PHD Student
she/her
Natalie L. Smith is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at Boston University. Her research is situated within urban sociology and examines processes of urban transformation, urban inequality, gentrification, displacement, and changing forms of access to the city.
Her work is particularly concerned with how redevelopment, investment, and institutional change reshape urban space and redistribute housing, resources, opportunities, and belonging. Her previous research examined the loss of public housing and community displacement due to urban regeneration and renewal in London and the UK. Her current research examines the relationship between gentrification, housing, and schools, with a particular focus on public school closures in Boston.
More broadly, her research interrogates how contemporary forms of urban change produce new patterns of inclusion and exclusion, asking whose interests are served by these processes and who benefits from – or bears the costs of – changing urban landscapes.