Yesim Sungu-Eryilmaz
Affiliated Faculty, IGS; Assistant Professor and Program Director, City Planning and Urban Affairs, Metropolitan College
Yesim Sungu-Eryilmaz, affiliated faculty with the Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability (IGS), is an assistant professor and program director, city planning and urban affairs, at Metropolitan College.
Her research uses urban conflicts to examine how planning and policy shape cities and regions. Planning initiatives and policies redistribute land, resources, and power, often sparking tensions among communities, institutions, and ecosystems. Rather than seeing conflict as failure, her work treats it as a window into governance, equity, and sustainability.
Using mixed-methods research with spatial analysis, she explores how competing claims over space and authority influence planning outcomes and reveal the trade-offs behind urban futures. Within this framework, she has studied the geography of local control of cannabis, the use of AI in urban governance, community benefits from real estate development projects, natural disaster recovery, sustainable energy, and community land trusts.
- IGS Affiliations
- Affiliated and Faculty