Reassessing Valley's Melting Pot ROGER WALDINGER, Roger Waldinger, a professor of sociology at UCLA and director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, is the co-editor of "Ethnic Los Angeles," (Russell Sage Foundation) and the author of "Still the Promised City? African Americans and New Immigrants in Post-Industrial New York" (Harvard University Press)
How to Prevent Death by Fire in Unsafe, Illegal Housing Neal Richman and Danny Krouk, Neal Richman teaches in the Department of Urban Planning in the School of Public Policy and Social Research at UCLA. Danny Krouk consults with the Community Building Institute. Both work on the Neighborhood Knowledge Los Angeles telecommunications and information system
We Can't Afford to Lose China Again JOSEPH S. NYE Jr., Joseph S. Nye Jr. is dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and former assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs in the Clinton administration
DreamWorks: To Be a City or a Studio? Joel Kotkin, Joel Kotkin, a contributing editor to Opinion, is the John M. Olin fellow at the Pepperdine Institute for Public Policy and a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute. He is also business-trends analyst for Fox TV
U.S. Quietly Abandons the Kurds of Northern Iraq Thomas Goltz, Thomas Goltz covers the region bounded by the Adriatic and Caspian seas. His documentary film on Chechnya was a finalist for the Rory Peck Award (London)
Dennis Ross Richard B. Straus, Richard B. Straus is the editor of the Middle East Policy Review
Presidents Expect History to Justify Them; Don't Bet on It Robert Dallek, Robert Dallek, who taught at UCLA for 30 years, is currently a professor of history at Boston University. His most recent book is "Hail to the Chief: The Making and Unmaking of American Presidents" (Hyperion)