Policy Brief: Policing and the Punitive Politics of Local Homelessness Policy
Authors: Alisa Dewald (Research Assistant; Boston University Initiative on Cities), Dr. Katherine Levine Einstein (Boston University Initiative on Cities; Department of Political Science), and Dr. Charley Willison (Cornell University Public Health) In this brief, the Boston University Initiative on Cities, Cornell University, and Community Solutions investigate the involvement of the police in responses to homelessness in cities across the country. Advocates and researchers […]
Stacy Fox Promoted to Executive Director of the Initiative on Cities
We are delighted to announce the promotion of Associate Director Stacy Fox to the position of Executive Director at the Initiative on Cities (IOC). In the past 5 years as the Associate Director of the IOC, Stacy has been a driving force behind the Initiative’s operations and strategy, managing the finances, and being the innovator […]
Meet Andrea Catania, 2023 Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics Fellow
The Boston University Initiative on Cities (IOC) is happy to announce Andrea Catania (MET Gastronomy) has been selected as the 2023 City of Boston Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics (MONUM) Fellow. This fellow will have the opportunity to explore an interest in public service and civic innovation while positively impacting the surrounding community. The MONUM […]
Meet Zakaria Elkawa, 2023 Climate Ready Boston Intern
The Boston University Initiative on Cities is happy to announce that Zakaria Elkawa (CAS, Pardee ’23) has been selected for the summer internship with the City of Boston’s Environment Department Climate Ready Boston team on heat resilience projects and communications and community engagement work. The intern will have the opportunity to work in Boston City Hall and “on-the-ground” […]
Meet Destiny Perkins, 2023 City of Boston’s Equity & Inclusion Cabinet Summer Intern
The Boston University Initiative on Cities and the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground are happy to announce that Destiny Perkins (Pardee ’25) has been selected as this year’s summer intern with the City of Boston’s Equity & Inclusion Cabinet. The Intern will work directly with the Senior Advisor on Racial Justice, Ms. Lori Nelson, and the team […]
Book Review: Defensible space on the move: Mobilisation in English housing policy and practice, by Loretta Lees and Elanor Warwick
This is an excellent book that deserves to be read by a wide audience. Its main storyline is the transfer and adaptation of Oscar Newman’s ideas about defensible space to England over a 400-year period. Laced within this narrative are leading characters whose mutual antipathies and conniving would play well in a soap opera. That’s not all: the authors utilize and extend theories of the mobilities of policy and practice. Reading this book should prompt urban academics and policymakers to ponder in depth what drives their research and practice, and how their worlds relate to each other and to the “Guinea pigs” in communities who are on the receiving end of their well-meaning ideas.
Meet Our Postdoctoral Research Associate: Kenton Card
The Initiative on Cities is pleased to announce our Postdoctoral Research Associate, Kenton Card! Kenton will be joining us on September 1, 2023 conducting independent urban research under the mentorship of Director Loretta Lees. Kenton Card is an urban planner, filmmaker, and Ph.D. candidate slated to receive his doctorate at UCLA in Summer 2023. He […]
Contesting Public Spaces: Social Lives of Urban Redevelopment in London
Public space was a big topic in urban circles in the mid to late 1990s. I remember enjoying Ken Worpole and Liz Greenhalgh’s DEMOS treatise ‘The Freedom of the City.’ Indeed, as a New Labour government instigated an Urban Renaissance, and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) focused on design in cities, public space was debated relatively fully in England. Over 20 years later and indeed after experiencing altered public spaces during COVID-19, it has been interesting to return to urban public space again in Ed Wall’s new book, and in London—a city that has seen significant redevelopment and gentrification since the late 1990s which many have argued has sanitised public space.
Built Design and the Rhetoric of Cities
In Built Design and the Rhetoric of Cities, Kathleen M. Vandenberg explores how cities are imagined, designed, and constructed and analyzes the impact of built design on the movement, behavior, and experience of people in urban areas. Vandenberg argues that becoming attuned to the built environments of cities is critical to understanding and planning for how they might be reshaped to confront the challenges of this century, which include rapid urbanization, the global rise in slums, climate change, and increasing urban air pollution.
Co-Director Katharine Lusk Departs The Initiative on Cities To Take On Role as Executive Director of the Boston Planning Advisory Council
On May 1, 2023, Co-Director and Founding Executive Director of the Initiative on Cities (IOC), Katharine Lusk, left her role at the IOC to assume the role of Executive Director in the newly created Boston Planning Advisory Council as the central authority for initiating, reviewing, and implementing city planning. The creation of the Planning Advisory […]