Zócalo Public Square

Ethan Zuckerman, winner of the 2014 Zócalo Book Prize for Rewire: Becoming Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection, explained why the Internet has made our understanding of the world more narrow rather than more rich and global—and how we might be able to change that. The 2014 Zócalo Book Prize was sponsored by the California Community Foundation.

My Kid Has Autism. Now What?

At an event co-presented by Metro, UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies director Brian Taylor, former California Environment Secretary Linda S. Adams, L.A. Chamber of Commerce president Gary Toebben, and Southern California Association of Governments executive director Hasan Ikhrata talked with NBC4 reporter Conan Nolan about the future of the embattled 710, and what it means for the entire Southern California region.

Has the Affordable Care Act failed in Fresno, and will it be able to succeed? KPCC Southern California Public Radio health reporter Rebecca Plevin posed this question to Deborah Martinez, the deputy director of the Fresno County department of social services, Kevin Hamilton, deputy chief of programs at Clinica Sierra Vista in the Central Valley—the country's second-largest community health center—and Margarita Rocha, the executive director of Clinica la Familia, a Fresno nonprofit at a panel co-presented by The California Wellness Foundation.

Will Obamacare Really Help L.A.'s Immigrants?

Hall of Fame or Hall of Shame?

At an event co-presented by Occidental College, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California Jeffrey Kightlinger, California State Water Resources Control Board chair Felicia Marcus, Arizona State University sustainability scholar Michael Hanemann, and Natural Resources Defense Council water program director Steve Fleischli talked with Occidental political economist Sanjeev Khagram about why water is so difficult to transport and distribute, and why clean water remains elusive for many communities around the globe.

The early 21st century has not been kind to newspapers in Southern California. But in an era of technological change and in a city of great demographic change, what kind of newspaper does L.A. deserve? At an event presented with the support of L.A.’s Department of Cultural Affairs at the Petersen Automotive Museum, Zócalo California and innovation editor Joe Mathews posed this question to Los Angeles Times columnist Sandy Banks, former L.A. city councilman and dean of Cal Poly Pomona’s College of Environmental Design Michael Woo, and Orange County Register publisher Aaron Kushner.

We’re obsessed with the news. Most of us check the headlines on our mobile devices up to eight times a day. But at a Zócalo/Getty Center event, philosopher Alain de Botton, author of The News: A User’s Manual, asks us to consider why: "What on earth are we looking for?"

Africa is transforming--but the West is choosing not to see how people across the continent are improving their lives and countries through business, technological, and social innovation. Dayo Olopade, author of The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules and Making Change in Modern Africa, offers examples of African dynamism and how Americans can reorient themselves to the continent.

American meat has become plentiful and cheap over the past half century. How did this happen, and what does it mean for our diets, our agriculture system, and our culture? Christopher Leonard, author of The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America's Food Business, tells the story of a changing industry--and the damage it's done to rural America.

At a "Living the Arts" panel co-presented by Zócalo and the James Irvine Arts Foundation at Arte Americas in Fresno, California, the Rogue Festival's Renée Newlove, graffiti artist Erik Gonzalez, and sculptor Chris Sorensen of Fresno's ArtHop talked with KVPR's Joe Moore about the state of the arts in Fresno and the Central Valley. They discussed the different ways they bring the arts to the community, the challenges they’ve faced, and where they draw their inspiration.

At a Zócalo/UCLA Thinking L.A. event, Michele Siqueiros, executive director of the Campaign for College Opportunity, Century Foundation senior fellow Richard D. Kahlenberg, and UCLA associate vice chancellor for enrollment Youlonda Copeland-Morgan talked with L.A. Times reporter Kurt Streeter about why racial diversity matters, how to bring more underrepresented students to campus, and what can be done to make such students feel welcome at universities in California and around the country.

Former Financial Times Beijing bureau chief Geoff Dyer, the author of a new book The Contest of the Century: The New Era of Competition With China—and How America Can Win, explains that the U.S. is entering a new era of geopolitical competition with China. But while China's rise is inevitable, the odds remain in America’s favor.

At a Zócalo/Getty event, writer Susan Orlean, Segerstrom Center for the Arts president Terrence W. Dwyer, and Getty CEO James Cuno weren’t entirely in accord about why and how art changes people’s lives—and on whether all art is created equal in that respect.

The way discipline is enforced in American schools is changing quickly, as zero-tolerance policies have given way to "restorative justice" programs that encourage student responsibility and empathy. At a Zócalo/California Endowment event, LAUSD high school teacher Carlos Castillo, Maisie Chin, co-founder of South L.A.’s CADRE parents’ organization, and Walt Buster, the founding director of the Central Valley Educational Leadership Institute, discussed the future of school discipline in L.A., California, and around the country as well as what methods work best.

So few Angelenos voted this year that Eric Garcetti was elected mayor with just 222,300 votes—the same number it took to get elected mayor in the 1930s, when L.A. was half its present size. UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs Dean Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr., Tracy Zeluff of GroundWorks Campaigns, and Loyola Ma rymount University political scientist Fernando Guerra talked about why Angelenos are so reluctant to go to the polls, whether it matters, and what might change things.

What defines glamour, and why do we need it? Bloomberg View columnist Virginia Postrel, author of The Power of Glamour: Longing and the Art of Visual Persuasion, offered her thoughts on what makes up this elusive quality—as well as her thoughts on what glamour is not—at a Zócalo/Getty Center event.

KCRW Good Food host Evan Kleiman talks with a panel of people who look at food from different angles--UCLA epidemiologist Alex Ortega, food blogger Javier "The Glutster" Cabral, and former Bon Appetit editor Barbara Fairchild--about what L.A. is eating right now. Los Angeles is a city of two food worlds, richer and poorer. We're home to many farmers markets and world renowned restaurants. But a million people here go to bed hungry, and obesity is a large problem.

Delta farmer Russell van Loben Sels, PPIC senior fellow Ellen Hanak, deputy operating officer for the Santa Clara Valley Water District Joan Maher, and executive officer of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Conservancy Campbell Ingram talk with San Francisco Chronicle deputy editorial page editor Lois Kazakoff about a major source of California's water supply, the California Delta, at a panel co-presented by Occidental College. Will the Bay Delta Conservation Plan work? What are the biggest problems facing the Delta today? And, what do Californians need to know about this part of our state?