The housing crisis has been a long and ongoing struggle in Los Angeles that has been further exacerbated by the recent fires. What does affordable housing mean today, and how can architects, planners, and policy makers help create sustainable and livable futures here and across America?

• Liz Falletta is a professor teaching architectural and urban design at the USC Price School of Public Policy. Her courses focus on design as an interdisciplinary activity and explore how the intersecting values of architecture, planning, and development can inform the design process and improve design outcomes. She published By-Right, By-Design, Los Angeles Housing Development vs. Housing Design in Los Angeles, an interdisciplinary study of significant Los Angeles housing design precedents and their related development types, in 2019. A side-by-side comparison of these projects—real estate development models built in large numbers as of right, versus singular examples of innovative architecture built by variance—reveals new insights for future housing production in Los Angeles and elsewhere. She is a licensed architect and a licensed real estate broker in the State of California.
• Dowell Myers is a professor of policy, planning, and demography in the Sol Price School of Public Policy at USC. He is a leading expert on changing demographics in California and the United States, tracing their many consequences. Dr. Myers is a leading scholar of the deep connections between population and housing, including the major 2025 work, “Misalignment of Housing Growth and Population Trends: Cohort Size and Lagging Measurements Through Recession and Recovery,” on the policy missteps creating severe housing shortages. Dire consequences followed for rental affordability, falling household formation and homeownership, and growing gentrification. Dr. Myers has graduate degrees from MIT and UC-Berkeley. His books include Immigrants and Boomers: Forging a New Social Contract for the Future of America, Analysis with Local Census Data: Portraits of Change, and Housing Demography: Linking Demographic Structure and Housing Markets.

• Lorcan O’Herlihy, FAIA, is an architect and urban designer with offices in Los Angeles and Detroit. As Founding Principal, O’Herlihy has led Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects in building a portfolio of work that embraces architecture’s role as a catalyst for change. His book Building in Place: Architecture Rooted in Context and Social Equity takes the reader through LOHA’s strategies for designs centering social, political, and economic context. He has been recognized with 200+ awards, including the Maybeck Award, AIA LA Gold Medal, and the AIA California Distinguished Practice Award. LOHA is one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies for 2025, and in 2018 was recognized by Architect Magazine as the #1 Design Firm in the U.S.

• Frances Anderton (moderator) covers Los Angeles design and architecture in print, broadcast media, and public events. She wrote the book Common Ground: Multifamily Housing in Los Angeles, winner of a 2022 Gold award from Foreword Reviews. She and collaborators at Friends of Residential Treasures: Los Angeles (FORT: LA) will create an installation at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennial, illustrating the theme “PORCH: An Architecture of Generosity.” Anderton hosted DnA: Design and Architecture for KCRW public radio station and now writes a regular newsletter for KCRW. Honors include the Esther McCoy Award, from the USC Architectural Guild, for her work educating the public about architecture and urbanism.