Loretta Lees will be the next Faculty Director of the Initiative on Cities

We are excited to announce new leadership at Boston University’s Initiative on Cities (IOC), a hub for inter- and transdisciplinary urban research and learning across the University. On September 1, 2022, the Initiative on Cities welcomes a new faculty director, Loretta Lees, who also joins the College of Arts & Sciences as a professor in the department of Sociology.

An urban geographer committed to justice, Professor Lees is internationally known for her research on gentrification and urban regeneration, global urbanism, urban policy, urban public space, architecture, and urban social theory. The author of multiple books, in 2017 she was recognized as the 17th most referenced author in urban geography worldwide and the only woman in the top 20. Her most recent book, Defensible Space on the Move, just released, examines the policy mobility of urban housing redesign that purports to inhibit criminal behavior from the US to the UK. Professor Lees has an impressive record of securing UK and EU research grants. She is also known for her policy impact and deep community engagement. She recently completed her tenure as Chair of the London Housing Panel, convened by the Mayor of London and Trust for London as a structured way for voluntary and community organizations to advise on housing policy and practice.

Professor Lees comes to Boston University from the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, where she has worked for nine years as a professor of human geography and director of research; before that she was at King’s College London for 16 years where she was director of the Cities Research Group. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, the Royal Society of the Arts, and the Higher Education Academy. She also serves on a number of editorial boards, including Dialogues in Urban Research and the Journal of Urban Affairs, among others. She holds a PhD in urban geography from the University of Edinburgh. Since 2009 she has co-organized The Urban Salon, a London forum for architecture, cities, and international urbanism.

Professor Lees has been an expert witness into the demolition of the largest public housing project in Europe, leading to a precedent-setting decision based on her research showing the impacts of displacement on a longstanding, low income, Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) community. She has also had significant impact through her co-production of anti-gentrification toolkits for council estates in London and for four southern European cities. She has recently been awarded the 2022 Marilyn J. Gittell Activist Scholar Award by the Urban Affairs Association in recognition of this work.

We are confident that Professor Lees’ expertise will continue to strengthen and expand both the scholarship and reputation of the IOC in the US and abroad, furthering the Initiative’s focus in areas such as housing, gentrification, displacement, and urban regeneration around the world. Furthermore, she is committed to growing the IOC’s experiential programs, including student fellowships and internships, as well as the MetroBridge Program, which enlists students and faculty as community allies by embedding real-world projects for municipalities into courses.

We could not be more thrilled to welcome Professor Lees to BU.