Reversal of Fortune: A Clean Energy Manufacturing Boom for Legacy Cities
In the Carondelet neighborhood of St. Louis, where once-busy shipyards gave way to vacancy and blight during the waning decades of the 20th century, a global specialty minerals company is building a $400 million factory to produce highly efficient batteries for energy storage. All of these projects and dozens more across the country are manifestations of a new federal, place-based industrial policy, fueled by more than $1 trillion in tax credits and grants under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, American Rescue Plan, CHIPS and Science Act, and most of all, what is essentially sweeping climate action legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act.
Creating and Managing Rental Registries: Cities’ Experiences and Exploring Use of Lived Experience to Evaluate Impact
According to HUD’s American Healthy Homes Survey II, 22.3 million housing units in the U.S. have one or more significant lead-based paint hazards. Many unsafe housing units are in disadvantaged neighborhoods where most people rent their homes and may be unable to afford better, safer housing. For a city’s most vulnerable residents, a rental registry with proactive inspections is a lifeline.
The YIMBYs are coming, to the suburbs
Fed up with the hostile reception to new development in Franklin, Frongillo and a group of other residents formed what was once a rare breed of advocacy organization in Boston-area suburbs: a pro-housing group, whose members go to public meetings to say yes to more housing development, instead of no. Katherine Einstein, a Boston University researcher who has studied housing politics in Massachusetts, said the new advocacy groups can wield a lot of influence. Even showing up at public meeting to speak in favor of projects is helping to offset longstanding dynamics that have shaped decisions about local housing policy.
The Homevoter Hypothesis: A New Generation Gap?
We know that older people vote more than younger people and that homeowners vote more than renters; but are older homeowners, as a class, overrepresented in local elections? Katherine Levine Einstein, Maxwell Palmer, Ellis Hamilton, and Ethan Singer analyzed the intersections of age, race, home tenure, and election scheduling to find out, publishing their findings as The Gray Vote: How Older Home-Owning Voters Dominate Local Elections.
Diagnosing the youth mental health crisis? Don’t forget housing and extreme heat
The City of Boston recently announced a new $21 million initiative to address the urgent need for more mental health services and programs for youth and families. This announcement follows a report from the Boston Public Health Commission detailing how widespread persistent sadness and anxiety has become amongst youth and adults. And the problem is growing. Between 2015 and 2021, youth in Boston experiencing persistent sadness steadily increased from 26.7 percent to 43.9 percent.
What the Supreme Court case on tent encampments could mean for homeless people
Associate Professor and IOC Faculty Affiliate Katherine Levine Einstein was featured in Vox, speaking on the Supreme Court case Grants Pass v. Johnson. According to Professor Einstein, “Using this very reactive and criminalizing approach for homelessness may actually be more expensive than engaging in long-term preventative planning.”
Ending Homelessness in America Feels Impossible. Is It? | Top of Mind with Julie Rose – Season 2024, Episode 13
Associate Professor and IOC Faculty Affiliate Katherine Levine Einstein was featured on journalist Julie Rose’s podcast “Top of Mind,” a production of BYUradio. Joined by Cuica Montoya, senior director of homelessness programs at the Colorado Village Collaborative, Marc Eichenbaum, special assistant to the mayor for homelessness initiative in Houston, and Elizabeth Funk, founder and CEO of DignityMoves, the four guests offered a variety of perspectives on homelessness, with Einstein offering commentary on we aren’t building more housing.
What’s stifling city climate action? Municipal finance practices, one report says
Claudia Diezmartínez wants city officials to be more curious about how local climate programs are funded. The funding process is shaping which projects cities pursue and who they benefit, according to a February 2024 Nature Climate Change paper co-authored by Diezmartínez, a Ph.D. candidate at Boston University.
What mayors really think about the Inflation Reduction Act
About a year after President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, a group of Boston University researchers set out in the summer of 2023 to better understand mayors’ experiences with the landmark climate legislation.
Mayors express uncertainty about inflation bill’s climate change efforts in national survey
When the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was signed into law on Aug. 16, 2022, the White House referred to it as “the most significant action Congress has taken on clean energy and climate change in the nation’s history.” But the majority of mayors said its impact has been marginal in a report conducted by the Boston University Initiative on Cities.