UCLA scholars win best planning article

This year’s best planning journal article went to UCLA scholars who looked at how high housing costs are pushing workers farther away from job-rich neighborhoods.

Evelyn Blumenberg, professor of urban planning and director of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, and Hannah King, a doctoral student in urban planning, were recognized for their excellent work on the paper, “Jobs–Housing Balance Re-Re-Visited,” published May 2021 in the Journal of the American Planning Association.

Their research resurfaced the once-popular jobs-housing balance framework for the present era, and included 394 cities in California measured at two different points in time (2002 and 2015). They found that, over time, “California cities are becoming less self-contained.” In other words, fewer people both live and work in the same cities than in previous years. These changes can be attributed, in part, to the rising cost of housing.

The state’s worsening housing affordability crisis is pushing workers and jobs farther apart, leading to longer commutes and the associated economic, social, and environmental harms. The authors suggest that policies to increase the supply of housing in job-rich and high-housing cost areas could help reverse this troubling trend — but will likely be met with considerable resistance.

The journal, in tandem with the APA, makes its selections for best article on the basis of several criteria, which include “making significant contribution to the literature of the planning profession, having the potential to change the nature of discourse on the given topic, and providing useful insights or implications for planning practice or public policy.”

“Our results highlight the reality that transportation and housing are two sides of the same issue,” King said. “California isn’t going to solve its housing crisis without addressing transportation, and it’s not going to solve its transportation issues without considering the role of housing.”

“We need to get creative with using policy tools such as residential upzoning and reducing parking requirements that can help address housing affordability and transportation access simultaneously,” King added.

This research is part of the Transit Blues in the Golden State research project.

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