Cities & Towns

As the world continues to urbanize, we’re investigating and analyzing how communities of all sizes can be vibrant, just and sustainable communities for the health of residents and our planet.

Magazine

Alex Hall

Story

A new vision for climate science and society

Benjamin Paul

Alex Hall, new director of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, explains how the response to LA’s recent fires are part of a larger push to change our world

In the News

Blog

Planting Trees While Rome Burns

There is an urgent need to address the unintended consequences of our pursuit of green and to return to mitigating the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing the root problem.


Blog

Can Cities Be Ecosystems? In Conversation with Dr. Stephanie Pincetl

What would it mean to design cities that actually sustain us?


Blog

Introducing POWERLESS: Loudoun County as a Case Study for Data Centers as a Local Paradigm

“I don’t see the birds in the morning anymore.” Gregory Pirio, a longtime Loudoun County resident, explained his experience living near a data center. Greg isn’t the only one reeling…

Interior of a vast data center, with long rows of illuminated server racks and overhead cabling under blue-purple lighting.

Blog

Mapping Faith, Flourishing, and the Environment in Los Angeles

Modern scientific research and its discourse fails to adequately embrace the emotional, spiritual and affective impacts of the existential issues of Earth’s future habitability.

landscape image of Westlake Los Angeles with birds flying across the water

Blog

Urban Metabolism: In Conversation with Dr. Stephanie Pincetl

Cities don’t just “grow.” They consume resources, transform them, and generate waste, much as living organisms do.

Videos

UCLA’s Comprehensive Sustainability Plan

UCLA has a long history of sustainability leadership — from early energy efficiency efforts and the formation of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability in the 1990s, to the establishment of…

How Climate Change Will Impact California, Interview with Dr. Alan Barreca

Interview on The Young Turks ScIQ with UCLA environmental economist Alan Barreca by Jayde Lovell about climate change effects on public health, vulnerable communities, and the state of California. They also…

Publications



Modernist infrastructural governance meets twenty-first century fragilities: California, a cautionary tale?

Stephanie Pincetl, Robert Cudd, Eric D. Fournier, Maya Ofek, Rachel Sheinberg

Local Environment, 2026.

Published Work, Permalink

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