How The Next Mayor Can Accelerate Boston’s Equitable Clean Energy Transition
A critical aspect of the City’s decarbonization effort is to reduce transportation emissions, both by
encouraging residents to use public transportation and other forms of low-carbon mobility instead of
driving, and through electrification of transportation. The City needs to pursue a suite of actions: a first
step as we emerge from the pandemic is restoring trust in the safety of using public transportation;
more broadly, a public information campaign on the health, environmental, and economic benefits of
driving less will be useful.
What the Next Mayor Needs to Do about Boston’s Transportation Crisis
As Boston begins to move towards a recovery from a worldwide pandemic, transportation will return to much of what it looked like pre-pandemic. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Boston already had a crisis of transportation — exemplified by its worst-in-the-nation traffic.
As we emerge from one crisis, we are being thrust back into this pre-existing transportation crisis, and near-term traffic is likely to be much worse due to pandemic-induced drops in transit ridership. Recovering from this transportation crisis will involve helping residents of Boston
move away from current reliance on solo driving so we can all get where we’re going.
Racial Disparities in Neighborhood Arrest Rates During the COVID-19 Pandemic
During the initial weeks of the pandemic, arrest rates declined significantly in areas with higher Black populations, but absolute rates in Black neighborhoods remain higher than pre-pandemic arrest rates in White neighborhoods. These findings support urban policy reforms that reconsider police capacity and presence, particularly as a mechanism for enforcing public health ordinances and reducing racial disparities.
IOC Founding Codirector Graham Wilson to Retire
BU TODAY: Graham Wilson, Founding Codirector of BU’s Initiative on Cities, Will Retire CAS political science professor helped create a nation-spanning partnership between US mayors and the University In 2014, Graham Wilson shared founding director duties at BU’s Initiative on Cities (IOC) with a marquis name. Working at the IOC with Boston’s longest serving mayor, […]
Coming Back Better: Building Healthy, Sustainable, and Resilient Cities post-COVID-19
Held on Thursday, July 1, 2021 By 2050, 66 percent of the world’s population is expected to live in cities. This panel explored how cities can be structured to support health and what we have learned about the future of urban living from the COVID-19 pandemic. Co-hosted with the School of Public Health Speakers: Oxiris […]
The Seaport…and Beyond: A conversation about racial diversity and economic equity in the Seaport—and in future neighborhood development
Tuesday, June 29, 2021 12pm–1pm ET Click here to Register The IOC is proud to support the Boston Globe and the Civic Action Project for an event discussing how public policy and private action can be used to assure that neighborhood development shares the space and the benefits equitably with people of all ethnicities and […]
2021 Early Stage Urban Research Awards
In Spring 2021, the Initiative on Cities issued its seventh request for proposals to support early stage academic research endeavors focused on urban challenges and urban populations, both domestic and global. We received 37 applications from 20 schools and departments at BU, and we are thrilled to announce we have funded 14 projects, including 8 […]
Youth Emergency Mental Health Response in Boston
Principal Investigator: Co-Principal Investigators: Many urban school districts are under-resourced to meet the mental health needs of their students and therefore rely on emergency service providers for crisis response. These emergency response services, however, can increase the likelihood that youth will be served in emergency departments and, in the case of police response, increase the […]
Seeking Educational Spaces: Syrian Refugees and the Landscape of Amman, Jordan
Principal Investigator: Co-Principal Investigator: This dissertation research project centers how Syrian refugee youth and families, as well as their Jordanian peers, conceptualize the educational spaces they are able to access in light of the serious barriers they face in accessing such spaces in a foreign urban context. Amman presents a unique setting in which to […]
Lived Experiences of Boston Youth During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Principal Investigator: Co-Principal Investigator: While the COVID pandemic has disrupted the education of all U.S. youth, it has disproportionately impacted racially and linguistically minoritized youth. Within the Boston Public Schools, the latest report shows that 30% of Black students and 31% of Latinx students are chronically absent compared with 12% of White students. Similarly, 30% […]