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Bill Fulton: Planning for Resilience
Fulton began with the basic question everyone came to discuss: How does resilience relate to planning? Resilience is usually thought of in economic or environmental terms, and the resiliency of the built environment and social fabric of the city receive much less attention. Bill Fulton argued that we should think about how cities and the…
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Soft Infrastructure and the Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity of Cities and Regions
Most people are familiar with hard infrastructure- perhaps images of roads, bridges, buildings, and sewers immediately come to mind. Yet many may not be as familiar with the concept of soft infrastructure, which refers to human capital and the social and cultural resources that cultivate healthy communities. Nurit Katz, Chief Sustainability Officer at UCLA, moderated…
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Ray Quay: Anticipatory Governance, a Framework for Resilience Planning
The Sonoran Desert covers large parts of California and Arizona, and is the hottest desert in North America. Yet the desert area also hosts Phoenix, AZ, a metropolitan area of 4.3 million and one of America’s fastest-growing cities. Roughly two decades ago Phoenix decided to prioritize the preservation of desert land in the northern part…
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Shaken, but not Stirred (to Action)?
Both of California’s major regions, Los Angeles and the Bay Area, sit on active earthquake faults. How resilient will they be when the next one hits? Together, three panelists offered insights on just how many systems and approaches come together to form earthquake preparedness — or lack thereof — in California. Consider the wide range…
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Closing Comments from Director Brian Taylor
As is tradition, Lewis Center Director Brian Taylor closed the symposium with an impromptu synthesis of the past few days. He spoke about what he thought were some of the most compelling and provocative themes: Yin and Yang Taylor noted a pattern of yin and yang throughout the event. Hope for the best, but plan…
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Urban Planning Grad Student Casey Osborn on Transportation’s Best Ideas for National Parks
When the first road was built to Yosemite in 1856, entry to the park cost $1 by foot and $2 by horse. The November ITS Brown Bag seminar saw 2nd year student Casey Osborn, whose passion for the outdoors is longstanding (see photo), provide this and other delightful insights in a talk that tackled the tense relationship between some of our most beloved wilderness locations and…
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Director Brian Taylor Discusses the History of Los Angeles Freeways in the LA Times
Lewis Center and Institute of Transportation Studies Director Brian Taylor has written extensively on the history and financing of freeways- see here for a paper on California freeways and here for an article on how the United States system was financed. Most recently, a Los Angeles Times article used Taylor’s work as the basis for an article about freeway development throughout past…
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Lewis Center’s Madeline Brozen and Juan Matute Put Los Angeles Trains in Their Proper Place
It is the mark of a UCLA transportation scholar that when asked what trains will do for Los Angeles, they respond first with an explanation of what trains will not do. Trains in Los Angeles are not going to fix traffic, nor are they going to transform the way Angelenos move about the city. What…
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Give or Take: Lewis Center’s Brian Taylor and Paavo Monkkonen Discuss the Sharing Economy
Lewis Center Director Brian Taylor and Faculty Fellow Paavo Monkkonen highlighted different aspects of the sharing economy at an October event held at the downtown LA workspace collective Maker City LA. The event was put on by the American Planning Association’s Los Angeles chapter, and saw Taylor discuss the implications of increasingly popular car-share services such as Uber…
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PHD Student Kelcie Ralph Talks to NPR About Why More American Women Don’t Bike to Work
Urban Planning PHD student Kelcie Ralph talked to Chicago NPR affiliate WBEZ earlier this week about the unique obstacles facing American women from taking up bicycling. The interview covers ideas outlined in a Guardian op-ed that Ralph penned with Lewis Center researcher Herbie Huff, and builds off her research with UCLA colleagues on household travel and activities among students and non-traditional…