The Racial Politics of Historic Preservation in in Los Angeles: A Conversation with Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Hao Ding

At first glance, historic preservation seems to be a key part of good urban planning.  But whom does historic preservation actually serve? In this week’s episode, our guests discuss their recent LCHP report that analyzes the power dynamics behind historic preservation.  They look at the way in which historic preservation norms have been applied as an instrument of cultural control in three Southern California communities with large Asian-American populations. At the end of the day, they pose the question of whether historic preservation should be seen as an instrument of good planning or a form of cultural imperialism?Read their full report here: "The Politics of Power: The Historical Evolution of Architecture and Cultural Identity in Minority Communities"Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris is the Interim Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, a Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning, and a core faculty member of the UCLA Urban Humanities Initiative. Anastasia seeks to integrate social and physical issues in urban planning and architecture. Her research looks at the public environment of the city, its aesthetics, representation, social meaning, and impact on the urban resident. Her research emphasizes its “user focus,” understanding the built environment from the perspective of those who live and work there. Anastasia is the author of numerous articles and the co-author of the books Urban Design Downtown: Poetics and Politics of Form (University of California Press, 1998), Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space (MIT Press, 2009), Transit-Oriented Displacement or Community Divided? (MIT Press, 2019), and Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City (MIT Press 2020).Hao Ding is a postdoctoral scholar at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. He earned his PhD in Urban Planning from UCLA in 2024. His dissertation “Planning for Accessibility: Implications for Regional and Local Planning and Beyond,” analyzed how people’s access to jobs and other opportunities would be improved by embedding accessibility metrics into local and regional planning processes. He has co-authored more than 25 research publications, including articles for the Journal of Transport and Land Use, the Journal of Planning Education and Research, the Journal of the American Planning Association, and the Journal of the Transportation Research Board.