Don’t Underrate Ike—Or Breakfast At McDonald’s

Mark Peterson, a professor of public policy, political science, and law at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, has lived in the East (Washington, D.C.), the Midwest (Ann Arbor, Michigan), and the West (Los Angeles), among other places. He has also worked as a legislative assistant for former Senator Tom Daschle. Before participating in a panel on the legacy of James Q. Wilson, Peterson joined us in the green room to take some questions on cities, presidents, and intellectuals.

Sorry L.A., Pretoria Has Better Jacarandas

Crime Specialist Angela Hawken of Pepperdine University Undergoes Interrogation in the Green Room

Angela Hawken, Ph.D. is associate professor of economics and policy analysis at the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University. A transplant from South Africa to Los Angeles, Hawken has …

The Man With A Take-Some-Prisoners Approach

Assessing the Legacy of James Q. Wilson

Rarely does a public intellectual generate as much admiring disagreement as political scientist James Q. Wilson, who died this year at age 80. At a Zócalo event co-presented by UCLA …

What My Teacher James Q. Wilson Missed

His Achievements Were Huge-But So Were His Blind Spots

Around 1962, I took James Q. Wilson’s undergraduate course on urban politics and learned a lot about cities, classes, political machines, and reformers. He was an untenured professor just starting …

Revenge of the (Urban) Nerds

Which Intellectual Had the Greatest Impact on Our Cities?

 

When we think of people who shape cities, we often talk of politicians and financiers. But thinking–the work of scholars–can have an outsized impact on the places in which we …