How is the Initiative on Cities Making a Difference in Urban Scholarship?

We catalyze early-stage research that deepens understanding of cities and urban populations. Today, with over half the world’s population living in urban areas, it is more crucial than ever for scholars and practitioners to address the complex challenges facing 21st-century cities – and to shape the policies and practices that will shape their future. If you are a member of the BU community and interested in submitting a proposal, we encourage you to review our annual requests for proposals, which typically open in December or January.  
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Project Themes

Year Awarded

107 result(s) found.

  • “Shame Oh Shame:” Robert Morris, Public Space, and Commemorating Black Boston

    May 22, 2021
    Principal Investigator: Co-Principal Investigator: This project makes more visible Boston’s history of activist African Americans, and engages with historic preservationists and local communities in building a new public history. Morris (1823-1882), one of the earliest Black lawyers in the United States, played a central role in struggles in Boston to abolish slavery and integrate schools […]

  • 3D Models and Virtual Reality Techniques for Mapping & Analyzing Above and Underground Urban Infrastructures (UIMAGE)

    July 18, 2017
    Principal Investigators Co-Principal Investigators Earth & Environment Ph.D. candidate Yaxiong Ma, in collaboration with Earth & Environment Professors Sucharita Gopal and Nathan Phillips, will design and build a prototype model using 3D Models and Virtual Reality Techniques for Mapping & Analyzing Above and Underground Urban Infrastructures. The model, called UIMAGE (Underground Infrastructures Mapping Analyzing Geospatial), […]

  • A Prospective Mixed Methods Study of Maternal and Child Well-being and Risk of Relapse in the First Year Postpartum

    May 16, 2022
    Principal Investigator Co-Principal Investigator The year after delivery is a vulnerable period for maternal-infant dyads in substance use recovery. Short and long-term risks include relapse, overdose, death, family dissolution and trauma. In particular, the late postpartum period represents a critical time with high rates of pharmacotherapy discontinuation by 6 months postpartum and the highest overdose […]

  • Addressing the Workforce Needs of Youth in Urban Settings: A Study of Local Workforce Development Boards’ Inclusion of Youth Expertise

    May 31, 2020
    Principal Investigator: This project will examine Local Workforce Development Boards (WDBs) in urban settings in regard to their inclusion of youth perspectives in planning and implementation. Currently, insufficient evidence exists regarding the policy networks to address youth employment in cities and the characteristics of these networks that promote innovative, sustained, and effective results. Disconnected youth […]

  • Agglomeration Economies in the Information Age

    July 24, 2017
    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 […]

  • Albedo and Its Impact on the Urban Heat Island Effect: Characterizing the Urban Surface and Its Heat Mitigation Potential Across a Transact of Cities

    June 27, 2016
    Principal Investigator Co-Principal Investigator Earth and Environment Ph.D. candidate Andrew Trlica, under the advisement of Associate Professor and Founder of the Hutyra Research Lab Lucy Hutyra, seeks to study urban heat islands (UHI), identifying the linkages between urban land cover and surface temperature. Specifically, he will focus on the effect of albedo—the percent of total […]

  • Armored Cities: Violence and Urban Seclusion in Latin America

    July 17, 2017
    Principal Investigator Sociology Assistant Professor Ana Villarreal seeks to examine a new form of urban seclusion taking place in municipalities and communes across Latin American metropoles in response to increased violence and fear. Villarreal is targeting cities that have created enclaves of gated communities, dubbing them armored cities. They are characterized by upper-class leverage of […]

  • Assessing City Health Care Workers’ SARS-CoV2 Transmission to Families

    May 1, 2020
    Principal Investigator: Co-Principal Investigators: Co-Investigator: This pilot study seeks to understand whether healthcare workers are exposing their families and household members to SARS-CoV2—the virus that causes COVID-19—and if so, how they are exposing them. Such take-home exposure through an infected healthcare worker or a worker taking SARS-CoV2 virus on their clothing, skin, or belongings poses […]

  • Assessing the association between combined sewer overflow events and gastrointestinal illness in the Merrimack Valley

    May 31, 2020
    Principal Investigator: Co-Principal Investigators: Collaborator: In combined sewer systems—which exist in more than 800 cities in the United States—household sewage, stormwater, and industrial waste are collected in a common pipe that flows to a wastewater treatment facility. Combined sewer overflow (CSO) events occur during periods of peak stormwater runoff when the system becomes overwhelmed and […]

  • Assessment of Urban Indoor Air Quality, Environmental Conditions and Occupancy Using a New Low-Cost Wireless Sensor

    June 20, 2016
    Principal Investigator Research Assistant Professor Patricia Fabian and Professor Thomas Little, both of Boston University, and Harvard Assistant Professor Gary Adamkiewicz seek to build and test a compact low-cost indoor air quality and occupancy sensing device (Urban Indoor Air Monitor, or iAM) in an ongoing housing field study in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Fabian, Little and Adamkiewicz […]