Access to Opportunities Initiative

The access to opportunities initiative provides research on how transportation connects people to economic opportunities and social participation. We do this by working with a broad community of scholars at UCLA in planning and policy, public health and health policy management, labor, and more. This work is presented in partnership with the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies.

What is access to opportunity?

This phrase refers to the specific role that transportation plays in helping people reach essential destinations — in jobs, healthcare, and education. Because transportation resources are inequitable in their distribution among people and neighborhoods, many people face disparities in access that hinders their outcomes in life. This research initiative seeks to create a greater understanding of this concept, how it’s determined, and most importantly, what can be done to increase access to opportunity, especially among underserved populations. To learn more about access to opportunity, read the background primer. Read more Access to Opportunities publications here.

For a preview of some of the connected determinants of access to opportunities, watch the video below:

Research Areas

The research areas below provide examples of the broad categories of work within this initiative and each page highlights existing research from UCLA scholars on these topics.

Essential Destinations

Travel Behavior

Safety

Environmental Justice

Finance

Housing and High-Quality Neighborhoods

People

Internal medicine physician, postdoctoral fellow
Katherine Chen

Distunguished Professor and Associate Dean
Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris

Associate Director, Adjunct Assistant Professor
Gregory Pierce

Director

Evelyn Blumenberg

Evelyn Blumenberg is the Director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies and a Professor of Urban Planning within the Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her research examines the effects of urban structure — the spatial location of residents, employment, and services — on economic outcomes for low-wage workers, and on the role of planning and policy in shaping the spatial structure of cities. Professor Blumenberg’s recent projects include analyses of trends in transit ridership, gender and travel behavior, low-wage workers and the changing commute, and the relationship between automobile ownership and employment outcomes among the poor.

Areas of Work:Transportation, Access to Opportunities

Deputy Director

Madeline Brozen

Madeline Brozen is Deputy Director of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies and a transportation researcher. Her research focuses on the transportation needs for vulnerable populations and how transportation connects people to opportunity, most recently focusing on transportation needs to healthcare. Her previous research includes work on parklet design and evaluation, park design for older adults, and street performance metrics. Madeline is a lecturer in GIS for the UCLA Urban Planning Department and commonly incorporates spatial analysis in her work. She previously managed the UCLA Complete Streets Initiative, was the founding editor-in-chief of Transfers Magazine, and is a member of the Investing in Place advisory board.

Areas of Work:Transportation, Access to Opportunities

Assistant Professor

Genevieve Carpio

Genevieve Carpio is Assistant Professor in the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies. Professor Carpio’s research and teaching interests include race-making between diverse groups, how people make meaning in the places they call home, and the public humanities, particularly as related to the California Inland Empire and the digital world. Carpio is the author of a book on racial formation in the multiracial suburbs of Los Angeles and the Inland Empire, entitled “Collisions at the Crossroads: How Place and Mobility Make Race” (University of California Press, 2019). Her second book project examines architectural forms shaped by California race relations, such as the Spanish and Maya revivals, and their movement across the Pacific World in the early 20th century. Carpio is an interdisciplinary-trained scholar who holds a doctorate in American Studies and Ethnicity from the University of Southern California. She also holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Pomona College, an M.A. in Urban Planning from UCLA, and a graduate certificate in Historic Preservation from the USC School of Architecture.

Areas of Work:Access to Opportunities, Transportation

Internal medicine physician, postdoctoral fellow

Katherine Chen

Katherine L. Chen, M.D., is an internal medicine physician and postdoctoral fellow in the National Clinician Scholars Program and Specialty Training and Advanced Research program at UCLA. Her research explores equity issues at the intersection of urban planning and population health, focusing on ways to reduce health disparities through policies that shape affordable housing, transportation, and neighborhood environments. Recent projects have examined health outcomes among people displaced in California’s affordable housing crisis, the impact of gentrification on hypertension and diabetes control in Los Angeles, transportation access to health care during the COVID-19 pandemic, and nonprofit hospitals’ engagement with housing needs in the local community.

Areas of Work:Access to Opportunities, Housing Affordability, Health Access

Lecturer

Kenya Covington

Kenya L. Covington conducts empirical research that examines social and economic inequality associated with the structural makeup of metropolitan areas. Her work suggests ways to better utilize social and urban policies that likely mitigate disparities in economic opportunity and well-being overall. For over a decade, she was professor of urban studies and planning at California State University, Northridge and concluded her tenure as full professor. In 2015, she was named Distinguished Teacher of the Year. Professor Covington teaches courses on Housing Policy, Introduction to Public Policy, Research Methods, Forces of Urbanization, Social Inequality and Urban Poverty. She joined the Public Policy faculty at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs in 2017.

Areas of Work:Access to Opportunities, Housing Affordability

Distunguished Professor and Associate Dean

Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris

Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris is the Associate Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, a Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning, and a core faculty of the UCLA Urban Humanities Initiative. Professor Loukaitou-Sideris’ research focuses on the public environment of the city, its physical representation, aesthetics, social meaning and impact on the urban resident. Her work seeks to integrate social and physical issues in urban planning and architecture. An underlying theme of her work is its “user focus”; that is, she seeks to analyze and understand the built environment from the perspective of those who live and work there. Dr. Loukaitou-Sideris’ research includes documentation and analysis of the social and physical changes that have occurred in the public realm; cultural determinants of design and planning and their implications for public policy; quality-of-life issues for inner city residents; transit security, urban design, land use, and transportation issues.

Areas of Work:Urban Redevelopment, Urban Design, Public Space

Research Professor

Paul Ong

Professor Ong has done research on the labor market status of minorities and immigrants, displaced high-tech workers, work and spatial/transportation mismatch, and environmental justice. He is currently engaged in several projects, including an analysis of the relationship between sustainability and equity, the racial wealth gap, and the role of urban structures on the reproduction of inequality.

Areas of Work:Access to Opportunities, Transportation

Associate Director, Adjunct Assistant Professor

Gregory Pierce

Greg Pierce is the Associate Director of the Luskin Center for Innovation and leads its Water, Environmental Equity and Transportation programs. He is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the UCLA Department of Urban Planning. Pierce received a Ph.D. in urban planning in 2015 and a master’s in urban planning in 2011, both from UCLA. He is the author of 30+ peer-reviewed articles. Current and past sponsors of this work include the California State Water Resources Control Board, the California Air Resources Board, the Strategic Growth Council, the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department, WaterAid, the Water Foundation, The Resources Legacy Fund, Environment Now, the DiCaprio Foundation, the World Bank, the UC Multicampus Research Initiative, the UC Institute of Transportation Studies and the UCLA Grand Challenge.

Director and Professor

Brian D. Taylor

Brian Taylor is Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy, and Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA. Professor Taylor’s research centers on transportation policy and planning – most of it conducted in close collaboration with his many exceptional students. His students have won dozens of national awards for their work, and today hold positions at the highest levels of planning analysis, teaching, and practice. Professor Taylor explores how society pays for transportation systems and how these systems in turn serve the needs of people who – because of low income, disability, location, or age – have lower levels of mobility. Topically, his research examines travel behavior, transportation economics & finance, and politics & planning.

Areas of Work:Access to Opportunities, Transportation

Chair, Professor

Karen Umemoto

Karen Umemoto is the Helen and Morgan Chu Endowed Director’s Chair of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. She received her Master’s degree in Asian American Studies from UCLA and her Ph.D. in Urban Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research centers on issues of democracy and social justice in multicultural societies with a focus on U.S. cities. She also examines and pursues planning processes that include a diverse array of voices, acknowledges different ways of knowing, and allows for meaningful deliberations. She is equally concerned about the structural, procedural and relational obstacles to attaining a just and democratic society. Her research and practice thus takes a broad view of planning in the context of social inclusion, participatory democracy and political transformation.

Areas of Work:Access to Opportunities, Health Access, Equity and Transformative Planning

Professor

May C. Wang

Dr. May Wang joined the faculty of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health as Associate Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences in 2008. She received an undergraduate degree from the National University of Singapore, a master’s degree in nutritional science from the University of Texas at Austin, and master’s and doctorate degrees in public health from the University of California, Berkeley. After obtaining her doctorate degree, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine where she was trained in the emerging field of pediatric bone health research. Since then, she has conducted research related to child obesity and bone health with a focus on addressing health disparities.

Areas of Work:Access to Opportunities, Food Insecurity, Health Access

Professor

Fred Zimmerman

Frederick J. Zimmerman is Professor of Health Policy and Management in the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA. Dr. Zimmerman is a past president of the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Sciences. He is the co-author of “The Elephant in the Living Room,” and co-editor of “Development at a Crossroads,” and has written more than 100 academic journal articles. His work studies how economic structure and public policy influence population health, and has been covered in the New York Times, the BBC, Radio France Internationale, and many other outlets.

Areas of Work:Access to Opportunities

The Access to Opportunities Initiative is a partnership between the Lewis Center and the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies.