. it has an a rating in the window and two cops are having a cup of coffee and chatting with the

owner, who is joking that he keeps all of his accounting in his head. She buys a taco and continues down the

street passing a young man sitting on the sidewalk playing a copyrighted beatles song beautifully on his guitar.

She drops a dollar in his case. She swings into the community garden, a reclaimed vacant lot, where she has been

taking care of a friend’s plot, to pick up a ripe eggplant. She stops to admire a lively graffiti mural three high

schoolers are completing on the outside fence. Continuing by a hardware store, she sees two familiar day laborers

and asks if they will come by the next day to move a couch and put up a window treatment. When she gets to

her address, she greets one of the other unit owners who is starting to clean up from the yard sale that takes

place every week on the grassy stretch between the sidewalk and the street. this week it is a rack of homemade

dresses and skirts. She buys a skirt and heads up the walk to her apartment in the back. it is a converted garage

the owner’s handyman son made into a very nice in-law apartment, or granny flat, on the sly 20 years ago. She

checks the message on her phone. it’s her landlord. the safety light shorted out and he wants to know if that

licensed electrician she knows from the bar could come by and fix it. the landlord will be happy to pay in cash.

and, of course, they’ll get a good deal because, after all, the electrician is a regular and gets his share of free

pints. Just another day of getting by on the formal and informal margins of the city.

Urban Planning is usually concerned with

the formal structure of cities—the built envi-

ronment, infrastructure and transportation,

housing, economic development and land

use regulation. But Vinit Mukhija, in his

11th year on the UCLA Luskin Urban Plan-

ning faculty, is drawn to the “informalities”

of urban life — the networks of barter and

cash and social capital, the loose attention

to rules and regulations, and the novel

uses of public and private space that

define life and survival for millions of

city dwellers on the margins all over the

world — from impoverished slum dwellers

in Mumbai and Caracas, to the West L.A.

bartender described on the

preceding page.

20 LUSKIN ForUm | SPrING 2012

cover story

Vinit mukhija Explores The Informal Cityurban unplanning:


mUKhiJA, Who coNceNtrAtes oN hoUsiNG ANd PoVerty, first noticed the ubiquitous power of informality in his work studying slum redevelopment in mumbai, india, which was the topic of his doctoral dissertation at mit. “While the word ‘slum’ evokes a completely disorganized, crime-ridden place,” he said, “informality recognizes a richness, the hidden things like generational and social networks and norms that hold a community together.”

“even in the most destitute places, you start to see how modest enhancements like painted doors and flowerpots can contribute to the beauty and identity of the public and private realms,” he said.

in california and elsewhere in the U.s., he has studied “colo-nias,” a broad term for unregulated, unincorporated settlements often found along the U.s.–mexico border with varying degrees of functional infrastructure. Four years ago, mukhija was an adviser for UclA luskin’s annual los Angeles city hall day, where teams of students worked with city officials to get a handle on unregulated but tolerated “granny flats.” in those conversations mukhija recognized patterns of the informality phenomenon as it plays out in a modern, post-industrial city region. he deepened his research on the topic, developing an Urban Planning course called “informal city: research and regulation.”

“there is just a small body of literature on informality,” mukhija said. the idea first came out of the work of caribbean economist and Nobel laureate William Arthur lewis on “subsis-tence sectors” in developing countries in the 1950s. the term “informal sector” was coined by British anthropologist Keith hart in the 1970s. elusive in its definition, the informality has evolved from merely meaning the opposite of formal structure, or shadow economies, to encompass its separateness as well as its overlaps and linkages with the systems, structures, rules and economies of everyday life.

in a 2011 essay, “Urban design for a Planet of informal cities,” mukhija laid claim to the term “informal city” and argued that urban designers need to pay more attention to the concept. “the informal city can benefit from the engagement

of urban designers and urban design can renew itself through such a commitment,” he wrote.

in the past year, he put together a UclA luskin Urban Plan-ning speakers series on informal cities and began work with Professor Anastasia loukaitou-sideris on an edited volume on informal cities in the U.s.

“informal urbanism in the United states is understudied and often misunderstood,” they wrote in their proposal, which was accepted by mit Press. “Planners and policy makers usually see informal activities at best as marginal enterprises that should be ignored, and at worst as criminal activities that should be stopped and prosecuted.

“similarly, the physical settings that host such activities — the sidewalks, front lawns, garage apartments, parking lots, community gardens, and taco trucks—are equally understudied, though they have become an increasingly relevant part of the city for a number of social groups.”

through the informal cities speaker series, co-sponsored by the lewis center and the social Justice initiative, the luskin school community has had the opportunity to see the intellec-tual form of the book take shape.

CONTINUED ON NExT PAgE

Vinit Mukhija Explores The Informal City

“Even in the most destitute places, you start to see how modest enhancements

like painted doors and flowerpots can contribute to the beauty and identity of

the public and private realms.” —Vinit MukhiJa

MICHAEL C. LENS, the newest

addition to the UCLA Luskin

Urban Planning faculty, has

had an idealistic streak for as

long as he can remember. As

an undergraduate at Macal-

ester College, he took a course

from an extraordinary political

science teacher, Chuck green,

that set him on a policy analysis

path, with additional help

from William Julius Wilson’s

When Work Disappears and

Earl Babbie’s The Practice of

Social Research (the latter which

he will be using in a research

methods course he is teaching

this spring quarter). These early

experiences began an interest

in research that has carried

him through the study of crime

and juvenile justice, to public

housing benefits, to employ-

ment and back again.

As a Ph.D. student at NYU,

he began to focus on housing

and neighborhoods. “I saw that

housing represented a huge

government investment specifi-

cally aimed at lifting people

out of poverty. That investment

raises questions about localized

neighborhood effects on crime,

employment and education,

Lens said. “Over time, I devel-

oped a crime-shaped interest

in housing.”

Lens’s academic pursuits

in the area, combining, in his

words, “street-level curiosity

with my wonky analytic side”

occurred in the wake of a shift

federal housing policy away

from building dense, concen-

trated housing projects in the

city to greater use of federally

subsidized housing vouchers to

allow families more choice and

geographical range.

His dissertation at NYU

made the case that people

who use vouchers to find


faculty profile

UCLA Luskin Urban Planning’s Newest Faculty Member Michael C. Lens on

Crime, Subsidized Housing and the City

Vinit Mukhija and Informal CitiesCONTINUED FROM THE PREVIOUS PAgE

launched by a talk by the eminent sociologist richard sennett on “the rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of cooperation,” the series included topics as wide ranging as day laborers, street food, urban farming and food production, garage sales, the claiming of public space by marginalized minority groups, for cultural and artistic use (placemaking), social networks among homeless men and women, and the informal housing patterns in New orleans pre- and post-hurricane Katrina.

one intriguing session was led by Gregg Kettles, deputy counsel to mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who, also drawing on his experi-ence in New york city, discussed his deep interest in the culture and regulation of l.A.’s street food vendors. Kettles defines infor-mality of “law enforcement of the impossible,” and views food cart issues though regulatory lenses of “crystal rules,” which in the case of vendors, are clear, often spatially defined, (e.g. the distance requirements from a bus stop and entryways as well as require-ments for health permits) and “mud rules,” like keeping clear records for taxes and employee protections, which call for a high degree of street-level discretion on the part of police and enforce-ment agencies. Kettles’ preference is for less reliance on crystal rules and more discretion in the enforcement of mud rules in order to encourage a more vibrant urban economy.

Ultimately, mukhija’s goal is to bring the study of informal cities closer to the mainstream of urban planning research by taking a more comprehensive empirical approach to the topic, elaborating on its nature and underlying logic, and, in terms of the built environment, developing a spatial understanding of how informality works so that planners and policy makers can respond better to the challenges and opportunities that it offers to cities and their citizens. this summer, he is headed to Vancouver under a small grant from the UclA canadian studies Program to study an innovative regulatory structure in effect to accommodate granny-flats there.

While the informal city encompasses a wide range of activi-ties and participants, mukhija says his focus remains on allevi-ating poverty. “my primary concern and strategy is to explore the conditions where the poor are more likely to benefit from informality, and what kinds of policy actions in response to infor-mality privilege the poor,” he said. �

mental health overall. The

outliers, however, tend to be

young adult males, whose

quality of life and mental

health seem to deteriorate

slightly.

Now that he has moved to

Los Angeles, Lens is looking

forward to exploring the city’s

neighborhoods and observing

and researching local housing,

crime, employment and

health issues. Asked what he

believes his academic research

offers to the leaders of cities

like Palmdale and Lancaster,

Calif., where neighborhood

tensions have risen in the

wake of an influx of voucher-

holding families, he answered,

“The research on vouchers

and smaller-scale subsidized

housing is pretty clear — there

is no evidence at all that

crime increases or property

values decrease as a result of

increased presence of subsi-

dized housing vouchers.”

“However,” he added, “if

you’re the city manager of

Lancaster or Palmdale, even if

your constituencies were fully

on board with housing subsi-

dies in the area, you still have

a lot of reasons for not actively

seeking out subsidized house-

holds. High public service usage

and low tax input would be the

bottom lines here.”

Looking ahead, Lens’s

UCLA Luskin Urban Planning

research agenda is ambitious.

“My research is largely centered

on the two primary ways that

you can improve neighbor-

hood conditions for low-income

households,” he said.

“First is offering families

opportunities to locate in

higher-opportunity neighbor-

hoods. And second is to invest

in distressed neighborhoods.

Mobility versus revitalization

would be the simplest way to

put it.”

His projects include looking

at the employment conditions

of neighborhoods where subsi-

dized households live, whether

crime reduces commercial

property values in neighbor-

hoods, and the effect of

income inequality on concen-

trated poverty.

“I am hoping to expand our

knowledge about how effec-

tive different policies have been

at these two basic goals, and

whether we can find ways to

reliably address both problems

in certain situations, so it is not

an either/or choice,” he said. �

rental housing live in much

safer neighborhoods than

those who live in housing

built with government subsi-

dies, such as the Low-Income

Housing Tax Credit program.

This is surprising given the

fact that voucher and Tax

Credit households live in

neighborhoods with similar

poverty rates. This suggests

that the greater choice that

the voucher program affords

is being used to select safer

neighborhoods rather than

neighborhoods where poverty

rates are lower. In other work

in his dissertation, he finds

that investments in subsidized

housing may lead to neighbor-

hood crime declines.

As Lens was writing his

dissertation, much of the public

debate on the issues was

framed by a bleak, powerful

2008 essay in the Atlantic

Monthly titled “American

Murder Mystery” by Hannah

Rosin, which, citing the work

of University of Memphis

researchers Richard Janikowski

and Phyllis Betts, argued that

the use of housing vouchers

had merely shifted crime from

the inner city, where it had

been concentrated close to

housing projects, and dispersed

it to the close suburbs where

crime rates were rapidly, and

less visibly, rising.

The Atlantic article was so

powerful that Lens joined his

NYU faculty advisers Ingrid

gould Ellen and Katherine

O’Regan to look at the trends

using a longer timeline. The

product of their research,

bluntly titled: “Memphis

Murder Revisited: Do Housing

Vouchers Cause Crime?” was

published last year by the U.S.

Department of Housing and

Urban Development (HUD) and

is forthcoming in the journal

Housing Policy Debate. It

concluded that there was “little

evidence that the number of

voucher holders in a tract leads

to more crime.” Conversely,

their evidence suggested a

reverse causal effect: that

voucher holders tend to move

into areas where crime is

already rising.

Subsequent research on the

effects of vouchers has shown

that most voucher holders

tend to live in areas with

lower poverty, with better

homes, in safer neighborhoods

with stronger social bonds,

and report better physical and


“My research is largely centered on the two primary ways that you can improve neighborhood conditions for

low-income households. First, is offering families opportunities to locate in higher-opportunity neighborhoods.

And second is to invest in distressed neighborhoods.” —MICHAEL C. LENS

24 NEWSFORUM | SPRINg 2012

alumni profile

Queen of the AlleyToday the alley on the east

side of Cahuenga between

Selma and Hollywood Boule-

vard is a thriving pedestrian

walkway filled with café

tables. Only a year ago,

however, the alley was packed

with trash and strewn with

hypodermic needles left by

patrons of the nearby

methadone clinic.

The transformation was

sparked by the master’s thesis

of SaraH macPHerSon

Ba ’98 mauP ’07, which

she wrote while serving as

associate executive director

of the Hollywood Property

Owners Alliance. Putting her

theory into action, MacPherson

brought together the Alliance,

the (now dissolved) Commu-

nity Redevelopment Asso-

ciation and L.A. City Council

President Eric garcetti’s office

to establish the city’s first

pedestrian thoroughfare.

The effort prompted

garcetti to dub MacPherson

”Queen of the Alley” in an

interview with the Los Angeles

Times. We sat down to talk

with her about the project,

called EaCa Alley (for East

Cahuenga).

BY gENEVIEVE HAINES

why pedestrian thorough-

fares in Hollywood?

hollywood is ripe for this type of pedestrian use because it is a historic district. We have 26 alleys throughout the district. the alleys are underutilized and play host to lots of unsa-vory activities. the idea was to put the alleys to a higher, better use.

what’s changed in Holly-

wood to make this possible?

i’ve worked in hollywood for 13 years and i’ve seen the community become more pedestrian-friendly with lofts, residential opportuni-ties, more mixed-use. With an increased reliance on walking, it becomes even more important to have link-ages between residential

units, businesses and areas where people park.

not many people get

to see ideas from their

master’s thesis take hold.

it is very satisfying to know i don’t have a thesis that is sitting on a shelf somewhere. i wish everyone had the opportunity to see their vision realized because it is a really satisfying and joyful feeling.

we’re sitting at one of the

tables in the alley. talk us

through what we’re seeing.

What you are seeing first and foremost is the founda-tion of the alley with pavers designed with state-of-the-art drainage. What is so lovely is that this is a city-owned alley. it is open to the public and

shared with businesses that are able to expand into the right of way with a permit. it allows both businesses and the public to benefit.

what’s been the reaction?

out of all the projects i’ve worked on 13 years in holly-wood, nothing has had as much attention as this alley. i guess in hollywood, we’d call it a celebrity.

where did you find help in

making this happen?

i have to say, UclA. my advisers VINIT MUKHIJA and ANASTASIA LOUKAITOU-SIDERIS gave me an academic perspec-tive that was helpful in allowing me to see beyond the pure pragmatic logistics. i was able to bring a more idealistic perspective and a much more critical perspective to building a piece of infrastructure that people are going to use for years to come.

what role do you think

ucla should play in plan-

ning for the city and region?

i think urban planning is an interdisciplinary subject that

requires and needs some prac-tical implementation. We can’t be talking about how cities work without seeing how cities actually work. the eaca Alley is a great practical example.

any “lessons learned” to

share with others working

to effect change?

i didn’t fully appreciate how complex the relation-ship-building is and how important it is to obtain a consensus within a commu-nity and build group owner-ship because that’s the only way the project will sustain itself over the long term. As much as we love the physical details, the community devel-opment is really what’s driving the long-term sustainability.

what’s next for you?

i’d like to graduate from the alley to a sidewalk or street! A lot of lessons we’ve learned from this as far as civil engi-neering and utilization of sustainable materials can be adapted to sidewalks and other non-permeable surfaces that are causing run-off into the storm-drains and oceans. �


Sarah MacPherson, BA ’98, MAUP ’07Queen of the Alley“It is very satisfying to know I don’t have a thesis that is sitting on a shelf somewhere. I wish everyone had

the opportunity to see their vision realized because it is a really satisfying and joyful feeling.”

Before After

A third-GeNerAtioN BrUiN, First-yeAr UrBAN PlANNiNG graduate student and self-described “transit nerd,” CARTER

RUBIN has been selected as a 2012-13 Bohnett Fellow. the fellowship program trains the next generation of public servants by bringing graduate-level policy research fellows onto the los Angeles mayor’s staff.

We caught up with rubin between his studies, his work with the UclA lewis center where is helping develop a statewide transit strategic Plan for caltrans, his service on the board of directors of the southern california streets initiative, and his job writing for the official blog of the los Angeles county metropolitan transportation Authority (mtA).

On how he got interested in urban planning“i grew up on the westside of l.A. and experienced what it was like when i couldn’t get anywhere without a car. then i lived in strasbourg, France, where everything is connected by buses and trams. it gave me a sense of what’s possible.

“my hope is that by improving our transportation system — better public transit, less-polluting vehicles, safer routes for bikes and pedestrians, etc. — we can improve quality of life, the environment and public health. i can’t really think of any field that would let me tackle so many pressing problems at once, while letting me embrace my inner transit nerd.”

Planning is his passionCatching up with Carter Rubin, first-year student and 2012-13 Bohnett Fellow


student profile

On writing for The Source, the official blog of the Los Angeles County MTA at thesource.metro.net/ “With the blog, metro wanted to help explain the urban plan-ning process to the general public. i’ve tried to make it my goal to translate the language of urban planning into something people can understand, so they can get involved in the process.”

On what he’s learned at UCLA“i really enjoy thinking about urban planning through the lens of geography and through demographics, sociology and statis-tics. i think the city requires it, because it is so complicated.

“Professor Brian taylor has been great about getting me and all the students to challenge some of the preconceived notions we may have about how cities work. like the conventional narrative about los Angeles — this sort of sprawling, car-dependent metropolis. he forced us to look at the data and how it looks on the ground.

“you find that actually it is one of the best cities for public transit in the county in terms of ridership and the quality of the facilities. that has interesting and important implications for the opportunities for biking and walking and transit now.”

About finding his passion advocating for safer and more dignified environments for pedestrians, bicyclists and transit users through the Complete Streets movement“With complete streets, i’m most excited about the energy and enthusiasm throughout l.A. to experiment with a new way of experiencing the city. People are much more open to walking around our neighborhoods and engaging with neighbors and local businesses.

“it is important for economic and social reasons that we prepare for a world with scarce and expensive gas. the resil-iency of our cities is going to depend on that — in the next generation and beyond.”

What interests him about the Bohnett Fellowship“mayor Villaraigosa deserves a lot of credit for moving forward projects in los Angeles like the bike plan. i’m looking forward to being a part of the actual decision-making process.” The David Bohnett Fellowship Program offers hands-on working experience in the Office of the Mayor of the City of Los Angeles to exceptionally promising graduate students in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. This competitive program selects outstanding students to collaborate with UCLA faculty and senior executives in the mayor’s office, transforming scholar-ship into real-world experience at the heart of one of the most diverse cities in the world. The program is made possible by the generous support of the David Bohnett Foundation.

“I can’t really think of any field that would let me

tackle so many pressing problems at once, while

letting me embrace my inner transit nerd.”


BY gENEVIEVE HAINES

Build a Legacy that Moves Society Forward

At the UCLA LUSKIN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, we are dedi-cated to building the future of social welfare, urban planning and public policy. We are preparing the kind of leaders and thinkers who will shape, empower and improve society for many years to come.

Through your support, you too, can have an impact on the future of society. A simple, flexible way to build a legacy and express what you believe in and wish for is to include the UCLA LUSKIN SCHOOL OF

PUBLIC AFFAIRS in your estate plans. Such a bequest can be of any size and made with a variety of assets.

For sample bequest language and for more information on bequests and other gift planning arrangements, please contact the UCLA’s Office of Planned and Major Gifts:

WRITE US AT:

10920 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1400, Los Angeles, CA 90024CALL US AT: 800-737-UCLA (8252)

EMAIL US AT: [email protected]: www.legacy.ucla.edu


NOBUKO gOTO MPP ‘13 will never forget the obliter-ation of towns and villages in northeastern Japan when the earthquake and tsunami of 2011 changed lives forever. Back then, as a section chief for the housing department for the national government of Japan, she scrambled to find emergency housing for survivors suddenly left homeless.

this year, Goto, a Japanese national, left campus over spring break to return to a nation in recovery — and brought along 21 of her peers from UclA luskin. Graduate students

Spring Break in Japan Students volunteer, study reconstruction following 2011 tsunami

Watch a KTLA News segment featuring trip participant Lindsay Miracle MPP ‘13: bit.ly/w3sqxw

student profilePH

OTO

: KO

ICHI

SaK

aTa

in public policy, urban planning and social welfare spent their spring break doing volunteer work with nongovern-mental organizations (NGos) in the sendai area.

Goto hoped the Japan trip gave her luskin peers a greater understanding of her country, its people and its poli-cies. her fellow graduate students “will be the leaders of the future. i want them to be a bridge between Japan and America,” she said.

students met with YOSHIMASA NAKAJIMA MPP ’08, a government staffer who is assisting in the reconstruction of the airport in sendai. they volunteered with NGos to deliver aid to people still in need and shared their college-going experiences with children living in temporary housing. the trip was made possible with the support of dr. Paul terasaki, UclA professor emeritus of surgery and a generous supporter of the university. �

—Cynthia Lee, UCLA Today

Nobuko goto


people

Doctoral candidate meGan

HolmeS mSw ‘08 has been

selected to receive the 2012

Society for Social Work and

Research (SSWR) Doctoral

Fellows Award for her disserta-

tion proposal research, “Effects

of Maternal Parenting Quality

on the Development of Social

Behavior for Children Exposed

to Domestic Violence.” SSWR

established the award “to

recognize and support doctoral

students whose proposed

dissertation research reflects

innovative ideas and rigorous

methodologies related to social

work research, policy, or prac-

tice.” The award committee

commended Holmes’ research

for the “significance of the

problem, the rigor of the

analysis and the contribution to

knowledge in social work and

social welfare,” said laura

aBramS, associate professor

of social welfare and doctoral

program chair. Conferred to

Holmes at the SSWR annual >>

change, opposing poverty and

racism as factors in society,

and seeking ways to reduce

disparities between rich and

poor; white and black; men

and women. In Seeking Spatial

Justice, Soja argues that justice

has a geography and that

the equitable distribution of

resources, services and access

is a basic human right. Building

on current concerns in critical

geography and the new spatial

consciousness, Soja interweaves

theory and practice, offering

new ways of understanding

and changing the unjust geog-

raphies in which we live.

SuSan FitZGeralD rice

mPa ’76 will be honored by St.

Mary’s College’s in Notre Dame,

Indiana, with the prestigious

President’s Medal, presented

rarely and exclusively to those

who have offered exceptional

contributions to the life of the

College and society. A resident

of Los Angeles, Rice gradu-

ated from Saint Mary’s and

went on to earn an MPA from

UCLA and a doctor of educa-

tion degree from Pepperdine

University. Previously, she

served as the president/chief

executive officer of the greater

Los Angeles Zoo Association,

as director of development at

UCLA’s Anderson School, and as

a board member for the UCLA

Foundation and the League of

Women Voters of Los Angeles

Education Fund.

served as a program manager

on the Africa team of the U.S.

Agency for International Devel-

opment’s Office of Transition

Initiatives. She also served as

a policy analyst on the inter-

national affairs and trade team

of the government Account-

ability Office. Read the article,

“Famine Ravages Somalia in a

World Less Likely to Intervene,”

at nyti.ms/qedpSk. Find her CFR

essay at on.cfr.org/qqVkaV.

Seeking Spatial Justice by

Urban Planning distinguished

professor emeritus eDwarD

SoJa has been awarded one of

the three Honorable Mentions

for the Paul Davidoff prize,

one of the most prestigious

honors in the academic plan-

ning field. The Paul Davidoff

award is presented by the Asso-

ciation of Collegiate Schools

of Planning in recognition of

an outstanding book publica-

tion promoting participatory

planning and positive social

Bronwyn Bruton MPP

’02 was quoted in a Sept. 15

New York Times article that

also cited her 2010 Council on

Foreign Relations (CFR) report

“Somalia: A New Approach.”

The democracy and governance

expert’s report discusses the

situation in Somalia and alter-

natives to intervention policies.

While hundreds of thousands

of Somalis suffer from a

drought-caused famine, most

aid from agencies continues

to be blocked by militants

in that country. However,

unlike the 1990s, international

military intervention doesn’t

work and does not have much

support, according to experts.

“I don’t think there’s a case

to be made that the famine

can be mitigated through

military intervention,” Bruton

said in the article. A 2008-09

international affairs fellow at

the CFR, the Swaziland native

has worked at the National

Endowment for Democracy and

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAgE

meeting in Washington, D.C.,

the award is accompanied by

$3,000 to support the comple-

tion of dissertation research,

data analysis and preparation of

the final dissertation document.

Professor of Public Policy

marK Kleiman has been

appointed to the Committee

on Law and Justice, a standing

committee within the National

Research Council. An expert

on crime policy, Kleiman was

appointed to a two-year term

and is among six new members

of the board approved for

membership by Ralph J. Cice-

rone, chair of the national

Research Council. Professor

Kleiman also was recently

named a National Institute of

Justice Visiting Fellow. The

Committee on Law and Justice

was formed to increase scien-

tific understanding of crime and

justice issues and to provide

assistance to the National Insti-

tute of Justice.


people

maDeline wanDer MURP ’12

has been selected by the Board

of Regents of the Eno Center

for Transportation to participate

in the 20th annual Eno Leader-

ship Development Conference

in Washington, D.C. The Eno

Transportation Foundation is a

neutral, non-partisan think tank

that promotes policy innova-

tion. The conference will provide

Wander with a firsthand look

at how transportation policy is

developed and implemented.

A research assistant for Profes-

sors EVELYN BLUMENBERg

and BRIAN TAYLOR and a

graduate researcher at USC’s

Program for Environmental and

Regional Equity (PERE), Wander

is focusing on transit equity,

environmental justice and travel

behavior. After graduation, she

plans to conduct community-

based research around issues

of environmental and economic

justice in low-income and disen-

franchised neighborhoods in

Los Angeles.

BraD rowe MPP ‘13 is a

writer for The Generation,

a new online foreign affairs

journal produced for students

by a team of undergraduate

and graduate students. Initi-

ated by UCLA’s Burkle Center

for International Relations,

which fosters research on and

promotes discussion of inter-

national relations, U.S. foreign

policy, and complex issues of

global cooperation and conflict,

The Generation offers student

perspectives on a wide variety

of international issues and

topics. “We’re not trying to be

blindly provocative, but we’re

trying to get people to think

about things in new ways,”

said Rowe. Read the journal at

the-generation.net/.

aDeline aranayDo MSW ‘13

is one of 12 students nationwide

selected as 2012 Native American

Congressional interns through

the Udall Foundation. Aranaydo,

of the Tohono O’odham Nation,

will intern in the office of Rep.

Raúl grijalva (D-Ariz.). Students

in the program serve 10-week

internships in Senate and House

offices, committees, Cabinet

departments or the White

House. The Udall Foundation is

an independent federal agency

established by Congress in 1992

to provide federally funded

scholarships for college students

intending to pursue careers

related to the environment,

as well as to American Indian

students pursuing tribal public

policy or health care careers.

micHele PricHarD MURP ’89,

director of Common Agenda at

Liberty Hill, was honored with

a 2012 Distinguished Service

Award, the Council on Founda-

tions’ highest honor. Prichard

began working with the founda-

tion as a volunteer in 1982. As

executive director from 1989 to

1997, she helped create new

grant programs addressing

poverty, racial justice and envi-

ronmental health. Today, Liberty

Hill is considered one of the most

innovative public foundations in

the country. Prichard serves on

the board of the Venice Commu-

nity Housing Corporation and the

steering committee of the green

L.A. Coalition. Los Angeles Mayor

Antonio Villaraigosa appointed

her to the Harbor Community

Benefit Foundation in 2011. She

has served as a senior fellow at

UCLA Luskin since 2007.


marSHall wonG MSW ‘86

received the 2012 Social Worker

of the Year award from the

National Association of Social

Workers. This honor follows his

recognition as Social Worker of

the Year for California. Wong,

who currently provides field

instruction for UCLA Luskin

MSW students, is the hate crime

coordinator for the Los Angeles

County Commission on Human

Relations and established the

Hate Crime Victim Assistance

and Community Advocacy Initia-

tive in Los Angeles. Wong serves

as co-chair of API Equality-L.A.,

a coalition of organizations that

focuses on the fair treatment

of the Asian and Pacific Islander

LgBT community within the

greater Los Angeles area, and

provides advocacy and commu-

nity education. He also works to

ensure that students from immi-

grant families can continue their

education in the U.S. Watch a

video with Wong at youtu.be/

xPAotCc2ZWc.

Associate Dean anaStaSia

louKaitou-SiDeriS has

teamed with USC professor

Tridib Banerjee to edit a

volume in which 58 of the

leading international urban

planning thinkers in the field

contribute reflective essays

that capture the “core, foun-

dational, and pioneering ideas

and concepts,” in current plan-

ning for the built environment.

Companion to Urban Design

(Routledge, 2011) includes

entries by UCLA Luskin’s

Vinit muKHiJa, eDwarD

SoJa, loiS taKaHaSHi and

Loukaitou-Sideris. In their

essay, Loukaitou-Sideris and

Banarjee reflect on “Down-

town urban design,” writing,

“There are ample indications

that we are at the threshold

of a new era of imaginative

urban design based strictly

on sustainability goals rather

than continuing with glam-

orous corporate complexes.”

Mukhija’s chapter, “Urban

design for a planet of informal

cities,” explores the concept of

the informal city (read more

on page 19), whereas Taka-

hashi’s essay, written with

Marlon Boarnet of UC Irvine,

argues for building a stronger

link between public health

and urban design. Soja makes

the case that cities are going

through an unprecedented

spatial “postmetropolitan tran-

sition” with the spread into

what he terms the “exopolis.”

alice (lauGHlin) KitcHen

MSW ’72, volunteer co-chair

of the Affordable Care Act

Public Education Committee

for the Metropolitan Kansas

City MO/KS area, was

honored by the White House

as one of 10 “Champions of

Change” who are dedicated

to improving access to health

care. According to the White

House, Champions of Change

are helping others in their

community understand the

impact and opportunities

from the new health care law.

Kitchen coordinated (with

Sarah Starnes) more than 35

presentations on the Afford-

able Care Act reaching from

10 to 90 individuals in each

setting. These ACA educa-

tion sessions were targeted

to seniors, women’s groups,

churches, trade groups, small

businesses and health profes-

sionals. Kitchen also connected

local health care advocacy

groups to the public library

system, television, radio and

news organizations.

SuSanna HecHt, professor

of political ecology at UCLA

Luskin and the UCLA Insti-

tute of the Environment and

Sustainability, co-authored an

article for National Geographic

with science writer Charles C.

Mann, a correspondent for The

Atlantic Monthly and Wired.

The article explores envi-

ronmentalists’ concerns that

Brazil’s quilombos, century-old

settlements in the Amazon

rainforest, could thwart efforts

to preserve the rainforest.

Hecht argues that the villagers

are actually vital caretakers

of the forest. The argument is

ramping up as a 1988 Brazilian

law helps more and more

quilombos obtain ownership

of the land. Read the article at

bit.ly/gElwza �


headerheadersupport

Improving middle schools

Brad Rowe, MPP ’13

m orGaniZation: United

Way of greater Los Angeles

m ProJect: Rowe will

research and create policy

recommendations on a

ground-breaking new

agreement between United

Teachers Los Angeles

and Los Angeles Unified

School District, with a

focus on middle school

improvements and how the

agreement relates to the

United Way’s Leadership

Matters and Diplomas Now

programs.

m oF note: The new agree-

ment provides K-12 teachers

and principals more oppor-

tunities to innovate with

school-based reforms than

ever before.

Tracking the progress of the Mayor’s policy areas

Cody Reneau, MPP ’13

m orGaniZation: Office of

the Mayor of Los Angeles

m ProJect: As part of the

assignment, Reneau will

redesign the Mayor’s

Agenda Tracking System.

One of the office’s broadest

and far-reaching manage-

ment tools, the system

establishes the office-wide

fiscal year goals in each

of the Mayor’s five policy

areas.

m oF note: Reneau will work

with Office of Finance &

Performance Management

senior staff member gREg

SPOTTS MPP ’08.

Encouraging a sustainable Southern California

Leah Murphy, MURP ’13

morGaniZation: Southern

California Association of

governments (SCAg)

mProJect: An April 2012

SCAg Regional Council

vote marked the first time

Southern California has

adopted a Sustainable

Communities Strategy.

Monitoring implementation

and measuring success will

be key Agency priorities;

Murphy will assist in the

refinement of SCAg’s Perfor-

mance Assessment Program.

moF note: SCAg is the

nation’s largest metropolitan

planning organization.

Communicating with 10 million residents

Brandon Dowling, MPP ’13

m orGaniZation: County of

Los Angeles Chief Executive

Office

m ProJect: The Board of

Supervisors recently updated

the Countywide Strategic

Plan to include, for the first

time, external communications

as one of four critical focus

areas for the entire organiza-

tion. Dowling will work with

County leaders and departments

on methods to accomplish

plan goals.

m oF note: L.A. County is the

nation’s largest municipal

government.

“The Rosenfield Fellowships will enable some of UCLA Luskin’s most promising

students to get valuable real-world experience and develop a network of contacts

that will help them in their professional careers.”

—DAvID LEvETON, DIRECTOR OF THE ANN C. ROSENFIELD FUND

In a program to kick off this summer, four UCLA Luskin students will tackle critical projects in high-profile organizations through the new ANN C. ROSENFIELD PUBLIC AFFAIRS FELLOWSHIP PROgRAM. Thanks to the generosity of the Rosenfield Fund, Fellows receive fee remission for the 2012-2013 academic year and a paid full-time summer position that will continue as part-time to the end of the academic year.

New fellowship program launches

Four UCLA Luskin students to work on critical, high-level issues as Rosenfield Fellows

www.publicaffairs.ucla.edu

The Luskin Legacy Campaign–

$30 Makes a Difference!

LAST YEAR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS ANSWERED the call—give a gift of just $30 to help current students through fellowship support. thank you to all who helped raise nearly $15,000 in scholarship funding in just two months.

BUT WHY $30, YOU ASK? in 1943 meyer luskin received a $30 scholarship to pursue his dreams at UclA (when tuition was just $29). We asked alumni and friends to honor the luskins’ legacy with their own gifts of just $30. the message was simple and the results profound, proving that small gifts really do make a big difference.

HELP TO CONTINUE THE LUSKIN LEgACY by making your gift by June 30, 2012 to ensure our newest classes have the support they need.

Learn more about how you can give back at

luSKinleGacy.ucla.eDu.

Luskin LeGACy

The online professional networking site for

UCLA Luskin graduatesluskin online is a website exclusively for luskin alumni.

you can locate your Urban Planning, Public Policy and social Welfare friends as well as have access to

UCLA LUSKIN CAREERVIEW.

Exclusive access to:ONLINE ALUMNI DIRECTORY

ALUMNI CLASS NOTESUCLA LUSKIN PHOTO gALLERY

EVENTS CALENDARRéSUMé POSTINg

and

CAREERVIEW JOB AND INTERNSHIP DATABASEsearch jobs and post opportunities!hire luskin alumni and graduates!

To register, go to luSKinonline.ucla.eDu

and enter your alumni or student identification number.

To receive your alumni ID#, contact Luskin Alumni Relations

at [email protected]

or call (310) 206-8034.

Renee and Meyer Luskin receive UCLA’s first Fiat Lux award from Chancellor Block.

405 Hilgard Avenue

Los Angeles, CA 90095

www.publicaffairs.ucla.edu

NON-PROFIT ORG.U.S. POSTAGE

PAIDUCLA

events

Career Center Hosts Fair for Alumni and Students

More than 50 top employers from the public, private

and non-profit sectors recruited UCLA Luskin students

and alumni at a career fair on campus in March.

Sherry Dodge, director of

career services at UCLA Luskin

Stanley R. Hoffman of

Stanley R. Hoffman Associates

(second from right)

Documents

Luskin Forum Spring 2012