Prof. Williams Joins BU Initiative on Cities’ 2025 Public Impact Scholars Cohort
Dr. Darien Alexander Williams, assistant professor of macro practice at Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW), was selected to join 20 other cutting-edge BU researchers as the 2025 cohort of BU Initiative on Cities’ Public Impact Scholars program. Hailing from six colleges and 13 departments across the university, Williams and his cohort will participate in programming that builds the skills and knowledge necessary to translate their research into critical policy work with consequential societal impact.
How is Climate Change Affecting New England?
Climate change is here, all around us, affecting the four seasons that define New England’s identity and the activities we anticipate as the weather changes throughout the year: fall foliage and leaf-peeping. Quiet walks in the woods. Skiing down slopes of fresh powder. Swimming in beautiful lakes and at ocean beaches. Jogging along the Esplanade. Downing a dozen oysters at the end of a summer afternoon.
2025 Civic Tech Hackathon Breaks Record in Attendance and Creativity
On February 22-23, 2025, Boston University’s Duan Family Center for Computing & Data Sciences transformed into a hub of innovation for the 2025 Civic Tech Hackathon. In record turnout for the event’s third year, 190 students from 40 teams gathered with a shared mission: to address pressing community issues through technology. As the largest national civic tech hackathon, students from diverse academic and technical backgrounds collaborated in teams, all vying for over $7,000 in prizes.
Art on the Underground: A Public Contradiction
Rudy Loewe’s commission at Brixton Underground Station is a case in point. Launching in November 2025, this work will form part of the now well established Brixton Mural Programme by seeking to build upon the area’s diverse narratives by highlighting the ways people gather together in this urban environment. The ‘bold, flat colours’ that characterise Loewe’s aesthetic will undoubtedly chime with Brixton’s own multicultural offering – providing Brixton’s community an opportunity to recognise, and even reclaim, their lived experiences in dialogue with the art. Certainly this is what Claudette Johnson’s current (2024) Brixton commission, Three Women, has sought to achieve.
Unity Group Backs Anti-Displacement Procedure For New Projects; Asks City Council Return To 6 PM Meetings
In addition to Louisville’s legislative approach, Boston University’s Initiative on Cities (IOC) has developed an anti-displacement tool that offers another way to protect vulnerable communities. The tool is designed to assess the potential risks of displacement caused by new development. It works by gathering key details of a proposed project – such as the number of housing units, projected rent prices, and the characteristics of the surrounding area – and running them through a model that evaluates the likelihood of displacement. Based on the displacement risk, the tool helps determine whether a development project meets specific requirements, like including affordable housing units, to mitigate that risk.
BU’s Initiative on Cities Builds a Tool for Fighting Displacement
Activist Jessica Bellamy owns the house where she grew up, in the historically Black neighborhood of Smoketown near downtown Louisville, Ky. Around 2020, she says, she began planning a modest renovation, but none of the local contractors wanted the job because they were all booking more profitable projects in the neighborhood. Smoketown was under strong gentrification pressure that would soon spread to other historically Black neighborhoods nearby.
Transit providers help improve voter turnout with free rides to the polls for 2024 Election Day
The U.S. joint general, special, charter and bond elections are upon us and voters throughout the country will be planning their trips over to their local poll station to cast their vote. Transportation challenges should not prevent a U.S. citizen from casting his or her ballot this Election Day. Many voters are experiencing connectivity issues on Election Day due to a lack of a personal vehicle or efficient mode of transportation.
IOC 10th Anniversary Celebration
BU’s Initiative on Cities celebrated its 10th anniversary on April 1 at the Center for Computing & Data Sciences. Featured were highlights from the past decade of supporting urban research and avenues for students to connect and excel as leaders. Speakers shared future goals and initiatives, including the Urban-H research agenda, launched in spring 2023, the cornerstone of the IoC’s work for the next five years.
Healey-Driscoll Administration Launches Climate Science Advisory Panel
The Healey-Driscoll Administration today launched a Climate Science Advisory Panel through the new Massachusetts Office of Climate Science (OCS) to provide expertise on statewide climate science and future projections used to inform state and local climate adaptation planning and projects. The Panel is comprised of experts within Massachusetts and across the region who will advise OCS on the latest advances and applications in climate science related to hazards such as extreme heat, flooding, sea level rise, and health impacts to inform the state’s climate adaptation and resilience strategy.
Racial gaps in gun violence against kids increased during COVID
White children did not experience an increase in firearm assault injuries at all.
Gun violence—and racial disparities in gun violence—have increased substantially during the pandemic, particularly among children. The new study shows just how stark these differences in risk of firearm injury are between white and non-white children.