[H+T--Friends] Institute of Urban and Regional Development | Summer 2019 Newsletter

F E A T U R E D Richmond & Pogo Park: How Does Place Influence Health Equity? ------------------------------------------------------------ Pogo Park transforms broken and little-used city parks in one of America’s toughest inner-city neighborhoods, Richmond, California’s “Iron Triangle,”into safe, green, beautiful public spaces for children to play. ------------------------------------------------------------ Youth Researchers Doing Gallery Walk Excerpt of a Photovoice piece from one of our youth researchers: “In this picture, I see a picture of the creek in the park. It symbolizes peacefulness and it shows that there is a place in the community just to sit down, chill, and take a breath. This is important to me because everyone needs a space to just sit and think or to relax in peacefulness, even if it[‘]s not being used it's good to know its there. This is like this because the Pogo Park team was thinking of others that might be stressed or would just need a spot to relax. If I was in charge, I would make more spaces like this for people to relax in with more shade.” IURD and Pogo Park, a nonprofit community development organization in Richmond, CA, are partnering to explore how urban parks can improve health equity and reduce toxic stress. One project in the summer of 2019 used Photovoice with youth to better understand the effects of toxic stressors in the community and ways to mitigate these stressors. The research was co-led by Pogo Park Team Members and Joseph Griffin, an IURD doctoral student. The Photovoice project is part of a larger, multi-sited research project on place and health equity run by researchers at IURD in partnership with community organizations and government officials in Richmond, CA, and supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Nairobi Informal Settlements Health Impact Assessment (HIA) In 2019, students from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and Department of City and Regional Planning (DCRP), joined a studio class taught by Professor Jason Corburn, also IURD Director. The class partnered with Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) in Nairobi, Kenya, to conduct collaborative research about the health impacts of living in an informal settlement. The result was a report: Mukuru Special Planning Area; Rapid Health Impact Assessment. This was a unique project as community expertise and professional tools were used to document the multiple physical and social hazards residents of this informal settlement face. A cumulative exposure analysis and risk assessment were also performed. The research and report are part of a multi-year partnership between IURD and SDI to co-create solutions for healthy and equitable informal settlement upgrading in the Global South. S U M M E R R E S E A R C H E R S Meet IURD's Summer Researchers! Joseph Griffin is a DrPH candidate in the School of Public Health focused on gun violence and community-based approaches to healing from it. Beatriz Guerrero Auna is a second year student in the Master of City Planning program at UC Berkeley and a researcher in the Institute of Urban and Regional Development. Her concentration is Environmental Planning and Healthy Cities and her current work and research is focused on health equity and urban health. Brandon is a fourth-year undergraduate majoring in Public Health and double-minoring in Public Policy and Human Rights. Caihla was a student-athlete at UC Berkeley and graduated with her degree in Public Health in May of 2018. She has been working part-time as an IURD intern since Fall of 2018 and is attending UCSF to get her MS in Global Health Sciences in the fall. Esa is entering his final year as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley and majoring in Public Health, Sociology, and Political Economy and minoring in Public Policy. His interests include toxic stress, the role of the state and local governments on wellbeing, and community-based participatory research. Oluchi Okwu is originally from Sacramento, California. She is a proud recent graduate of UC Berkeley with a Bachelors of Arts in Public Health on a Pre-Medicine track. She has been working with Professor Corburn and the Mukuru research team since Spring of 2018. R E C E N T N E W S IURD Researchers, Including Former Mayor of Medellin, Anibal Gaviria, Publish Paper on Transformation of Medellin https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811… Medellín, a city in Colombia, is widely regarded as one of the most innovative in the world. This research article explores some of the key factors that contributed to that city's positive transformation and what lessons other cities around the world can learn from Medellín. The article is based, in part, on a seminar at IURD co-facilitated by the former Mayor of Medellín, Anibal Gaviria and IURD Director, Professor Jason Corburn. UC Berkeley Study Documents Impacts of Possible Closure of Alta Bates Hospital (Karina Ioffee/KQED) The IURD recently completed a Rapid Health Impact Assessment (RHIA) of the likely population health impacts of the closing of Alta Bates hospital in Berkeley, California. IURD researchers found that the closure may have significant impacts on the well-being of the region, particularly in the areas of birthing, emergency department access and disaster response. The closure may also adversely impact Cal students’ access to a full service hospital. According to lead author and IURD Director, Professor Jason Corburn, “our research found that the closure of Alta Bates hospital could adversely impact the health of all populations in the East Bay, but particularly those in Richmond and Contra Costa County, and those already vulnerable, such as the elderly, homeless and uninsured populations. A comprehensive plan is needed to ensure all populations and places have access to quality and affordable health services.” Read the full report here (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) and an article in the Berkeleyside news about the report’s findings here (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) . M E D I A C O V E R A G E KRON 4 NEWS (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) - "UC Berkeley releases study on safety/health impacts of Alta Bates Hospital closure" KQED NEWS (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) - "In Effort to Keep Alta Bates Open, Officials Point to New Report About Potential Impacts Of Closure" SF Chronicle (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) - Report: "Berkeley hospital closure would mean longer ER waits, ambulance rides" IURD (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) - UC Berkeley Health Study Documents Impacts To Bay Area From Possible Hospital Closure MAYOR JESSE ARREGUIN (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) - New Study Finds Significant Health Impacts EAST BAY TIMES (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) - Report: Alta Bates closure would critically impact poor, people of color Reducing Urban Gun Violence: Evaluation of Advance Peace Director and Professor Jason Corburn is leading the evaluation of Advance Peace, a community-based gun violence reduction strategy being deployed in cities around the country. In 2019, IURD researchers completed the 1 Year Evaluation of the Advance Peace Program in Sacramento, California. Advance Peace Evaluation work is also on-going in Stockton and Richmond, California. This innovative program focused on healing the young people often at the center of gun violence, not punishment, and community street outreach workers to interrupt violence before it occurs. See more: https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811… A D V A N C E P E A C E P R E S S C O V E R A G E ------------------------------------------------------------ SACRAMENTO Julius Thibodeaux (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) "Almost everything (they) do is that kill-or-be-killed mentality," he said. "The way they feel compelled to live this dangerous lifestyle, our job is to compel them to understand that they do have choices. The solution is definitely not locking all these young men up." Marcus McGhee (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) RICHMOND James Houston (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) "I did 18 years in prison for murder and now I'm on a mission to end gun violence." STOCKTON "Our work is unfinished." -Mayor Michael Tubbs (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) ADVANCE PEACE IN THE NEWS (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) IURD Visiting Scholar, Dr. M. Reza Shirazi, Co-Edits a Book Entitled: Urban Social Sustainability: Theory, Policy and Practice This ground breaking volume raises radical critiques and proposes innovative solutions for social sustainability in the built environment. It consists of original contributions from academics and experts within the field and explores the significance of social sustainability from different perspectives such as urban policy, transportation and mobility, urban space and architectural form, housing, urban heritage, neighbourhood development, and urban governance. For more details, click here (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) . Land Use Law Research: 16 cities across California An update from the California Land Use study: the team is pleased to welcome Raine Robichaud (B.A.’18 Urban Studies and Latin American Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, UC Berkeley) and Kenneth Warner (M.S.’19 Urban Planning, Columbia University) to support the completion of a sixteen-city California land use study and create an online interactive platform for our work. The team has released three recent publications. The first paper (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) contains initial findings from our study of four Southern California regions. The team also recently released Comparing Perceptions and Practice: Why Better Land Use Data is Critical to Ground Truth Legal Reform (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) , which compares our land use data to survey responses from the Terner Center California Residential Land Use Survey. The paper discusses where the on the ground realities of entitlement map to planner perceptions and where these perceptions diverge. The need for better quality data is a theme of that paper, and one that we explore in more depth in our policy brief Enhancing Local Land Use Data. (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) Stay tuned in the fall and winter for initial findings from our four-year, sixteen city study. R E C E N T E V E N T S Urban Environmental Justice: Bayview Hunters Point Community-University Symposium On May 9, 2019, IURD in collaboration with Oxford Brookes University and Bayview-Hunters Point (BVHP) community organized the Symposium “Confronting Urban Injustice: Bayview-Hunters Point, A Community-University Symposium”. The symposium brought together community activists, non-profit organizations, journalists, and academics and discussed multiple urban injustices afflicting the BVHP neighborhood. This neighborhood that has been suffering from environmental, racial, economic and health inequity for decades, is now home to the biggest redevelopment project in San Francisco, known as the Candlestick Point-Hunters Point Shipyard Redevelopment Project. Remediation activities related to this project were revealed to be fraudulent, community members and activists are fighting for and demanding transparency, community oversight, and environmental justice. After a welcome speech by Prof. Jason Corburn and an introduction to the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood by Dr. M. Reza Shirazi, the first panel facilitated by Dr. Shirazi discussed different dimensions of urban injustice, and challenges and achievements of community activism in BVHP. In the second panel, facilitated by Dr. Corburn, panelists explored opportunities and challenges of action-research and university-community collaboration. Panelists included Michelle Pierce (BVHP Community Advocates), Laura Waxmann (SF Examiner), Leaotis Martin (BVHP Mothers and Fathers Committee), Dalila Adofo, (Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice), Bradley Angel (Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice), Ahimsa Porter Sumchai (President and Medical Director Golden State MD), Prof. Michael Mascarenhas (UC Berkeley), and Prof. Charisma Acey (UC Berkeley). Recently UCSF and UC Berkeley responded to a call from Mayor Breed and other city authorities to conduct an ‘independent review’ of the ongoing remediation activities in the Hunters Point Shipyard. A four-member committee was created from UC researchers to conduct the review. To learn more about this review and its challenges see Dr. Shirazi’s recent article published in the local SF Bay View newspaper: https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811… F E A T U R E D B L O G P O S T ** Meet Wei Gao ------------------------------------------------------------ Author: Caihla Petprin Meet Wei Gao, with an undergraduate degree in urban planning, a postgraduate degree in architectural history and theory, doctoral major in architectural history and theory, and an assistant professor title at Southwest Jiatong University in China, there is no doubt that this man is highly educated and credentialed. But what sets Wei apart from traditional thinking in Urban Planning and architecture is his desire to combine connecting complexity principles, complex adaptive systems, and architectural complexity. Sounds complex, right? Dr. Gao’s research strategically proposes a method for combining the complexity of architectural phenomena with traditional Chinese thinking and it’s application to the process of architectural events, history, and theory in China. Since the complex adaptation system is also a research interest of Jason Corburn, this research collaboration was a match made in urban development heaven. His other attraction to Berkeley was his knowledge of its reputation as one of the best, most diversity-inclusive universities in the world. As Dr. Gao began to reflect on his past thirteen years of study experience from undergraduate to doctoral, he began to wonder how to best position the direction of his future research and use his skills and expertise to inflict the change he had developed a feverish passion for. He says he did not choose urban regional planning in large-scale space, nor architectural design in relatively small-scale space, rather he chose the community. Dr. Gao attributes the community as the basic unit of urban and social governance and the main area of daily life for residents. He says there is no way he can attain his ultimate research goal of helping residents live a healthier life without reconnection of urban planning, public health, and face-to-face communication with Chinese residents. Dr. Gao describes the current situations of residents in Danwei communities in two points, one is the decline of the community environment, and the other is the class differentiation of the residents. First, there are a large number of shantytowns with extremely harsh environmental conditions in Chinese cities. Shantytowns have become the dwelling place for the poorest and lowest members of China’s social hierarchy. Second, Danwei communities include a plethora of classes, where there is little to no collaboration between these social classes. If inter-class exchange does occur, the encounters are more frequently than not hostile ones. Not to mention, the barriers to mobility and quality of life for the individuals in low classes are less like barriers and more like blockades to health equity. Prime minister Li Kequiang stresses the renovation of urban shantytowns as a major livelihood and development project to improve housing conditions for these community members and Wei sees this as an opportunity to question social transformation and structure of Danwei communities to eventually change the thinking of members of Shantytowns and expand China’s scope on public health. Wei learned a lot from his time in Berkeley and from Jason, not only in the realm of urban planning and public health but also regarding how to mobilize and inspire a classroom of intellectual people to pursue healthier cities. During his time here, he learned how to create an approachable and collaborative class environment and plans to challenge traditional Chinese classroom culture by replicating this environment in his own classrooms. He similarly contrasts how much social mobility and job freedom there is for those in the United States in comparison to China and recognized vast differences in how each country perceives public health. Wei says in comparison to the United States, China has a very narrow understanding of what public health is and the role it plays in creating healthy cities. Before there can be necessary social change within Danwei communities, he says China needs to first expand its scope on public health. He sees his responsibility to educate and prove to citizens that the solution to overcoming community transformation lies within the complex relationship between urban planning and public health. He says after more citizens have a better understanding of public health, it will then be possible to gradually implement national and local policy reform to change the environments and stigmas of Shantytowns and therefore, close the hostile gap between social classes. However, Wei realizes this will be no simple feat. When he returns, he needs to be cautious about his methods of changing traditional thinking in order to stay in good graces with the government. He thinks planning the most intentional path towards reform will require a few years in China figuring out how to best communicate what he learned during his research so that it is well-received by all members of Chinese society. Wei Gao is undeniably an impressive academic and scholar. But what specifically inspires me about him and his research is his thirst for change and a better life for those inhabiting the country he loves. What immediately stands out is his dedication and his courage to ask his country to “wake up” to public health issues on a wider scale and take steps towards implementing positive change. Best of luck, Wei! The Institute of Urban and Regional Development at U.C. Berkeley is behind you! R E S E A R C H U P D A T E S To Live in the Community You Serve: School District Employee Housing in California The Center for Cities + Schools (CC+S) (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) was launched in IURD in 2004 to harness the potential of urban planning to close the opportunity gap and improve education. CC+S works to create opportunity-rich places where young people can be successful in and out of school. We conduct policy research, engage youth in urban planning, and cultivate collaboration between city and school leaders to strengthen all communities: Our policy research seeks out practical, proven federal, state, and local solutions for creating opportunity-rich places for young people and families. Y-PLAN (Youth – Plan, Learn, Act, Now!) (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) is our award-winning educational strategy that engages youth in urban planning and empowers them to create change in their community. Through our PLUS Leadership Initiative (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) , we provide tools and best practices to help cities and schools create a structure for strong, ongoing joint policymaking. We invite you to visit our website (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) and follow us on Twitter (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) . A B O U T U S IURD conducts collaborative, interdisciplinary research and practical work that reveals the dynamics of communities, cities, and regions and informs public policy. IURD focuses on analyzing trends in urbanization, the impacts on populations and places and exploring strategies to make cities and urban areas more equitable and inclusive for all. In the future, IURD will position itself as a global leader in research and policy that aims to answer how 21st century urbanization and cities can be the sites of innovation and opportunity, sustainability and democracy, health and social justice. To learn more, visit the IURD website (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) ! To contact us directly, email iurd(a)berkeley.edu (mailto:iurd@berkeley.edu) or call us at (510) 642-4874. Help support our work, and make a donation (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) today! Thank you! https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811… Facebook (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811… Twitter (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811… IURD Site (https://berkeley.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad4efdcd076fc732bfe811…) ============================================================ Copyright © 2019 Institute of Urban and Regional Development, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you contacted IURD. 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