IOC Director Loretta Lees featured on Urbanistica Podcast
IOC Director Loretta Lees was recently featured on Urbanistica Podcast Episode 417: Women Reclaiming the City book. On this episode, Director Lees joined fellow scholars who contributed to Women Reclaiming the City: International Research on Urbanism, Architecture, and Planning to discuss their work in the field of urban studies as... More
IOC Affiliates to serve on Massachusetts’ Climate Science Advisory Panel
On January 12, 2024, the Healey-Driscoll Administration launched a Climate Science Advisory Panel through the new Massachusetts Office of Climate Science (OCS). These panelists are experts in their field and are invaluable knowledge brokers in Massachusetts who "will advise OCS on the latest advances and applications in climate science." Three Initiative... More
Destiny Perkins: My Summer with the Boston Equity & Inclusion Cabinet
Destiny Perkins (Pardee'25) was our summer 2023 Boston Equity & Inclusion Cabinet Intern. Interested in this internship? Click here to learn more about our summer internship & fellowship offerings. I spent this past summer in the City of Boston’s Office for Equity and Inclusion as a Racial Justice Fellow with Lori Nelson’s... More
Zakaria Elkawa: My Summer with Climate Ready Boston
Zakaria Elkawa (CAS'24, Pardee'24) was our summer 2023 Climate Ready Boston Intern. Interested in this internship? Click here to learn more about our summer internship & fellowship offerings. During my internship with the City of Boston Climate Ready Team, I found that Boston is moving in the right direction in leading the... More
Multiplied Displacement: Governance, Profit, and Solidarity in Urban Migration Regimes in the U.S. and Germany
Where: Initiative on Cities, 75 Bay State Road When: Tuesday, January 23, 2024, 6:30 - 8:00 PM ET Join us for our first Boston Urban Salon speaker event featuring Dr. René Kreichauf, an Assistant Professor of Urban Studies & Planning at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Free University of Brussels). Professor Kreichauf will analyze... More
IOC and Alum Work Highlighted in Arts x Sciences Magazine
The Arts x Sciences Magazine recently highlighted the Initiative on Cities and multiple affiliates and alumni. In a series of articles, the magazine describes urban policy work and research conducted by members of the BU community. The IOC is fortunate to have catalyzed activities throughout Boston, furthering our mission of... More
New Publication: “Housing Movements and Care: Rethinking the Political Imaginaries of Housing”
The IOC's Postdoctoral Research Associate Kenton Card recently authored a publication in Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography alongside UC Berkeley Associate Professor Desiree Fields and Western Sydney University Associate Professor Emma R. Power. Their work focuses on housing movements and housing as a form of care. Read the full abstract... More
Andrea Catania: My Summer with the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics
Andrea Catania (MET'24) was our summer 2023 Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics (MONUM) Fellow. Interested in this fellowship? Click here to learn more about our summer internship & fellowship offerings. In December 2022, I initially scrolled by a summer job posting for something called "the New Urban Mechanics," believing it was probably... More
New Publication: “Water sources for street trees in mesic urban environments”
2021 Early Stage Urban Research award recipient Ian Smith recently published in Science of The Total Environment with Co-PIs Pamela Templer and Lucy Hutyra. Smith, Templer, and Hutyra examine urban trees' water sources, factoring in moderate moisture environments and their impact on urban communities. Their research finds that trees contribute... More
Faculty Friday: Marcus Walton
Faculty Friday is a series highlighting members of the Initiative on Cities (IOC) Faculty Advisory Board, by exploring their work on campus and in the city. This week, we are highlighting Marcus Walton, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS). By Jaclyn Berman Jaclyn Berman:... More
New Publication: “What Constitutes Engaged Dialogue in Urban Research? Thoughts From a Long Time ‘Outside-Insider'”
Initiative on Cities Director Loretta Lees recently published a plenary in Dialogues in Urban Research focusing on inclusionary dialogue in urban studies and what needs to change. Read the abstract below: "In this plenary for the new journal Dialogues in Urban Research, I discuss what constitutes (and should constitute going forward)... More
#BUandBoston: BU Community Garden
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
Annual Cities Talk Lecture: Comparative and Engaged Research in Urban Politics: Productive Tensions?
Where: Initiative on Cities, 75 Bay State Road When: Monday, November 20, 2023, 4:00 - 5:30 PM ET Comparative analysis of the politics of community mobilization has a long history in urban studies, revealing much about the role of urban movements in wider transformation processes in different times and places. At the... More
2023 Careers in Transportation Information Session
On Thursday, November 16th, from 4:00-5:30 pm, the Initiative on Cities and City Planning & Urban Affairs program co-hosts a Careers in Transportation event. This event will give attendees a chance to hear about possible career options in the field and connect with professionals in transportation. Previous attendees of the... More
Danielle Mulligan is the next Associate Director of the Initiative on Cities
We are excited to announce the Initiative on Cities's new Associate Director joining our team this week. The IOC welcomes Danielle Mulligan, who now works with the IOC’s Executive Director and Director to help shape and carry out the center’s strategic initiatives, such as the center’s new Urban-H agenda. Danielle brings... More
School of Cities, University of Toronto and Initiative on Cities, Boston University hold first SSHRC-funded workshop on research, policy and practice in relation to Climate Displacement and Cities
On September 28th, Boston University’s Initiative on Cities and the University of Toronto’s School of Cities held the first of three workshops on climate displacement in Toronto, Canada. David Miller of C40 Cities, who also sits on the IOC’s External Advisory Board, delivered an excellent keynote discussing global mayoral thoughts... More
Meet Joseph Harris, Metrobridge’s New Faculty Director
We are happy to announce Associate Professor of Sociology Joseph Harris will be joining the Initiative on Cities (IOC) as the MetroBridge Faculty Director. His research is situated at the interstices of sociology, political science, and public health and explores the politics of global health. He holds the 2017 Gitner... More
Results: Getting Beyond Politics to Get Important Work Done
Date: Thursday, November 2, 2023 Time: 5:30 pm-7:00 pm ET Location: Innovate@BU BUild Lab 730 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston "Wedge issues may be great for making headlines but they do not move us forward. Success is measured by what we accomplish together. Our obligation to the people we serve is too important to place... More
Meet the 2023-2024 NLC Menino Fellow: Tammy Dong
We are pleased to announce Tammy Dong (Pardee '24) as the 2023–2024 National League Cities (NLC) Menino Fellow. Tammy is a senior studying International Relations with a focus on foreign policy and security studies in Africa and the Middle East. She enjoys piecing together the puzzle of why the world is... More
Faculty Friday: Jade Brown
Faculty Friday is a series highlighting members of the Initiative on Cities (IOC) Faculty Advisory Board, by exploring their work on campus and in the city. This week, we are highlighting Jade Brown, a Clinical Associate Professor of Law in the Civil Litigation & Justice Program (CLJP) at Boston University School of Law. By... More