news>>Steven Raphael Joins ITS Faculty

Steven Raphael, associate dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy, has joined ITS as an affiliate faculty member.

Raphael, an economist who examines unemployment, poverty, and crime, as well as the effects of transportation on these problems, was quoted widely in the press for his observations on why so many African Americans failed to evacuate New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina approached.

Raphael saw the problem as “a straightforward auto-access question.” He and a colleague at Brookings Institution examined census data and found that among New Orleans’ poor, 46 percent of African Americans lacked access to a car, versus just 13 percent of whites. Raphael has warned that low car ownership rates among poor African Americans, combined with less-than-comprehensive evacuation plans is a set-up for a repeat of the New Orleans disaster in other large cities. Raphael received his PhD in economics at Berkeley in 1996.

Raphael's Home Page at the Goldman School of Public Policy.