Punishing Places: The Geography of Mass Imprisonment
Principal Investigator Sociology Assistant Professor Jessica Simes seeks to bridge the gap in sociological research between the political and economic causes of the prison boom and the neighborhood-level impacts of mass incarceration to help explain a phenomenon found in small cities and suburbs: a disproportionately high rate of imprisonment, compared to larger cities. For example, […]
Water Use Efficiency in Urban Street Trees
Principal Investigators Under the direction of Boston University Associate Professor Lucy Hutyra, Earth & Environment PhD candidate Sarah Garvey will examine water use efficiency among urban street trees in order to determine their climate sensitivity in relation to non-urban trees. Her research question is based on her lab’s recent work that suggests Boston’s street tree […]
Justice in Urban Climate Mitigation
Principal Investigator Earth & Environment Associate Professor Anne Short seeks to examine climate action plans in 24 cities across the United States to determine if and how they integrate environmental justice into their goals. Professor Short undertakes this project in order to add to empirical evidence—of which there is little—examining justice in the context of […]
In the News: Professor Rotjan’s Urban Coral Project
Congratulations to Professor Randi Rotjan for receiving media coverage by WPRI 12 and ecoRI News on her urban coral project. Rotjan received an IOC Urban Research Award in 2017 to support her project, which analyzes the impact of microplastics and microbial films on urban coral. Concerned about the 4.8 to 12.7 million metric tons of […]
Executive Director Katharine Lusk Co-Authors Paper On Youth-led Participatory Budgeting
Katharine Lusk, Executive Director of the Initiative on Cities, co-authored a paper published last week by the Journal of Youth Studies. Lusk collaborated with Associate Dean Mary Elizabeth Collins, Professor Astraea Augsberger, and PhD Candidate Whitney Gecker, all from the Boston University School of Social Work, to explore youth-led participatory budgeting. The team worked with […]
Virtual Reality & Urban Ecology Teleport to Experience Urban Infrastructure on Dorchester Avenue
On October 25th, PhD candidates Yaxiong Ma and Jessica Wright demonstrated their virtual reality project on urban underground infrastructure. With the guidance of BU Earth & Environment professors Sucharita Gopal and Nathan Phillips, the two explored how to create a coordinated infrastructure system. Through a virtual reality headset created by Ma, users can teleport to four different views of Dorchester Avenue in […]
CO2 Fertilization in an Urban Green Roof
Principal Investigator Earth & Environment Ph.D. candidate Sarabeth Buckley will conduct a study on the impact of increased levels of CO2 on green roofs in urban areas. Specifically, Sarabeth will purposefully expose the plants on edible green roofs to increased CO2 by directing waste carbon dioxide (produced by human respiration) from the inside of buildings […]
Celebration of Diversity Amidst Privilege: A Study of the Suburbs
Principal Investigator Sociology & Social Work Ph.D. candidate Whitney Gecker will conduct an ethnographic study of young people, beginning with members of the Newton youth council. Gecker seeks to understand how young people in an affluent suburb experience and respond to racial and economic insularity, and make sense of diversity and privilege. She will use […]
2017 Urban Research Awards: Crime and Public Housing
Crime and Public Housing: A General Equilibrium Analysis Economics Ph.D. candidate Jesse Bruhn seeks to quantify the impact of ambitious public housing redevelopment projects—specifically the Plan for Transformation project in Chicago—on the distribution of criminal activity within city limits. The Plan for Transformation project was a part of the federal government’s shift in support for […]
Agglomeration Economies in the Information Age
Principal Investigator Economics Ph.D. candidate Andrew Busey aims to test the popular theory in urban economics that variations in population density, both temporally and geographically, occur because of agglomeration economies. As part of his larger dissertation, Busey uses an innovative econometric strategy to provide causal estimates of the impact of population density on labor productivity […]