#BUandBoston: Planning Healthy Cities
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 email us at ioc@bu.edu. By: Sean Waddington March 10, 2025 – […]
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 DiAdamo moderated […]
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 researchers and planners must consider […]
Housing and Neighborhood Determinants of Sleep and Mental Health in Low-Income Toddlers and their Parents
Principal Investigators: Co-Principal Investigators: The goal of this project is to understand the contributions of poverty-related disparities in neighborhood and housing to sleep and mental health problems in early childhood. We will leverage data from an ongoing randomized controlled trial, the Parent and Toddler Health (PATH) project, which focuses on low-income families in the Boston […]
Coping with Extreme Heat: Intersecting Vulnerabilities Related to Urban Heat Islands, Homelessness, and Serious Mental Illness
Principal Investigator: Co-Principal Investigator: Periods of extreme heat, which are increasing in frequency due to climate change, have been linked to adverse mental health outcomes, including symptoms related to schizophrenia, substance use, mood disorders, and suicide. At heightened risk for negative effects of extreme heat are individuals experiencing homelessness, who have higher rates of serious […]
Building Resilience after Redlining: Understanding the Cumulative Impact of Heat Vulnerability Factors in Massachusetts
Principal Investigators: Co-Principal Investigators: Extreme heat is becoming more frequent and severe, with deleterious impacts on human health. Populations living in urban areas are at particularly high risk due to overlapping built environment, demographic, and individual-level factors. Decades of racial and economic residential segregation and disinvestment have produced “redlined” neighborhoods characterized by poor housing stock […]
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 female scholars. Listen to the […]
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 on Cities (IOC) affiliates […]
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 city engagement. Building Better Cities […]
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 here: “Care is a […]