2025 Initiative on Cities City of Boston Summer Internship Applications Now Open
The IOC is excited to offer three paid undergraduate internship opportunities this summer. Interns will work 35 hours weekly in Boston's City Hall in one of the three roles listed below. Equity & Inclusion Cabinet [Free housing in partnership with the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground]: The intern will advance Boston's racial equity... More
IOC Fall 2024 Event Highlights
The Two Faces of Fear: Violence and Inequality in the Mexican Metropolis Book Talk & Discussion September 18, 2024 Boston University Initiative on Cities, Center for Latin American Studies, and Department of Sociology held a book talk on Assistant Professor of Sociology Ana Villarreal’s newly published book on the impacts of criminal... More
Fall 2024 Event Spotlight: Allston Multimodal Project and Reknitting the Allston Community
By Sean Waddington On October 2nd, the Boston University Initiative on Cities and City Planning and Urban Affairs Program hosted a wide-ranging discussion on the Allston Multimodal Project – a Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) initiative seeking to realign the Massachusetts Turnpike at the Allston Interchange. BU School of Law Lecturer Rob... More
#BUandBoston: Unpacking our “Atmosphere of Soup” — Arden Radford
This post is part of our #BUandBoston series, highlighting the work and research of BU students, faculty, and staff throughout the City of Boston and the Greater Boston region. Interested in having your Boston-related work featured? Tag us on Instagram or Twitter (@BUonCities) using the #BUandBoston or send us an... More
New Publication: “From heat racism and heat gentrification to urban heat justice in the USA and Europe”
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... More
Louisville KY Metro Council have voted unanimously for a new Anti-Displacement Tool
By Loretta Lees (Boston University), Kenton Card (University of Minnesota), and Andre Comandon (University of Southern California) Led by the Initiative on Cities at Boston University, Loretta Lees (Boston University), Kenton Card (Boston University, now the University of Minnesota), and Andre Comandon (University of Southern California) developed a new Anti-Displacement Assessment Tool (ADA Tool) to be implemented by... More
2024 Greater Boston Housing Report Card
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... More
“New Rules for Life” – A New Way to Understand Boston’s Trees
This post is part of our #BUandBoston series, highlighting the work and research of BU students, faculty, and staff throughout the City of Boston and the Greater Boston region. Interested in having your Boston-related work featured? Tag us on Instagram or Twitter (@BUonCities) using the #BUandBoston or send us an... More
On the Housing Crisis: A Discussion with Jerusalem Demsas
When: Monday, December 9, 4 PM – 5:30 PM ET Where: Kenmore Room (Rm 916), 1 Silber Way, Boston, MA 02215 Jerusalem Demsas from The Atlantic will join us to discuss her new book, On the Housing Crisis: Land, Development, Democracy. The discussion will focus on the housing crisis and local democracies, More
City Makers: Urban Experiential Learning Open House
When: Friday, November 22, 12 PM – 1:30 PM ET Where: Initiative on Cities, 75 Bay State Road Calling all students! Stop by the BU Initiative on Cities to learn about our urban experiential learning opportunities. From our MetroBridge classroom-based program to our internships and fellowships with Boston City Hall and the... More
Accelerating Change in the Mobility Sector: Trends, Cutting Edge Technology, and How Cities Can Proactively Engage and Participate
Where: Initiative on Cities, 75 Bay State Road, Boston, MA, 02215 When: March 6, 2025 | 4:00 – 5:30 PM ET Join the Boston University Initiative on Cities and the City Planning & Urban Affairs Program for a panel discussion on how innovations in infrastructure delivery, materials, AI, electrification, data, and autonomy... More
Spring 2025 MetroBridge Call for Proposals
MetroBridge, the experiential learning program of the Boston University Initiative on Cities (IOC), is seeking municipal and community project partners for the spring 2025 semester. About MetroBridge MetroBridge embeds the research needs of cities, towns, NGOs, and community organizations into semester-long courses at BU, providing students with experiential learning opportunities through real-world... More
IOC Co-Authors New Commentary on Highway Reclamation Impacts on Population Health
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... More
Amie Thomas: My Summer with the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics
Amie Thomas (GRS’24) was the 2024 Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics Summer Fellow. Interested in this fellowship? Click here to learn more about our summer internship & fellowship offerings. Like many forward-thinking students, come the end of the fall semester, I needed to decide on what my plans for the summer... More
Roshan Sivaraman: My Summer with the City of Boston’s Office of Climate Resilience (Climate Ready Boston)
Roshan Sivaraman (CFA, Pardee ’26) was the 2024 City of Boston Climate Ready Boston Intern. Interested in this internship? Click here to learn more about our summer internship & fellowship offerings. This summer, I had the privilege of working as a Summer Intern at the City of Boston’s Office of Climate Resilience... More
Alexandria McKenzie: My Summer with the City of Boston’s Equity & Inclusion Cabinet
Alexandria McKenzie (CAS '26) was the 2024 City of Boston Equity & Inclusion Cabinet Summer Intern. Interested in this internship? Click here to learn more about our summer internship & fellowship offerings. Reflecting on my time at City Hall, I see a summer full of creativity, innovation, and new insights and perspectives. More
Introducing the 2024–2025 Initiative on Cities Menino Fellow: Kathya Correa Almanza
We are excited to announce Kathya Correa Almanza (CAS’25) as the 2024–2025 Boston University Initiative on Cities Menino Fellow in partnership with the National League of Cities (NLC). During the fall semester, Kathya will conduct a directed study under the supervision of IOC Director Loretta Lees, evaluating the Boston Public School... More
Urban Power: Democracy & Inequality in São Paulo & Johannesburg
When: Wednesday, November 13, 4 PM – 6 PM ET Where: Initiative on Cities, 75 Bay State Road Join us for a book discussion featuring Benjamin Bradlow, Assistant Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton University. His new book, Urban Power: Democracy & Inequality in São Paulo & Johannesburg, explores why some cities... More
2024 Careers in Transportation Information Session
Date & Time: Wednesday, October 30th, 4 PM – 5:30 PM ET Location: Initiative on Cities | 75 Bay State Road, Boston, MA 02215 Join the Boston University Initiative on Cities and City Planning & Urban Affairs Program for our annual Careers in Transportation Information Session! This session provides a direct venue... More
Critical Gentrification Studies in US Cities: A Book Symposium
Date & Time: Friday, November 1st, 11 AM – 3 PM ET Location: Rajen Kilachand Center Colloquium Room, 1st Floor (610 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215) Join us for a book symposium featuring three new books by leaders in the field of gentrification: Tanya Golash-Boza’s Before Gentrification: The Creation of DC’s Racial... More