Recently, Boston University Initiative on Cities affiliates Dr. Molly Richard, a Postdoctoral Scholar at Boston University’s Center for Innovation in Social Science (CISS), and Dr. Kenton Card, an IOC Visiting Urban Scholar and current Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) at the University of Minnesota, prominently shared their insights […]
A new article published in Nature Cities examines urban heat issues through new lenses of inequality, calling for researchers to bridge the gap between heat management and institutional discrimination. Focusing on the Global North, the authors, including IOC Director Loretta Lees and External Advisory Board Member Isabelle Anguelovski, argue that researchers and planners must consider […]
The Initiative on Cities Co-Authors the 2024 Greater Boston Housing Report Card Special Analysis on Using Public Land to Develop Affordable Housing Greater Boston’s well-publicized housing challenges continue, even as communities work to change zoning rules to comply with the state’s new MBTA Communities requirements. A lack of new construction, high interest rates, and changing […]
Boston University Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and IOC BU Urbanist Mary Willis (SPH), alongside co-authors Fintan Mooney (SPH), Professor of Epidemiology Jennifer Weuve (SPH), IOC Director Loretta Lees (CAS), and IOC Executive Director Stacy Fox, contributed to a new commentary in the Journal of Urban Health that proposes a framework for evaluating the multidimensional impacts of […]
The Boston University Initiative on Cities (IOC) is proud to release its 2024 Annual Report — marking 10 years since our founding and commitment to the betterment of cities. The achievements over the past year underscore our center’s dedication to serving as an interdisciplinary hub for urbanists, bridging research and practice, and leading place-based experiential […]
Dr. Claudia Diezmartínez, Professor Benjamin Sovacool, and Associate Professor Anne Short Gianotti have published a new paper on Nature Cities that analyzes the politics and processes of implementing climate justice plans in urban governments. Read the full abstract here: “Cities are moving toward the implementation of more just urban climate actions, but the politics and […]
Authors: Katherine Levine Einstein (Associate Professor of Political Science, Boston University), Charley E. Willison (Assistant Professor of Public and Ecosystem Health, Cornell University) In this brief, the Boston University Initiative on Cities, Cornell University, and Community Solutions investigate the involvement of sanitation agencies in response to homelessness in cities across the country. Unsheltered homelessness is highly visible and presents social, […]
Associate Director Danielle Mulligan and Professor Stephanie Ettinger De Cuba co-authored an op-ed, “Diagnosing the youth mental health crisis? Don’t forget housing and extreme heat,” in CommonWealth Beacon. The Boston Public Health Commission published a report detailing the extensive crisis of sadness and anxiety among young adults; from 2015 to 2021, the percentage of youth […]
Boston University Associate Professor of Earth & Environment Dan Li’s new publication, Persistent Urban Heat, with co-authors Linying Wang (Boston University), Weilin Liao (Sun Yat-sen University), Ting Sun (University College London), Gabriel Katul (Duke University), Elie Bou-Zeid (Princeton University), and Björn Maronga (Leibniz University Hannover), tackles the urban heat island effect and demonstrates that urban […]
In partnership with the Initiative on Cities’ MetroBridge program and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), Urban-H Associate Director Katherine Levine Einstein and students enrolled in the Inequality in American Politics (CAS PO 519) course during the Fall 2023 semester recently published their findings concerning the implementation of the 2021 MBTA Communities Act (MBTA-C) in Arlington, […]