Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris
Biographic Data
| ID | 3534430 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anastasia |
| FAMILY NAME | Loukaitou-Sideris |
| SIGNATURE | LOUKAITOU-SIDERIS A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Los Angeles |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0186-4751 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 50 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 252 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 47 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Comparing age-friendly city and community policies from China and the world
Introduction: Population aging is a growing global policy and health challenge. The World Health Organization's Age-Friendly Cities and Communities (AFCCs) framework has guided efforts to create supportive environments for older adults. Methods: This study conducts a systematic review of AFCC literature and policies in China and global contexts. The goal is to examine how China-a developing country with the world's largest older population and un…
Disaster recovery for whom? insurance, zoning, and the exclusionary geographies of wildfire resilience
Disaster recovery after wildfires is often framed as rebuilding to restore communities to their pre-disaster condition. We argue that recovery following a disaster can also function as a mechanism of spatial governance that produces exclusionary development by shaping who is able to return. Focusing on recovery after the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California, we combine 35 semi-structured interviews with residential insurance data and neighborho…
Housing and economic recovery as interdependent pathways in the wake of wildfires
Introduced an integrated housing-economic recovery framework that links post-wildfire housing stability to local employment conditions and economic diversity. • Demonstrated how traditional vulnerability tools like SoVI overlook hidden and dynamic vulnerabilities, especially among renters, seasonal workers, and undocumented residents. • Employed a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative data (DINS, assessor records, LODES, CDC SoVI) with qu…
Addressing wildfire resilience through comprehensive county-level plan effectiveness in California
Wildfires exacerbated by climate change represent a growing planning and policy challenge worldwide. California, with its increasing wildfire risk and local planning complexity, serves as a valuable case offering insights for regions facing similar risks. This study examines plan effectiveness, which measures the conformance of planning documents to policy objectives, to identify unaddressed policy objectives in building wildfire resilience. Usin…
Disaster recovery gentrification in post-wildfire landscapes
The increasing frequency and severity of disasters caused by climate change provide substantial obstacles for societies across the globe, resulting in initiatives aimed at facilitating recovery. The effectiveness of these recovery processes in relation to wildfire recovery, however, is still mainly unknown. This study examines the aftermath of the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California. We find that, despite more than a billion dollars of federal…
Chinese American older adults in urban and suburban public spaces
Age-friendly public spaces can improve older adults’ life quality and health. This study investigates low-income Chinese American/immigrant older adults’ needs, preferences, and encountered challenges in public space at two different contexts: central-city Chinatown and suburban Monterey Park in metropolitan Los Angeles. Findings reveal both common and different cultural preferences for public space activities, features, and facilities in these t…
The social life of the sidewalk
Caring public space
Intergenerational public spaces respond to the needs of both youth and older adults and actively foster interaction, engagement, and understanding between generations. We consider how incorporating an ethic of care into intergenerational public space planning and design could support ongoing practices of care for people and places. We present a framework for a revised approach to intergenerational public space design that centers the practices an…
The Echoes of Echo Park
This article focuses on national and local anti-homeless ordinances and investigates emerging spatial banishment strategies and their impacts on unhoused folks’ basic freedoms. First, we review debates on co-existing geographies of punishment and care through theoretical and legal lenses. Focusing on sixteen cities in the United States, we examine categories of anti-homeless ordinances and their evolution in the past two decades. Next, we focus o…
Racism by Design
Problem, research strategy, and findings We examined land use and design controls in three municipalities in Los Angeles County (CA)—Alhambra, Arcadia, and San Gabriel—that have experienced a recent influx of Asian residents. We drew from archival research of newspaper articles, planning documents, city council and planning commission meeting minutes, and interviews with 14 local planners, architects, planning and design review commissioners, and…
Social drivers of vulnerability to wildfire disasters
The increase of wildfire disasters globally has highlighted the need to understand and mitigate human vulnerability to wildfire. In response, there has been a substantial uptick in efforts to characterize and quantify wildfire vulnerability. Such efforts have largely focused on quantifying potential wildfire exposure and frequently overlooked the individual and community vulnerability to wildfire. Here, we review the emergent literature on social…
Promotores for Parks? The Potential of a Public Health Model to Improve Outreach and Community Engagement in Park Planning
Underprivileged urban communities often have less parks than wealthier communities. Even when new parks are built and are physically accessible to such communities, park design and programming is often undertaken without community input and may result in psychologically inaccessible parks. To address this problem, the California Department of Parks and Recreation piloted a community outreach intervention in a newly created Los Angeles park. It em…
Resilience plans in the US
Resilience is a framework that drives cities’ responses to climate change, evidenced by the increasing number of resilience plans that cities have adopted. Resilience plans can offer insights on how cities conceptualize resilience. We undertake a content analysis of 38 resilience plans of US cities to understand how they define resilience, conceptualize goals and implementation strategies, involve the public in their formulation, and address equi…
“We should all feel welcome to the park”
This article investigates the potential for intergenerational public space in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles. Through a series of site observations, focus groups, interviews, thick mapping, and participatory design exercises, we work with 43 youth and 38 older adults (over 65), all residents of Westlake, to examine their public space use, experiences, and desires, and identify where the two groups’ interests intersect or diverge. We exp…
A Bus Home
More than 500,000 people experience homelessness in the United States, and many turn to transit vehicles, stops, and stations for shelter. We present findings from a survey of 115 U.S. and Canadian transit operators that inquired about homelessness on transit systems. We find that homelessness is broadly present, though more concentrated on central hotspots, and worsened during the pandemic. In response, transit agencies often initiate a combinat…
Fear of Sexual Harassment and Its Impact on Safety Perceptions in Transit Environments
This study reports variation in safety perceptions in transit environments, based on samples of university students in 18 cities on six continents who responded to an identical 45-question survey ( N = 13,323 university students). We explore potential links between students' fears and sexual victimization and conclude that sexual harassment affects their behavior and mobility. Student mobility was affected by avoidance strategies prompting some t…
Urban Humanities
Original, action-oriented humanist practices for interpreting and intervening in the city: a new methodology at the intersection of the humanities, design, and urban studies. Urban humanities is an emerging field at the intersection of the humanities, urban planning, and design. It offers a new approach not only for understanding cities in a global context but for intervening in them, interpreting their histories, engaging with them in the presen…
Responsibilities and challenges of urban design in the 21st century
Our century is confronted with two very important challenges that both threaten cities and their residents: climate change and deepening social inequality. What can urban design offer to respond to
Transit Crime and Sexual Violence in Cities
This is problematic, since research has also found that, in some cities, especially those in the Global South, a large percentage of women are transit captives
Documenting #MeToo in Public Transportation
This study presents findings from a survey with 1,284 students at three Los Angeles area universities, exploring their experiences with sexual harassment in transit environments, and how these differ by gender, race/ethnicity, and sexual orientation. It finds that sexual harassment is a common occurrence, forcing precautionary behaviors. Nevertheless, reporting of harassment incidents is extremely low. Regression models find that certain individu…
The New Companion to Urban Design
During the mid-to-late 20th century, economic and social forces caused population decline in the deindustrializing, “shrinking” cities of many developed nations, particularly in the United States, northern Europe, and the former Soviet Union. Urban designers struggled with varying degrees of success to confront problematic conditions like housing abandonment, vacant land, and disused factories. Germany, with abundant state funding and a design-or…
New Companion to Urban Design
Transit neighborhoods, commercial gentrification, and traffic crashes
Promoting justice for underserved groups in periurban parks
The documented under-representation of ethnoracial minority population in peri-urban parks can be considered an environmental justice issue. This exploratory qualitative study examined the outreach efforts and challenges faced by a large state parks agency in attracting underserved and under-represented visitors from low-income and ethnoracial minority groups to its parks. It also explored if and under what conditions partnerships between the pub…
Gentrification, Displacement, and the Role of Public Investment
Scholarly interest in the relationship between public investments and residential displacement dates back to the 1970s and the aftermath of displacement related to urban renewal. A new wave of scholarship examines the relationship of gentrification and displacement to public investment in transit infrastructure. Scholarship has generally conflated gentrification and displacement; however, this review argues for a clearer analytical distinction be…
Addressing Women's Fear of Victimization in Transportation Settings
Past research has shown that transit passengers' fears and concerns about safety influence their travel decisions. While the relationship between women's fear of crime and public space has been the focus of considerable research, transit environments—which are especially threatening to female passengers—have received much less attention. This study examines the issue of women's safety on transit through a survey of U.S. transit operators. The fin…
Cultural Development Strategies and Urban Revitalization
Municipal governments around the globe increasingly turn to museums, performing arts centers, arts districts, and other cultural activities to promote and revitalize their cities. While a significant body of literature examines revitalization strategies that focus primarily around entertainment and commerce, the empirical body of research that specifically investigates the role of cultural strategies in urban redevelopment is still growing. This …
Urban Form and Social Context
The paper examines four case studies of neighborhood parks in socially and ethnically diverse communities of Los Angeles in order to explore similarities and differences of their uses and assigned meanings. More specifically, the study utilizes structured field observations and surveys of users in order to examine sociocultural patterns of park use, the relevance of past models of park design, and the level of fit between current park form and co…
Triangulating Neighborhood Knowledge to Understand Neighborhood Change
Neighborhood change is a complex phenomenon that may result in a range of physical, demographic, and economic changes in a locality. Using four case studies of transit neighborhoods in Los Angeles, this study utilizes a mixed-methods approach to examine a particular aspect of neighborhood change—gentrification. The article also compares and contrasts the type of data gathered by different methods to help us understand each method’s potential and …
The Geography of Transit Crime
The link between the social and physical environment and transit crime is an important one, but it is not well understood or explored. This study explores the environmenttransit crime connection by examining in depth the relation between crime incidence at the stations along a light-rail line in Los Angeles and the social and physical characteristics of the stations and their neighborhoods. The study employs a mix of qualitative and quantitative …
Residential Assistance and Recovery Following the Northridge Earthquake
This paper examines the implementation of post-disaster US federal assistance programmes for residential reconstruction and investigates the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics of places and access to residential assistance following the Northridge earthquake that hit Los Angeles in 1994. The paper also examines the effects of the distribution of assistance on long-term recovery outcomes. Findings suggest that areas with high l…
Constructing the sidewalks
The Echoes of Echo Park
This article focuses on national and local anti-homeless ordinances and investigates emerging spatial banishment strategies and their impacts on unhoused folks’ basic freedoms. First, we review debates on co-existing geographies of punishment and care through theoretical and legal lenses. Focusing on sixteen cities in the United States, we examine categories of anti-homeless ordinances and their evolution in the past two decades. Next, we focus o…
Reading the Informal City
Although informality is typically associated with developing countries, this article argues that informal activities are an integral part of U.S. cities and should be addressed in planning curricula. It focuses on planning education and suggests a possible course, which includes a seminar covering academic literature on informality in both developing and developed countries, and fieldwork-based, case study research by students. It also suggests t…
Death on the Crosswalk
This research explores the spatial distribution of pedestrian-automobile collisions in Los Angeles and analyzes the social and physical factors that affect the risk of getting involved in such collisions. More specifically, this study investigates the influence of socio-demographic, land use, density, urban form, and traffic characteristics on pedestrian collision rates. We first provide an exploratory spatial and statistical analysis of pedestri…
Fear of Sexual Harassment and Its Impact on Safety Perceptions in Transit Environments
This study reports variation in safety perceptions in transit environments, based on samples of university students in 18 cities on six continents who responded to an identical 45-question survey ( N = 13,323 university students). We explore potential links between students' fears and sexual victimization and conclude that sexual harassment affects their behavior and mobility. Student mobility was affected by avoidance strategies prompting some t…
Caring public space
Intergenerational public spaces respond to the needs of both youth and older adults and actively foster interaction, engagement, and understanding between generations. We consider how incorporating an ethic of care into intergenerational public space planning and design could support ongoing practices of care for people and places. We present a framework for a revised approach to intergenerational public space design that centers the practices an…
Transit neighborhoods, commercial gentrification, and traffic crashes
Rail Transit Security in an International Context
Open, accessible urban public transportation systems have become increasingly frequent targets for terrorists in recent years. This article draws from a series of interviews with transit officials responsible for the security of rail transit systems, as well as architects and engineers responsible for designing and operating these systems in four world cities: London, Paris, Tokyo, and Madrid. The findings show that transit security is, not surpr…
Documenting #MeToo in Public Transportation
This study presents findings from a survey with 1,284 students at three Los Angeles area universities, exploring their experiences with sexual harassment in transit environments, and how these differ by gender, race/ethnicity, and sexual orientation. It finds that sexual harassment is a common occurrence, forcing precautionary behaviors. Nevertheless, reporting of harassment incidents is extremely low. Regression models find that certain individu…
Promoting justice for underserved groups in periurban parks
The documented under-representation of ethnoracial minority population in peri-urban parks can be considered an environmental justice issue. This exploratory qualitative study examined the outreach efforts and challenges faced by a large state parks agency in attracting underserved and under-represented visitors from low-income and ethnoracial minority groups to its parks. It also explored if and under what conditions partnerships between the pub…
The Negotiated Plaza
The development of downtown public space has been increasingly defined by agreements negotiated between the public and private sectors. In the last decades the majority of downtown public space has occurred in the form of urban plazas, built as integral parts of privately owned office and retail complexes. In this paper we document the private production of public open space in the downtown areas of Los Angeles and San Francisco—two cities that h…
Too Loud to Hear the Train! Noise Assessment, Implications, and Mitigation Strategies on Light Rail Platforms
Transit planners often place light rail station platforms in the middle of freeways to avoid land acquisition costs and neighborhood opposition. However, waiting for the rail at these platforms is unpleasant and may present a health risk. The study measures, compares, and contrasts noise levels at such “freeway stations” with noise levels encountered at non-freeway stations. It identifies the factors contributing to noise in both types of station…
Evolution of Urban Design Plans in the United States and Canada
Urban design plans offer a window into the values of the urban design profession, but we have little knowledge of how they have changed over time, and the implications for design practice. The study provides a critical evaluation of the vision, methods, and content of urban design plans in large North American cities and a comparison with earlier generations of plans. Contemporary plans display fewer types of methods, less analytical rigor, and l…
"Displaying and Celebrating the "Other
In the last thirty years, ethnic museums have mushroomed in American cities. Although this is certainly a national phenomenon, it has been particularly evident in Los Angeles. In this paper we examine the genesis and evolution of these emerging institutions. We survey the mission, scope, and role of ethnic museums in Los Angeles, and we contrast them with the stated mission and scope of "mainstream" museums in the city. We further present case st…
The Negotiated Plaza
The development of downtown public space has been increasingly defined by agreements negotiated between the public and private sectors. In the last decades the majority of downtown public space has occurred in the form of urban plazas, built as integral parts of privately owned office and retail complexes. In this paper we document the private production of public open space in the downtown areas of Los Angeles and San Francisco—two cities that h…
Urban Form and Social Context
The paper examines four case studies of neighborhood parks in socially and ethnically diverse communities of Los Angeles in order to explore similarities and differences of their uses and assigned meanings. More specifically, the study utilizes structured field observations and surveys of users in order to examine sociocultural patterns of park use, the relevance of past models of park design, and the level of fit between current park form and co…
Hot Spots of Bus Stop Crime
This study focused on bus stop crime and sought to identify the environmental attributes that can affect the bus rider's security while at the bus stop. Following the argument of criminologists that certain place characteristics can affect the incidence of crime, the study used direct observation, mapping, interviews, and surveys to examine the physical and social environment around the 10 most crime-ridden bus stops in Los Angeles during 1994 an…
The Geography of Transit Crime
The link between the social and physical environment and transit crime is an important one, but it is not well understood or explored. This study explores the environmenttransit crime connection by examining in depth the relation between crime incidence at the stations along a light-rail line in Los Angeles and the social and physical characteristics of the stations and their neighborhoods. The study employs a mix of qualitative and quantitative …
Chester Rapkin Award for the Best Article in Volume 22
"Displaying and Celebrating the "Other
In the last thirty years, ethnic museums have mushroomed in American cities. Although this is certainly a national phenomenon, it has been particularly evident in Los Angeles. In this paper we examine the genesis and evolution of these emerging institutions. We survey the mission, scope, and role of ethnic museums in Los Angeles, and we contrast them with the stated mission and scope of "mainstream" museums in the city. We further present case st…
Residential Assistance and Recovery Following the Northridge Earthquake
This paper examines the implementation of post-disaster US federal assistance programmes for residential reconstruction and investigates the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics of places and access to residential assistance following the Northridge earthquake that hit Los Angeles in 1994. The paper also examines the effects of the distribution of assistance on long-term recovery outcomes. Findings suggest that areas with high l…
Is it Safe to Walk?1 Neighborhood Safety and Security Considerations and Their Effects on Walking
The importance of walking and physical activity as determinants of good health has been well established in the medical and public health literature, but a significant number of Americans live sedentary lifestyles. Aplethora of variables lie behind an individual’s decision to walk, cycle, or exercise. This article focuses on a particular environmental variable, the safety of neighborhood surroundings, and explores how it is influencing physical a…
Rail Transit Security in an International Context
Open, accessible urban public transportation systems have become increasingly frequent targets for terrorists in recent years. This article draws from a series of interviews with transit officials responsible for the security of rail transit systems, as well as architects and engineers responsible for designing and operating these systems in four world cities: London, Paris, Tokyo, and Madrid. The findings show that transit security is, not surpr…
Constructing the sidewalks
Cultural Development Strategies and Urban Revitalization
Municipal governments around the globe increasingly turn to museums, performing arts centers, arts districts, and other cultural activities to promote and revitalize their cities. While a significant body of literature examines revitalization strategies that focus primarily around entertainment and commerce, the empirical body of research that specifically investigates the role of cultural strategies in urban redevelopment is still growing. This …
Death on the Crosswalk
This research explores the spatial distribution of pedestrian-automobile collisions in Los Angeles and analyzes the social and physical factors that affect the risk of getting involved in such collisions. More specifically, this study investigates the influence of socio-demographic, land use, density, urban form, and traffic characteristics on pedestrian collision rates. We first provide an exploratory spatial and statistical analysis of pedestri…
Sidewalks
Examines the evolution of an undervalued urban space and how conflicts over competing uses—from the right to sit to the right to parade—have been negotiated. Urban sidewalks, critical but undervalued public spaces, have been sites for political demonstrations and urban greening, promenades for the wealthy and the well-dressed, and shelterless shelters for the homeless. On sidewalks, decade after decade, urbanites have socialized, paraded, and pla…
What Brings Children to the Park? Analysis and Measurement of the Variables Affecting Children's Use of Parks
Problem: Children make little use of many neighborhood parks even though they have facilities for active recreation. Purpose: We examined the factors that bring children to parks, and aimed to understand how park visitation patterns differ between boys and girls, among children of different races and ethnicities, and between inner-city and suburban children. Methods: We surveyed children and their parents in 12 middle schools and analyzed the res…
Addressing Women's Fear of Victimization in Transportation Settings
Past research has shown that transit passengers' fears and concerns about safety influence their travel decisions. While the relationship between women's fear of crime and public space has been the focus of considerable research, transit environments—which are especially threatening to female passengers—have received much less attention. This study examines the issue of women's safety on transit through a survey of U.S. transit operators. The fin…
Cultural Tourism as an Economic Development Strategy for Ethnic Neighborhoods
Many ethnic inner city neighborhoods in US cities are rich in traditions, history, art, and cuisine but are also suffering from disinvestment, high poverty rates, and deterioration. In the face of a growing popularity of cultural tourism, an opportunity exists to explore how neighborhood cultural assets can be used to promote economic development in such neighborhoods. In this study we draw information from a literature review, surveys of merchan…
Evolution of Urban Design Plans in the United States and Canada
Urban design plans offer a window into the values of the urban design profession, but we have little knowledge of how they have changed over time, and the implications for design practice. The study provides a critical evaluation of the vision, methods, and content of urban design plans in large North American cities and a comparison with earlier generations of plans. Contemporary plans display fewer types of methods, less analytical rigor, and l…
The Informal American City
An examination of informal urban activities—including street vending, garage sales, and unpermitted housing—that explores their complexity and addresses related planning and regulatory issues. Every day in American cities street vendors spread out their wares on sidewalks, food trucks serve lunch from the curb, and homeowners hold sales in their front yards—examples of the wide range of informal activities that take place largely beyond the reach…
Fear and safety in transit environments from the women’s perspective
Informal American City
Too Loud to Hear the Train! Noise Assessment, Implications, and Mitigation Strategies on Light Rail Platforms
Transit planners often place light rail station platforms in the middle of freeways to avoid land acquisition costs and neighborhood opposition. However, waiting for the rail at these platforms is unpleasant and may present a health risk. The study measures, compares, and contrasts noise levels at such “freeway stations” with noise levels encountered at non-freeway stations. It identifies the factors contributing to noise in both types of station…
Reading the Informal City
Although informality is typically associated with developing countries, this article argues that informal activities are an integral part of U.S. cities and should be addressed in planning curricula. It focuses on planning education and suggests a possible course, which includes a seminar covering academic literature on informality in both developing and developed countries, and fieldwork-based, case study research by students. It also suggests t…
Skid Row, Gallery Row and the space in between
As a means for neighbourhood improvement, cultural urban revitalisation seeks to draw business growth and investment by attracting a creative class of young urban professionals. Though criticisms abound that these strategies benefit the wealthy and displace low-income communities, there is little research focusing on how the efforts of social actors can shape or resist this process. The purpose of this study is to offer a micro-level look at the …
The road home
Hurricane Katrina claimed the lives of nearly 1000 Louisiana residents and damaged about 80% of the building stock in New Orleans. Unequal protection from the hurricane and uneven recovery patterns have left some communities (predominantly low-income and black) with few options to rebuild their homes. These factors have created a high demand for housing non-profits specializing in new construction as well as low-cost home repairs. Drawing from in…
Triangulating Neighborhood Knowledge to Understand Neighborhood Change
Neighborhood change is a complex phenomenon that may result in a range of physical, demographic, and economic changes in a locality. Using four case studies of transit neighborhoods in Los Angeles, this study utilizes a mixed-methods approach to examine a particular aspect of neighborhood change—gentrification. The article also compares and contrasts the type of data gathered by different methods to help us understand each method’s potential and …
Political science (28 works) · Sociology (25 works) · Engineering (24 works) · Geography (24 works) · Economics (13 works) · Psychology (13 works) · Business (10 works) · Civil engineering (10 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Economic growth (10 works)