A Conversation about Cities and Health
On Tuesday June 4th, IOC Co-Director Katharine Lusk spoke on a panel co-hosted by the Boston University School of Public Health, Initiative on Cities, AcademyHealth, and de Beaumont Foundation. Hosted by Sandro Galea, Dean of the School of Public Health, and moderated by Lisa Simpson, the President and CEO of AcademyHealth, the panel “A Conversation […]
Summer Fellow Interview: Tori Amy Douglas
Tori is a rising senior at Boston University majoring in Political Science and minoring in Philosophy. She has previously worked for the WaterFront Center in New York, where she worked with children to teach the importance of environmental conservation. She interned at Environment America, where she worked on a campaign focused on committing college campuses […]
Diffusion of Public-Private Innovations: Conditions for Scaling Up Smart City Projects
On May 28th, the Initiative on Cities welcomed Lasse Bundgaard, a Visiting Researcher from the Copenhagen Business School and Copenhagen Solutions Lab, to discuss his research on Smart City Solutions and public-private partnerships. He presented the results from his paper with Susana Borras, “Diffusion of Public-Private Innovations: Conditions for Scaling Up Smart City Projects,” which […]
Summer Fellow Interview: Kevin Flakes
By: Doruntina Zeneli Kevin is currently pursuing a master’s in Urban Affairs with a specialization in urban inequalities and capacity building. Before entering the program, he consulted for banking clients, focusing on projects to mitigate risk, eliminate inefficiencies, and improve customer experience. Kevin graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, with a BS in Accounting. […]
Meet Natalia Chavez, 2019 Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics Fellow
By: Doruntina Zeneli Natalia Chavez is the Communications and Outreach Director at Urbanability, a Boston-based non-profit organization that focuses on empowering underserved communities from an urban planning perspective. She recently worked at the Harvard Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, where she worked on democracy programming and the legislative negotiation project. Previously, Natalia served […]
Understanding Open-Air Drug Markets Configuration
Principal Investigator This project will explore the development of open-air drug markets in Colombia, where actors in the drug trade exert territorial control over central areas within cities. Specifically, Andrea Beltran Lizarazo will study the case of San Bernardo, in downtown Bogota, to understand what mechanisms benefited drug trade expansion and why the community ceded […]
Urban Policing and Racial Health Inequities
Principal Investigator Co-Principal Investigator The United States is characterized by inequities that are particularly striking with regard to race. While there are many studies documenting factors associated with racial inequities in health and that policing may be associated with worse mental health and well-being, there are few causal studies of policies that drive structural changes […]
2019 Early Stage Urban Research Award Recipients
In Spring 2019, the Initiative on Cities issued its fifth Request for Proposals to support early stage academic research endeavors focused on urban challenges and urban populations, both domestic and global. We received applications from 15 schools and departments at BU and and we are thrilled to announce we have funded 13 projects with topics […]
Constructing City Images through Local Media: An Intermedia Agenda-Setting Analysis of Big Media Data
Principal Investigator Co-Principal Investigator: City marketing works as a foundation for local residents to understand and identify with municipal policies and is used to alter the perception of a city among outsiders to encourage external investment, residence, and tourism. Investigators will focus on how local media plays a critical role in communicating the status quo […]
The Impact of Tourism on Environmental Sound Levels in Urban and Park Environments
Principal Investigator Co-Principal Investigator Sound pollution in urban areas can cause physical and mental health problems which disproportionately affect poor and underserved communities; it can reduce the cultural vitality of outdoor areas; and it can harm wildlife. The investigators will study the impacts of tourism on a city’s environmental soundscape to better understand how the […]