UCLA and Zócalo Public Square, the Los Angeles-based Ideas Exchange that blends live events and humanities journalism, have launched a two-year partnership that will create a new destination—both on-the-ground and online—for Angelenos to explore the most important issues facing Southern California today. Through events and journalism, Thinking L.A. will explore the global, national, and local issues that affect life in Los Angeles, use first-person stories to analyze larger regional trends, and grapple with the innovations and ideas that have the potential to change our city.

In the seven free public programs per year that we’ll present around L.A., and in the four pieces we’ll publish per week, we’ll ask questions about public policy and culture, science and the arts. All pieces and events will be published at www.zocalopublicsquare.org and will be distributed to Zócalo’s national media syndicate of over 110 outlets, which reach a combined monthly readership of 40 million. These outlets include USA Today and the Gannett newspapers, Time.com, and Popular Science as well as 28 news organizations throughout California, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, L.A. Daily News, and the OC Register.

Thinking L.A. will create a much-needed place where all Southern Californians are invited to discuss, debate, and come together around the future of our city and its place in the world. L.A. has long been a diffuse, disconnected city. But the reach and influence of the institutions that once connected us are waning. Zócalo—which has built the most diverse civic forum in the nation in 10 years—and UCLA—California’s largest university—are stepping in to fill a tremendous void.

Thinking L.A. pieces can be viewed here, and reservations for our inaugural event on November 18, “The State of L.A.’s Plate,” can be made here.

Becca MacLaren, former speechwriter to California Attorney General Kamala Harris, has joined Zócalo as associate editor to lead the Thinking L.A. project.