Zócalo Public Square

It’s no secret that how much money you make can affect how healthy you are. At an event co-sponsored by the California Wellness Foundation, Kaiser Health News senior correspondent Anna Gorman moderated a panel discussion about the barriers that keep low-income Americans out of fancy yoga classes and away from organic vegetable stands. Roshan Bastani, director of UCLA’s Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity, LaVonna Lewis of the USC Price School of Public Policy, and Tracie McMillan, author of The American Way of Eating, talked about what can be done to level the playing field.

Community-based arts programs in California’s Inland Empire are facing big challenges today. Funds are diminishing. Audiences are disappearing. So how can small-scale performers and venues survive? And what can Redlands, which has a rich performing arts history, teach organizations across the nation about how to stay relevant? These were the questions tackled at a "Living the Arts" event co-presented by the James Irvine Foundation and moderated by Redlands Daily Facts editor Toni Momberger. The panel discussion featured Redlands University theater professor Victoria Lewis, executive director of Redlands Community Music Association Beverly Noerr, president of LifeHouse Theater Wayne R. Scott, and CEO of Music Changing Lives Josiah Bruny.

From the Boston Tea Party to the recent protests in Baltimore and Ferguson, Americans have a long history of using violence to combat oppression and push for social change. But what are the sparks that set off urban riots? Who are the people who get involved, and do they ever actually make a difference? Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson moderated a "Thinking L.A." event co-presented by UCLA that took a broad look at the history of inner-city riots in America and why they continue to erupt. He was joined in the discussion by California State Senator Holly Mitchell, urban sociologist Max Herman, and UCLA historian Robin D.G. Kelley.

Los Angeles has been talking about ending homelessness for years. But the problem has only been getting worse: In the past two years, the homeless population has jumped 12 percent. At an event co-presented by UCLA and Zócalo and moderated by Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, four panelists--L.A. County Housing for Health director Marc Trotz, UCLA psychiatrist Kenneth Wells, Ocean Park Community Center executive director John Maceri, and Christine Margiotta, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs alumna and vice president of community impact at United Way of Greater Los Angeles--discussed the conditions that continue to force people on the streets, and the actions that can be taken to prevent them.

Every year, Los Angeles needs more than 4,000 affordable new homes to accommodate low-income residents, but builds only 1,000 -- and loses 3,000. One solution to keeping life affordable in L.A., and the many cities across America following the same trend, may be transportation. At a discussion co-presented by Metro and moderated by Curbed L.A. editor Adrian Glick Kudler, four panelists -urban planning policy analyst Joan Ling, developer Tony Salazar, L.A. City Councilman Mike Bonin, and Metro managing executive officer for countywide planning & development Calvin Hollis -- considered ways new transit projects can connect people to jobs and make city living less expensive.

Los Angeles isn’t fantasizing when it calls itself America’s creative capital: 355,000 jobs are directly tied to the city’s creative industries, and 620,000 jobs are related in some way. But just because creativity is one of Los Angeles’ defining features doesn’t mean it doesn’t have to be defended. Economist and principal contributor of the Otis Report on the Creative Economy Kimberly Ritter-Martinez, City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural affairs general manager Danielle Brazell, and Maker City L.A. co-founder Sharon Ann Lee joined moderator Lisa Fung, the founding editor of the "Los Angeles Times Culture Monster," in a panel sponsored by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs on what Los Angeles needs to do to hold onto its creative edge.

The term gentrification can be a catch-all word to characterize the arrival of hipsters, widely available wi-fi, and whites moving into neighborhoods of color. But at a Thinking L.A. event co-presented by UCLA and moderated by KCRW news producer Saul Gonzalez, a panel of Angelenos who study and work to improve the city -- Urban Planner Gilda Haas, Former City Planning Commissioner Maria Cabildo, UCLA cityLAB director Dana Cuff, and western region director of The Actors Fund Keith McNutt -- tried to hone in on how gentrification plays out on the ground, and how best to manage the forces that are rapidly transforming neighborhoods like Highland Park and Lincoln Heights.

Arizona and Mexico, separated at birth? Panelists at a Zócalo/Azteca event Phoenix didn’t go that far, but in a conversation moderated by New York Times Phoenix bureau chief Fernanda Santos about Mexico’s economic rise and the opportunities it creates for Arizona and the U.S. Southwest, it became apparent that Arizona and Mexico have a lot in common--including bad reputations that represent significant barriers to achieving greater prosperity together. The three panelists--two from Arizona (Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton and former Arizona-Mexico Commission executive director Margie A. Emmermann) and one from Mexico (Signum Research CEO and economist Héctor Romero) took pains to dispel those reputations.

To better preserve its past, Los Angeles needs a better sense of its history - and the places that define that history. That's what five panelists - crime novelist Denise Hamilton, Libros Schmibros founder David Kipen, L.A. Office of Historic Resources manager Ken Bernstein, L.A. Weekly staff writer Dennis Romero, and KCET arts and culture columnist Lynell George - agreed at a Zócalo/Getty - Open Art - event. In a discussion moderated by KCRW's Saul Gonzalez, the group talked about the importance of the places from the past that make L.A. feel like home today.

How can a movie with a Mexican-American theme tell the story of all America? Why aren’t there more movies that reflect the increasingly complex racial and ethnic demography of our country? How can filmmakers make movies that gather audiences that reflect this new America? These are some of the questions writer and director Luis Valdez and producer Moctesuma Esparza took on at a “What It Means to Be American” event, moderated by film critic Claudia Puig.

What if you could learn to sing like Maria Callas, theorize like Stephen Hawking, and, at the same time, become fluent in Russian and French? What if you could accomplish all that in just three years? At a Zócalo event moderated by Sacramento Bee publisher Cheryl Dell, Arizona State University President Michael Crow and California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom shared their ideas about higher education’s evolution into the future, and what it will take to keep up with an ever-shrinking world and ever-growing technological capabilities.

What is genocide, and why does the world have so much difficulty identifying where and when it occurs? The world often has been powerless to stop genocide–from the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and the Nazis in Europe to slaughterings of Tutsis in Rwanda and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia–in its tracks. At a Thinking L.A. event co-presented by UCLA, UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations Director Kal Raustiala talked with UCLA historian Richard G. Hovannisian, University of Wisconsin political scientist Scott Straus, World Peace Foundation research director Bridget Conley-Zilkic, and Sudd Institute co-founder Jok Madut Jok about what instigates the mass killings of certain groups of people–and how these acts of brutal violence can be prevented.

Open a newspaper in America today, and you'll find a host of issues--from policing problems to the rising income gap--that are connected by one issue: equality. But our politicians rarely use this word; they, and most Americans, prefer to talk about freedom. Political philosopher Danielle Allen, winner of the 2015 Zócalo Book Prize for Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality, explained why the country has oriented itself toward freedom over the past century, and how the Declaration of Independence can help Americans relearn how to talk and think about equality.

Has the United States become a land of opportunity only for those kids whose parents have money, connections, and a college education? Harvard political scientist Robert D. Putnam, author of Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, talked with David and Lucile Packard Foundation President and CEO Carol S. Larson about why the obstacles faced by poor children today are larger than ever–and what can be done to close this opportunity gap.

Why do some adult men and women choose not to have kids? Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum had only seen the topic addressed in a “really glib, flippant way.” But for many, including Daum herself, it’s not a black-and-white decision but a choice that exists in a gray area.To get at the complexity and complications of this decision, Daum decided to assemble and edit an anthology, Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids. At an event at the Downtown Independent, she talked with two of the book’s contributors, M. G. Lord and Kate Christensen, about their lives without kids, the cultural pressures they faced, and why—if not because they’re selfish, shallow, and self-absorbed—they chose not to become parents.

There are 15 major arts and music festivals in the Coachella Valley each year, from the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival to the Desert Lexus Jazz Festival -- and that’s just from January to June. What do these festivals bring to the local community, and why have they all sprung up in this area? These were the questions tackled at a "Living the Arts" event co-presented by the James Irvine Foundation in front of a full house at the Sunnylands Center & Gardens in Rancho Mirage. Desert Sun arts and entertainment reporter Bruce Fessier got answers from Modernism Week's Lisa Vossler Smith, Palm Springs Art Museum's Irene N. Rodriguez, Indio Mayor Lupe Ramos Watson, and music writer and photographer Steve Appleford.

Today, American institutions of higher education are under fire from all fronts, including for the high cost of attending, for the role they play in perpetuating inequality, and for their perceived inability to prepare students for a changing world. Is the contemporary research university in danger of going extinct? And if so, is it even worth saving? Arizona State University President Michael M. Crow, co-author of Designing the New American University, and New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, author of Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania, talk with Chronicle of Higher Education Editor Liz McMillen about who universities should serve and what problems they should be solving.

Is America a nation of risk-takers or worry warts? At the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, a wide-ranging "What It Means to Be American' discussion covered entrepreneurship and jazz music, parenting and travel -- and whether risk-taking is an essentially American trait. Jack Hitt, author of Bunch of Amateurs: A Search for the American Character, talked with Grammy Award-winning jazz pianist and composer Arturo O'Farrill, documentary filmmaker and Adventure Divas and Globe Trekker host Holly Morris, and Bloomberg View columnist Megan McArdle, author of The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success, about the risks they've taken in their work and lives, and their thoughts on the place of failure and risk-taking in American culture today.

What inspires artists as they grow older? Do they approach their work in new ways? Do they see the world differently? Painter Charles Garabedian, muralist Judithe Hernández, and musicologist Karen Painter tackled these questions at an "Open Art" event co-presented by the Getty. It was inspired by the Getty exhibition "J. M. W. Turner: Painting Set Free," which features works from the final years of Turner’s life, and was moderated by Los Angeles Times arts reporter Mike Boehm.

Who or what creates and builds a city’s arts scene? How can a flourishing arts community advance to the next level? At a "Living the Arts" event co-presented by the James Irvine Foundation at the Riverside Art Museum, Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival director Bill Fold, UC Riverside historian Catherine Gudis, Downtown Riverside Arts Walk co-founder Cosme Cordova, and Ken Vincent, KVCR news director and the evening’s moderator, tackled these questions.