News List

Dr. Emily Parker Discuses FQHCs with The Daily Targum

“We find very promising evidence in that regard that suggests that (FQHCs) are providing that culturally competent care that matches the language of their country of birth, primarily Spanish speaking.”

Is this the end for NJ’s ‘county line’ ballots?

“[Fighting the challenges] doesn’t seem that it’s a good use of taxpayer dollars, and I suspect that most taxpayers would not want their taxpayer dollars spent that way,” Rubin said. “But I suspect that if more county clerks choose to settle, that it will impact Republicans the same way.

Will the Nation’s Employment Growth Trajectory Follow NJ’s?

In late July, the outlook for the U.S. economy appeared strong, with some observers suggesting that the Fed had indeed nailed the long-awaited soft-landing even in light of recent cooling in the labor market. Just a week later, however, markets panicked, albeit briefly, as the national jobs report for July showed monthly payroll employment growth slowing to 114,000 jobs, well short of the projected 175,000 job gain.

Who’s Protecting WeHo’s Walkable Wonderland?

“West Hollywood, and most gay neighborhoods, are in an urban area, dense… they’re exactly the kinds of places where we see a lot of increase in injury and death from being struck by a car. It’s where people are walking and it’s where people are driving like maniacs.”

Invisible Rides: How Car-Less Americans Access Cars

Respondents got rides, borrowed cars, and used ride-hail to access grocery trips, social/recreational activities, and medical care. While most interviewees intend to purchase a vehicle in the future, they also desire better transit, suggesting that households without cars do not necessarily prefer car ownership.

Review of State Postsecondary Attainment Goals & Progress

NJSDS aims to help the public and stakeholders make data-informed decisions to improve public policies and practices for New Jersey residents. This includes facilitating longitudinal and linked-data research, providing statistical data, and publishing reports on the NJSDS website.

Drs. Walsh, Porumbescu and Hetling Study SNAP and Tech

Cumulatively, our findings demonstrate that efforts to reduce SNAP learning costs are generally effective at improving comprehension recall and that the type of intervention matters, with the video increasing comprehension scores more than the flyer and screening tool.

New Research on Eye Tracking Measures of Bicyclists

Our review results show that cycling experiments with eye tracking allow analysis of the viewpoint of the cyclist and reactions to the built environment, road conditions, navigation behavior, and mental workload and/or stress levels.

Stamato Commentary: First-time homebuyers need hand up, not handout

In order to help people not earning quite enough to qualify for a private loan, Linda Stamato advocates for the creation of public banks, as promised by Gov. Murphy in Executive Order 91. Public banks would provide capital for affordable housing and assist underserved communities.

Dr. Patti: Hair and Health Among African American Women

Many African American women encounter distinct historical and sociocultural challenges that impede their engagement in physical activity and mental health services because their providers are often culturally uninformed about the significance of Black hair.

Dr. Rushing Selected as Rutgers LHS STAR NJ Scholar

The program supports protected time for research scholars to receive a well-rounded training experience through a carefully curated program of research, didactic, experiential, and professional development training and expert tailored mentorship.

Stamato Commentary: Freedom of expression through Rutgers lens

Linda Stamato explains that Rutgers University and many other institutions have historically upheld a principle of institutional neutrality in political matters, a stance dating back to the Vietnam War era. Presidents like Mason Gross and Edward J. Bloustein maintained that while the university as an entity should not take official positions on public issues, it would support individual freedoms of expression.

Dr. Parker Examines Migrant Healthcare Public Policies

We examine whether and how an immigrant-inclusive federal program, Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), shaped health care access and use among farmworkers over nearly three decades, paying particular attention to disparities at the intersection of nativity and legal status.

Sustainable Healthy Futures Webinar Series – Extreme Heat

As extreme heat events become more frequent and severe, vulnerable communities are disproportionately affected, facing heightened health risks and limited resources for adaptation. This webinar will focus on community-led efforts to address extreme heat and promote health equity. You will hear from local leaders and activists developing and implementing heat resilience strategies tailored to their community’s unique needs.

Promoting Business-Friendly Regulations

Municipal ordinances can touch business operations in a remarkable number of ways. A partial list includes taxation, business licensing, zoning laws, street and traffic patterns, parking regulations, building design and signage, environmental and health regulations and even the installation of unsightly utility poles and cell phone towers.

Morris County warehouse currently leased to Amazon trades hands for $29 million

A former Sam’s Club warehouse leased to Amazon recently sold, marking a shift in the region from large suburban office spaces to warehouses. The transaction reflects a broader trend in New Jersey, where warehouse construction surged during the COVID-19 pandemic to meet the growing demand for e-commerce.

NJSPL – Reengaging COVID-Disconnected College Students

The New Jersey State Policy Lab, in collaboration with the Newark City of Learning Collaborative (NCLC), has released a new report that examines barriers and opportunities to reengaging COVID-disconnected college students ages 18 to 26 in Newark, NJ. 

Unilever to move headquarters out of Englewood Cliffs next year

Suburban office campuses more broadly have switched to urban corporate centers in places like Manhattan, Jersey City and Hoboken, a reversal of the trend seen in the 1980s, said James Hughes, dean emeritus of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.

NJSPL – Is Property Assessed Clean Energy a White Windfall

As part of an ongoing clean energy research project, Dr. Winecoff will be examining California’s Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program, first developed and launched in 2009, to identify policy recommendations that can inform New Jersey stakeholders and policymakers as the Garden State begins to implement their own recently approved PACE program.

Stamato Commentary: Colleges and universities should maintain neutrality amid campus protests

Linda Stamato explains that Rutgers University and many other institutions have historically upheld a principle of institutional neutrality in political matters, a stance dating back to the Vietnam War era. Presidents like Mason Gross and Edward J. Bloustein maintained that while the university as an entity should not take official positions on public issues, it would support individual freedoms of expression.

Compare Electricity Rates in New Jersey

“Not everyone bothers to take advantage of the opportunity to switch,” said Clinton Andrews, professor of urban planning and policy development at Rutgers University and director of its Center for Urban Policy Research (which has research contracts with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities).

NJSPL – Introducing the Promising Practices Project

The Promising Practices Project (PPP) aims to identify and document innovative teaching and learning practices that have successfully accelerated learning in K-12 schools across New Jersey. This project seeks to catalog and disseminate innovative, impactful, and replicable strategies that can enhance student learning statewide.

Geronimo PhD ’24 receives ACSP Best Dissertation in Planning

Laura Geronimo Ph.D. ’24 is the recipient of the 2016 ACSP Barclay Gibbs Jones Award for Best Dissertation in Planning. Her thesis explores the political economy of coastal climate adaptation, or the struggle for power and resources between competing interest groups.

GenAI, Ingenuity, the Law, and Unintended Consequences

Andrews begins by asking the age-old question: “If people want the benefits of innovations, must they simply accept the unintended adverse consequences”? He implies that there
are certain tools and techniques that could assist designers in addressing challenges before they take root, so that the challenges may be easily preventable before diffusion of an innovation into the market.

Herts Named New Superintendent of Civil Rights Monument

The National Park Service (NPS) has announced the selection of Rolando Herts, Ph.D. Planning and Public Policy ’11, as superintendent of Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument and Freedom Riders National Monument in Alabama, effective Sep. 9.  

Residents compare Clifton council members fighting over seats to preschoolers

A longtime observer of New Jersey’s local governments, Marc Pfeiffer, a researcher at Rutgers’ Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, said part of the problem can be attributed to the recent member turnover on the City Council, with the exit of James Anzaldi as mayor after more than 30 years and the deaths of members Peter Eagler and Lauren Murphy.

EAC Included in $16 Million Climate Project Funding

Funding will support NJ projects such as enhancing the New Jersey Resilience Toolkit for municipal-level planning, a $2 million project headed by Lucas Marxen at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.

Extreme Heat Means Tough Choices for NYC Building Owners

Aside from thermal cracks, a related focus for structural engineers are gaps between dissimilar materials that respond to heat differently. For both of these reasons, New York City buildings will likely see an uptick in thermal cracking and weathering this century, according to Rutgers’ Andrews.

NJSPL – Examining New Income Distribution Data from the U.S. BEA

The United States Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) recently began publishing state-level data on the distribution of personal income across households. Newly released data offer an opportunity to examine the distribution of income and income inequality in New Jersey compared to the nation and other states over the last decade, with the possibility of eventually incorporating these measures into the R/ECON state economic forecast.

How a major hurricane could upend Cape and Islands’ economy

“The houses that were affected by Sandy that suffered damage, for three years they were worth less than neighboring houses, but by year four the market had forgotten. And they were worth just as much as neighboring houses,” Andrews said.

Mian: Affordable housing in God’s backyard

100,000 churches may close in the next few decades. Some are repurposing their property to provide affordable housing, as the housing crisis intensifies across the country.

Do you have one of the most common jobs in New Jersey?

As the baby boomer population ages out and becomes and becomes one of the health care and nursing sector’s biggest group of consumers, nursing and healthcare jobs will continue to increase according to James Hughes.

NJSPL – The New Jersey Induced Travel Calculator

The calculator also provides a way to check the quality of existing forecasts of increased travel. Forecasts of travel should be included in environmental assessments of specific projects, and for large projects an environmental impact report is usually required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

NYC lawmaker wants to require landlords to provide air conditioning during the summer

Clinton Andrews co-authored a recent study on senior apartments in public housing units in Elizabeth, N.J. found that cooling centers could “significantly reduce morbidity and mortality rates during heat disasters, especially among socially isolated and physically frail low-income seniors,” and recommended mandatory cooling requirements for all renters in its findings. He applauded the move by NYC lawmakers.

What Biden’s “Rent Cap” Is, and Isn’t

​“We have policies in place that have helped build the middle class through federal support for housing,” Paul says. ​“However, that federal support for housing is really only applied to the segment of Americans that can afford to own a house.”

Winecoff: Working Paper on Health Insurance Enrollment

Enrollment in one public benefit program often affects enrollment in others. We study life-course spillovers by examining how access to publicly subsidized health insurance prior to age 65 affects public benefit choices at the age of Medicare eligibility.

Deanna Moran Named MA Chief Coastal Resilience Officer

Deanna Moran, AICP (MPP/MCRP ’16) was named the Chief Coastal Resilience Officer by the Healey-Driscoll Administration to address climate change impacts along Massachusetts’ coastline in May 2024.

NJSPL – Financial Literacy in New Jersey

Financial literacy is integral for empowering entrepreneurs towards obtaining favorable financing, driving innovation, and ultimately achieving stronger business growth.

Voorhees Transportation Center seeks new Executive Director

The Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center (VTC) seeks a new Executive Director who will oversee the center’s research program, technical services and other initiatives, including external relations, communications, business development, and fundraising.

What would you do to try and avoid a layoff?

Families striving to move up the economic ladder may also be at risk, he said. “People may have made investments that, if they lose their job, they may lose their car, they may lose their house.”

Political earthquakes rock New Jersey’s Democratic machine

“In New Jersey, there was a machine that was really powerful and if you went up against it, you lost. Through Norcross losing power, the county line lawsuit and Menendez’s indictment … all these events have created this window, and people are stepping into it,” Rutgers political science professor Julia Sass Rubin said.

Chen et al. Leverage GPS Data for HIV Prevention

By asking participants carried a GPS device for 2 weeks, researchers constructed networks of venues connected together through participants’ co-attendance patterns among young Black sexually minoritized men.

Report Release: R/ECON Forecast Summer 2024

R/ECON’s economic forecast for New Jersey as of June 2024 continues to show a slowing trajectory, though the decline in annual GDP growth is not as pronounced as in the prior forecast.

Biden outlines regulatory plans for the rest of his term

“The time frames listed there are usually ambitious, and administrations rarely complete anything near their complete list of intended actions,” Shapiro told POLITICO’s E&E News. “I find it is best seen as signaling to interest groups, ‘This is what we want to do.’”

More trucks roll through NY, NJ ports after Baltimore bridge collapse

“An important dimension of this potential impact from the increased truck traffic is what you might call a microclimatic impact,” Andrews said. “In other words, more intense pollution levels directly along the streets that are bearing the brunt of the traffic and not much difference further away.”

Dean Shapiro: Reflections on the Chevron Decision

American trust in government has declined. It is tempting to argue that the growth in regulation has played a role in fueling this negative public perception of government. But digging underneath the data reveals that the relationship is far more complicated. Agency actions may be one of the few things about government that people do like.

Samuel Editorial: AI Education & Governance

Professor Jim Samuel co-authored this editorial for Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence. A new era of artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged, profoundly influencing various aspects of human life while presenting new socio-technical challenges and risks across domains like medicine, education, law, governance, and the military.

Experts Respond To Biden’s Rent Cap Comments

“Biden et. al are finally taking the housing crisis seriously. Going on offense to increase supply AND cap rent increases is precisely the type of intervention we need to drastically improve housing affordability & stability.”

Muazzam Toshmatova Wins Best Health Equity Paper

Muazzam Toshmatova, Ph.D. is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development. Her paper, co-authored with Marina Lovchikova, titled “Immigration Enforcement and Health Insurance Choices: Evidence from Secure Communities,” won the ward in the Health Equity program area. The 13th annual conference was held June 16-19 in San Diego, California.

Can New Jersey’s political machines hold on to power?

New Jersey’s political boss culture dates back more than 100 years. It was able to outlast the good government reforms of the early 20th century. While the current moment feels hopeful, political machines do not give up power easily.

NJSPL – Advancing Perinatal Mental Health Equity in NJ

Disparities in perinatal mental health in New Jersey reflect the systemic gaps in equity, access, and infrastructure of the larger U.S. health care system. Policies to expand telehealth access, diversify the perinatal mental health workforce, address stigma, and reduce social and economic inequality are critical to advancing perinatal mental health equity.

New Jersey Food System Dashboard Launched

This public tool was co-developed by the Rutgers Cooperative Extension Department of Family and Community Health Sciences, NJ Food Democracy Collaborative, community partners from Newark, New Brunswick and Camden, and the Environmental Analysis and Communications Group, which is part of the Center for Urban Policy Research at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.

Prof. Julia Sass Rubin: Advocate for Democracy

“My passionate fight for a better democratic process of having our voices heard can be traced to initiatives by the Christie administration to slash funding for public education,” Julia Sass Rubin says.

How To Identify a Move-In-Ready House To Buy

“In the past, homebuyers focused primarily on their monthly mortgage payments. Now they’re thinking more about the larger financial picture,” Hughes says.

Heldrich Report: NJ’s Energy-Efficiency Workforce Needs

The Heldrich Center, in partnership with the Built Environment and Green Building Group at the Center for Urban Policy Research, recently conducted a study to better understand and document community needs and areas for growth in training, recruiting, hiring, and retaining students, trainees, and workers from diverse backgrounds for the state’s energy-efficiency workforce.

Rutgers: Bike Lanes Reduce Traffic Speeds

“We are giving you more evidence that bike lanes save lives,” said Hannah Younes, a lead author of the study and a postdoctoral research associate at the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center in the Rutgers Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.

EJB Talks: Political Update with Stuart Shapiro and Amy Cobb

Stuart Shapiro welcomes back Amy Cobb MPAP ’18 for a political update in the final EJB Talks episode of the spring 2024 season. They discuss the potential consequences of Trump’s guilty verdict for falsifying business records in New York, particularly the consequences for the 2024 election.

Racial composition of road users, traffic citations, and police stops

The research focuses on the relationship between camera tickets and racial composition of drivers vs. police stops for traffic citations and the racial composition in these locations. Black drivers exhibit a higher likelihood of being ticketed by automated speed cameras and of being stopped for moving violations on roads, irrespective of the proportion of White drivers present.

I’m a Nondriver—and There’s a Good Chance You Are, Too

Research by Rutgers Professor Dr. Kelcie Ralph found that young adults who grew up in a family without a car completed less education, had lower incomes, and faced more unemployment than their peers who were raised in families with consistent car access–even when controlling for family wealth, residential location, family composition and race.

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