Blog Posts

Donald Trump has not yet been sworn into his second term of office, but there are disturbing signs of what may come in his upcoming administration. On January 7, President-Elect Trump told reporters that “ we need Greenland for national security...

I recently returned from a month-long trip to India, my birth country. It was exciting, exhilarating, invigorating, and above all gave me an opportunity to re-experience the culture, the people and the connections. Of all the visits I have made since...

The Democrats’ historic loss of working class voters across race and gender lines has led to some debate and hopefully soul-searching about how the party can win back the support of working class voters, and what has prevented the party from an...

California voters are being asked to roll back a milestone criminal justice reform this election, in the form of Proposition 36. This initiative would elevate certain misdemeanors, like petty theft and non-violent drug crimes, into felonies. It would...

In this multi-part series, we join an analysis of a novel database of municipal zoning reform efforts across the United States with a deconstructive treatment of the housing political infrastructure, and those movements that contest the desideratum...

In this multi-part series, we join an analysis of a novel database of municipal zoning reform efforts across the United States with an argument for the necessity of a tenant-inflected zoning reform, as a method and approach to ground future zoning...

Creating structures for belonging or a belongingness policy agenda, while necessary, is also insufficient. As important as many of these structural interventions may be, in some respects they remain too shallow. Such structures are necessary ballast...

I. Introduction & Summary In June of 2022, Los Angeles County launched a land banking pilot program, allocating $50 million to begin implementation. The goal of the land bank pilot is to prevent displacement near new development spurred by the Los...

Background In November 2022, 58% of Angelenos voted to pass the United to House Los Angeles (ULA) ballot measure, commonly referred to as the “mansion tax,” to fund affordable housing. ULA is a Real Estate Transfer Tax (RETT) on high-dollar real...

The first time I heard of the European Common Agrarian Policy ( CAP) I was around ten years old. That–you may think—is probably too tender an age to get into the weeds of one of the most technical policy areas in the European Union. And you would be...

In late 2023, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell forecasted that 2024 would be the year of fear. Borrell expressed his concern that Europeans’ fears would lead them to elect the far right en masse. In that respect, he is probably...

Opening Thoughts Facing the fierce winds of climate chaos, of growing geopolitical instabilities around the world, of declining trust in democratic institutions, and of pandemic futures replete with bacterial agents and viral thresholds, it is...

The colonization of Indigenous lands and peoples in what is now called California included the state-funded genocide of 90 percent of Indigenous populations and the accumulation of land and wealth among white settlers. According to Dr. Cutcha Risling...

The year 2023 has been full of violence. The ongoing killing and injury of tens of thousands of non-combatants and especially of children in Gaza, at the hands of the Israeli military, defies imagination. Russia's war on Ukraine continues unabated...

With the death toll in Gaza climbing past 8,500 people, including more than 3,500 children, and hundreds more being killed each day in Israel's relentless bombardment of homes and other civilian infrastructure, we at OBI join a growing global chorus...