Gentrification & Displacement: An International Dialogue

In an era marked by rapid urbanisation, shifting demographics, and evolving socio-cultural urban spaces, gentrification has emerged as a process of transforming neighbourhoods. It is a complex and multifaceted urban phenomenon characterised by the influx of higher-income residents, more educated people, and investment or new green development in residential areas.

BU City Planning Students Develop and Present Plan for Busy Square in Boston Suburb

Students of the Boston University Metropolitan College (MET) City Planning & Urban Affairs programs worked with the City of Malden, Massachusetts, to help develop the components of a neighborhood plan for Maplewood Square, the city’s second-largest business district. The class gathered community feedback before making their final presentation on May 8, 2023. The collaboration was part of BU MET’s Urban Studies Capstone Course (MET UA 805), which integrates the principles and applications of city planning, urban affairs, and public policy.

Last Word: Mel Parry, Professor Alice Coleman, Hugh Callaghan, Cynthia Weil

Mel Parry, the SAS veteran who was part of the team that stormed the Iranian embassy in London in 1980. Professor Alice Coleman, the geographer whose modifications to modernist high rise estates won the support of Margaret Thatcher. Hugh Callaghan, the labourer who was one of six men arrested after the Birmingham pub bombings of 1974. He served 16 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Cynthia Weil, the American songwriter behind hits like The Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling”, The Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place” and Dolly Parton’s “Here You Come Again”. Interviewees include: Interviewee: Bob Shepherd, Jo Kendall, Professor Loretta Lees, and Chris Mullin.

Alice Coleman Obituary: Geographer who championed the idea of ‘defensible space’ in order to improve on the problematic designs of some high-rise estates

The geographer Alice Coleman, who has died aged 99, set out to prove that British modernist high-rise council estates were failing because their layout lacked “defensible space”, and that their problematic design reduced social interaction while encouraging crime and anti-social behaviour. In her book Utopia on Trial: Vision and Reality in Planned Housing (1985) Alice condemned such estates as failed idylls, criticising authoritarian and paternalistic planners within the Ministry of Housing, local government and the Department of the Environment. As an alternative she promoted modifications that she believed would tackle some of the problems inadvertently created by poor design.

Bar for lesbian and non-binary communities set to open in Boston later this summer

We hear from Thais Rocha, co-founder of Boston’s LGBTQ Nightlife Events, about the new lesbian and non-binary focused bar set to open this summer in Boston. Once opened, it will be one of fewer than 30 bars in the country that caters to the lesbian community. Plus, Japonica Brown-Saracino, a professor and chair of sociology at Boston University, joins us to talk about why there’s so few bars and how local LGBTQ groups are filling the void.

Gov. Healey’s opportunity to drive transformative change: New administration should pursue integrated approach to state’s interrelated challenges

While opinions about climate change might split along party lines among the general public, mayors are universally clear about what’s driving it and are unanimous in their concern about its detrimental impact on American cities. In a new report published Wednesday by the Boston University Initiative on Cities, nearly all mayors surveyed in the 2022 Menino Survey of Mayors are worried about climate impacts on their cities—only 3% said they’re not concerned.

America’s Mayors See Regulatory Powers As Their Top Climate Action Tools, but Are Reluctant To Limit Resident Choices, According to Survey of U.S. Mayors

The Inflation Reduction Act marks a landmark investment in climate, featuring hundreds of billions of dollars in commitments toward transforming American energy use and emissions reductions. Local leaders are key allies in putting these dollars to work, as frontline communities are centered in its implementation. America’s mayors feel a sense of urgency to act, as their communities face real and immediate climate impacts, including drought, extreme heat, flooding, and air pollution. Just 3% of mayors say they are not concerned about any local effects of climate change.

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.”

Real/Symbol Episode 2: Land, place, roots

In our second episode we will explore more deeply how our ideas about place and land shape how we might begin the healing and repair from the violence caused by displacement, gentrifcation and urban development. In our often enclosed narratives of extraction and profit, we have allowed the logic of capitalism to tell us what’s possible, but our imaginations can and must stretch further.