3 Questions with Loretta Lees
Incoming sociology professor to direct BU Initiative on Cities
A world-renowned urban geographer with an expertise in the gentrification of cities has joined the faculty as a professor of sociology and director of the Initiative on Cities, BU’s hub for urban research and teaching. Loretta Lees has lived and worked in the United Kingdom since 1997, including the past nine years at the University of Leicester as a professor of human geography. She was recently recognized by the Urban Affairs Association with the 2022 Marilyn J. Gittell Activist Scholar Award. Lees spoke with arts&sciences about her work.
arts&sciences: What’s the relationship between urban geography and sociology?
Loretta Lees: I identify more as a professor of urban studies because that label points to the broader, increasingly transdisciplinary nature of my work. Urban sociology is the study of human interaction in urban areas, whereas urban geography investigates the impact of urban processes on the physical and human, plus nonhuman, world. One thing that urban sociology has learned from urban geography is the importance not just of studying society but also space and spatiality. As an urban geographer I have spent much of my career doing ethnographic work in urban neighborhoods.
What can Boston learn from urban policy in London?
I would say that London could learn from Boston’s new mayor, Michelle Wu, and the policies and practices she is beginning to enact that demonstrate real, rather than simply rhetorical, commitment to a just and caring city. I would urge Boston to learn from London’s hypergentrifying policy mistakes.
What excites you about the BU Initiative on Cities?
I am an international urbanist committed to academic research and teaching that supports the development of just and caring cities. Cities are massive generators of economic growth, ideas, and entrepreneurship; urbanization globally is escalating; and cities have often gone beyond national governments in enacting more stringent climate change and socially just policies and practices. Cities are key to our future, and I am honored to be taking up the challenge of catalyzing work on the urban at BU.