Academy in the Public Square

URBAN TREES

A THRIVING PARTNERSHIP

USC Dornsife and the city of Los Angeles have launched a partnership to guide the growth of an urban forest of shade trees in Eastside communities vulnerable to heat waves and air pollution in a warming global climate.

Led by USC Dornsife Public Exchange, the USC Urban Trees Initiative provides a sciencebased approach to help advance L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Green New Deal, which aims to plant 90,000 trees citywide, increasing the forest canopy by 50% specifically in low-income heat zones by 2028.

The initiative’s other collaborators include experts and students from USC Dornsife’s Spatial Sciences Institute (SSI), the Center for the Study of Urban Critical Zones, and the Landscape Architecture + Urbanism program, as well as the city’s Department of Public Works, community leaders and nonprofit organizations.

The new blueprint by USC researchers identifies four places best suited to plant shade trees across L.A.’s Eastside to bring cooling relief to thousands of people most at risk of heat waves and air pollution.

Better still, the scientific tools that the USC researchers used have wider applications to guide tree-planting efforts in other communities across L.A.

A NEW URBAN FOREST

“Planting a thriving urban forest requires diligent planning and input from multiple perspectives,” says John Wilson, principal investigator for the project and director of SSI. “We have taken a deliberative approach based on robust data and community input to ensure that residents enjoy the many benefits of a rich canopy of trees.” USC DORNSIFE PUBLIC EXCHANGE

Rio de Los Angeles State Park

5

Elysian Park

110

Los Angeles State Historic Park Ernest E. Debs Regional Park

Montecito Heights Open Space

Heritage Square

Mount Olympus Park Rose Hill Park

Lincoln Heights

East Los Angeles Park

Lincoln Heights Youth Ctr

Lincoln Heights Rec. Ctr Rose Hill Rec. Ctr

Ascot Hills Park El Sereno

El Sereno Rec. Ctr El Sereno Senior Ctr

10

Wellness Park & Fitness Ctr Lincoln Park

USC Health Sciences Campus

Hazard Rec Ctr Henry Alvarez Memorial Park Ramona Gardens Park

Ramona Gardens

LEGEND

Study Area Boundary Schools

LAUSD Campuses Public Park & Open Space

USC Health Sciences Campus Miles 0 0.5 1

710

+90,000 Under L.A.’s Green New Deal, the city aims to plant 90,000 trees citywide. Using an environmental justice lens, the USC Urban Trees Initiative focuses on a 3.5-square-mile zone northeast of USC’s Health Sciences campus in Boyle Heights. The zone encompasses much of the Eastside communities of El Sereno, Ramona Gardens and parts of Lincoln Heights. The area suffers from poor air quality and little shade. The median household income in the area is about half that of L.A.’s overall median income of nearly $62,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and people of color comprise most of the population.

+50%

L.A.’s Green New Deal calls for increasing the forest canopy by 50% specifically in low-income heat zones by 2028.

+66%

For example, at Ramona Gardens near Soto Street and Interstate 10, 183 trees could be added, a 66% increase.

2X

Experts say tree planting could double shade across L.A.’s Eastside.

USC researchers will guide where the city and others plant the trees, using computer models, air sensors and other tools to help determine the locations where trees would have the biggest impact on pollution, shade and heat islands.

“The data generated by our team will provide a detailed scientific road map to help the city and the community plant an urban forest that maximizes benefits to our environment and human health,” says Kate Weber, director of Public Exchange, which fast-tracks collaborations between academic experts and the private and public sectors to address pressing challenges.

For example, USC Dornsife’s new Carbon Census network, run by the Center for the Study of Urban Critical Zones, will deploy sensors that measure airborne pollutants to help determine where new trees would most reduce pollution and improve air flow.

TACKLING GLOBAL WARMING

The scientific analysis will help city officials and community leaders create greenways and inform where they should concentrate their efforts to bolster climate resiliency, protect public health and promote ecosystems.

Renderings of one site at Ramona Gardens, near Soto Street, show how the public housing community’s vast, open lawns could be transformed into verdant forests of big trees.

“This partnership between the city and USC researchers is taking on global warming by improving sustainability where people live,” says USC President Carol L. Folt. “It’s a good example of how we can enhance the quality of life in our neighborhoods as we face the challenges of climate change.” —G.P.

From Pump to Plug

What will the end of gas-powered vehicles mean for Los Angeles, a city renowned for its car culture?

In Los Angeles, a city defined in large part by the automobile, gas stations have become inseparable from its identity. Some, like the Union 76 in Beverly Hills, with its sweeping Googie roof, are architectural icons. Others are memorable from film appearances. However, L.A.’s gas stations may soon have to radically adapt if they wish to survive.

Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom mandated that by 2035 all new cars and light trucks sold in the state must be zero-emission.

Automakers are already responding. It’s increasingly clear that before the first half of this century is over, the dominant — if not exclusive — means of transportation will be electricpowered vehicles.

What will this mean for L.A., a city that is home to about 550 gas stations but relatively few charging stations?

Six of the world’s leading architecture, landscape and urban design firms shared their creative proposals — including eye-popping renderings — to address the challenges and opportunities posed by the projected growth of electric vehicle use in L.A. at “Pump to Plug,” a virtual symposium hosted by USC Dornsife’s 3rd LA project.

Founded and directed by Christopher Hawthorne, L.A.’s chief design officer and professor of the practice of English, 3rd LA is a laboratory for urban reinvention. The project, which focuses on L.A. as a leading model, looks at how cities around the world can become more sustainable, interconnected and equitable.

“Some of the issues that need to be addressed are: Where will people charge their cars? What happens to the gas station sites? And what happens at the Port of Los Angeles, where a shift to electrified trucking is so central to Mayor Eric Garcetti’s efforts to green the port?” said Hawthorne, who moderated the symposium.

Electric cars currently need hours to charge; and charging station customers may linger for a meal or to grocery shop. But in five to 10 years, charging time could decrease, giving people only enough time to grab a quick snack. Vehicles could also become autonomous and drive themselves to connect with a charger.

At the symposium, firms located in L.A., Madrid, New York, San Francisco and Australia presented designs for how stations may look in 2022 and in 2023, reflecting ways fueling will continue to evolve. —M.C. and J.K.

Bus Poet

Mellon Mays Fellow finds inspiration for his fiction and award-winning poetry on the bus.

Jack Kerouac, America’s foremost literary itinerant, saw little to appreciate in bus travel. But Joseph Debaerien, an English major at USC Dornsife, sees a missed opportunity. For Debaerien, not only are buses an ideal setting for writing inspiration, traveling by bus is an excellent way to experience social class in America.

“It has its own culture that stems from the working class,” he says. “You see people with Target shopping bags carrying everything that they own. That’s something that you never see on a plane or in a private car.”

Debaerien uses his own experiences as material for his fiction and poetry, having ridden the bus back and forth between his family home in Las Vegas and USC’s University Park campus on summer and winter breaks.

Debaerien spent his childhood bouncing from one city to the next, sometimes sleeping on floors and couches with his mother and siblings. By the time he arrived at USC at age 18, he had lived in six cities.

He enrolled as a psychology major but ultimately returned to his earliest enthusiasm, literature. Debaerien won first place at an undergraduate writing conference for “Bus Stop Poem,” which details a memorable experience while on a Greyhound back to Los Angeles from Las Vegas.

Recently awarded a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, Debaerien is now writing a paper that explores the bus as a site of both creativity and class consciousness. He has his eyes set on graduate school next, but isn’t sure where.

“I still haven’t found a place that really feels like home,” he says, noting that he plans to keep rambling until he does. —M.C.