Research Projects

This project uses parcel-level data in California to identify the effects of ADU production on a city’s rents and housing prices, and to isolate the impacts of ADU legalization (i.e., the option value created for existing parcels) on land values.

This project will inventory the types of affordable transportation options that could help patients overcome their transportation challenges, along with proposing a model for a resource fair where patients can find out more about their options and enroll on-site.

This study focuses on the sexual harassment experiences of university students, a population group that is typically more transit-dependent than the general public, and possibly because of their age, more vulnerable to victimization from sexual harassment than other adults.

Thousands of people shelter in vehicles as makeshift housing every night in Los Angeles. Vehicle living is not ideal for those who live in vehicles nor for cities, many of which have responded by enacting ordinances to make it illegal or difficult to sleep in vehicles.

More than 50 years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act, households of color and other marginalized groups continue to face unequal access to housing. This two-year project will look into California’s progress in reversing long-standing patterns of segregation.

In collaboration with MapCraft Labs, this project will identify major barriers to the adoption of shared-equity rental housing, as well as the policy reforms and financial instruments that could be deployed to expand it.

At any given moment, thousands of Angelenos experience homelessness, but many thousands more teeter on its brink, living precariously in the region’s unforgiving housing market. This two-year project will evaluate these conditions through a parcel-level, data-oriented lens.

The state has spent decades allowing its housing problems to worsen, and it will likely take decades of action to solve the resulting crisis. All of this contributes to a grim feeling about California’s future housing trajectory.

The overall research objective is to produce transportation research on access to opportunity for low-income and communities and people of color, done in partnership with community partners.

The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) is piloting a new vehicle lending library program that aims to increase access to job opportunities for low-income communities, relieving the daily stressors associated with unreliable access to transportation.

Los Angeles is launching the largest mobility wallet pilot, where 1,000 people in South Los Angeles will receive $150 per month for one year. UCLA and UC Davis researchers will complete a comprehensive mixed-methods evaluation examining travel trends, experiences, and spending for L.A.’s program.

Wildfire disasters increasingly put Californians at risk. Through close collaboration with organizations representing vulnerable communities and tribal groups, this project will provide a defined process and guidance for “doubly vulnerable” communities across California who are seeking to improve recovery efforts and resilience planning.

This project provides a critical foundation to move towards a deeper understanding of the conditions under which Black neighborhoods flourish and fail, the residential mobility pathways in and out of these neighborhoods, and the consequences of larger policy choices on the Black neighborhood. 

Lewis Center researchers, in partnership with Toole Design Group, examine whether subsidized carsharing services like BlueLA can meet environmental goals and narrow the accessibility gaps facing low-income travelers across Los Angeles.

Following the 2017 passage of Assembly Bill 686, the state of California has perhaps the most expansive approach to Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) in the country. This project assesses the impact of California’s implementation and enforcement of AFFH on local planning processes. 

The team will analyze automobile debt and loan delinquencies over the past decade as the state emerged from the Great Recession.