Just Environmentalism

Climate change impacts in cities do not hit every resident equally. Consider Portland, Ore. Residents of Southeast Portland’s low-income and communities of color live with the carbon and particulate matter emitted from Interstate 5, which slices through the urban core. Heat waves disproportionately threaten residents who can’t afford air conditioning or who work outdoors. Portland’s tree canopy—which mitigates climate change by capturing carbon emissions—is more concentrated in wealthier, whiter neighborhoods west of the Willamette River. Low-lying communities on the east side of the river, which are less affluent and more Black and brown, are more vulnerable to extreme impacts from storms and flooding—like the 1996 flood that killed eight people and ruined countless businesses.

February 2023 Spotlight – Judith C. Scott, PhD

My primary research interest focuses on how trauma such as physical child maltreatment and racism (interpersonal and structural), protective processes including ethnic-racial socialization and coping, and contextual factors affects parenting and mental health among families across cultures. However, it was my secondary research interest in program evaluation that led to my interest in Asian children and families. Right before I started as faculty at Boston University, a community organization, Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, sent a request for an agency-level and community-level program evaluation. During the two-year evaluation, through talks with BCNC staff and reading existing literature, I realized that I rarely read about the perspectives and experiences of Chinese immigrant families living in low-income communities in relation to parenting.

Building a Better Boston: Behind the scenes at Boston City Hall, BU PhD candidates are solving problems small and big

If you walk through Boston City Hall, chances are you’ll bump into someone from BU working on the front lines, building a city that works for all. In recent years, several PhD candidates from BU have accepted fellowships or internships with the City of Boston, forming a brain trust and working on many of the city’s most ambitious initiatives. Some come from disciplines not traditionally thought of as feeders for public service—like history and sociology—but end up contributing in significant ways, many times picking up a love for municipal government that sticks. And many of those students arrive at City Hall via BU’s Initiative on Cities (IOC).

How Michelle Wu can become a global mayor on climate

Climate Ready Boston is the city’s initiative to get Boston ready for the long-term impacts of climate change. The initiative seeks to prepare for heat, flooding, and social vulnerability. In Michelle Wu’s 2020 Planning for a Boston Green New Deal and Just Recovery campaign proposal, she committed to climate justice and a suite of policies. She said, “Cities have tremendous power to lead the charge to mitigate the threat of climate change, eliminate the violence of poverty and economic inequality, close the racial wealth gap, and dismantle structural racism.”

Tackling Charles River Restoration: Dan Li’s “Urban Climate” class puts arts and sciences into action

In Professor Dan Li’s “Urban Climate” class (EE 512), students solve real-world problems about climate change — like the relationship between perceived and calculated access to green space in Chelsea and East Boston or the implications, successes, and lessons learned from reusing rainwater in China. Li’s course is part of the MetroBridge program, which collaborates and sources projects from cities and community organizations. Working with BU faculty and project partners, BU students get to work on real-world projects and have hands-on experiences on topics like racial equity, sustainability, and civic engagement.

People on the Move in Boston: Loretta Lees | New Hire

Loretta Lees is an urban geographer and urbanist who is internationally known for her research on gentrification, urban regeneration, global urbanism, urban policy, urban public space, architecture, and urban social theory. Before moving to Boston University to serve as Faculty Director of the Initiative on Cities, she was professor of Human Geography at Leicester University and before that King’s College London in the UK.

For New Initiative on Cities Leader, Urban Geography Is People

“Urban geography” may sound like it’s all about streets and parks and tall buildings. But for Loretta Lees, the new faculty director of Boston University’s Initiative on Cities (IoC), it means gentrification and homelessness, climate change and commuting, the way the built environment and the politics that shape it affect the lives of residents.

“A Lasting Legacy of Excellence”: Reflections on President Brown’s Impact on BU Research

To see President Robert A. Brown’s impact on research at Boston University, you just need to take a walk through its campuses. A series of striking buildings, all built within the past two decades, are the physical representation of the University’s emergence as a world-class research institution during Brown’s tenure: the Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering, the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, and—most recently—the eye-catching Center for Computing & Data Sciences.

Why Some Politicians Shun Promotions

Put off by gridlock and partisan knife fights in upper reaches of politics—both in Washington, D.C., and in state capitals—city executives appear to be happy homebodies. “The bulk of mayors in our survey certainly said, ‘We’re cool being mayor,’” says Katherine Levine Einstein, a College of Arts & Sciences assistant professor of political science, who conducted the research with Maxwell Palmer, also a CAS assistant professor of political science, and David Glick, a CAS associate professor of political science, with help from Robert Pressel (CAS’16, GRS’16).