Category: News

Director Loretta Lees Wins International Planning History Society (IPHS) Book Prize

Initiative on Cities Director Loretta Lees and co-author Elanor Warwick received the biennial International Planning History Society’s (IPHS) First Book Prize for their book Defensible Space on the Move: Mobilisation in English Housing Policy and Practice. The First Book Prize recognizes innovative planning history books based on original research. Defensible Space weaves oral history, in-depth […]

Call for Papers for the 2025 International Conference on Urban Affairs – Triangulating the Urban-H (Housing, Heat, Health) in Cities Session

When: April 15-19, 2025 Where: Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Organizers: Loretta Lees, Professor of Sociology, and Stephanie Ettinger de Cuba, Research Associate Professor of Health Law, Policy and Management, Initiative on Cities, Boston University If interested in being a part of this session, please email your name, institution, paper title, and […]

Introducing Our 2024 Early Stage Urban Research Award Recipients

The Boston University Initiative on Cities (IOC) is pleased to announce the 2024 recipients of our 10th request for proposals for the Early Stage Urban Research Awards. These seed grants support early-stage academic research endeavors focused on urban challenges and urban populations, both domestic and global. This year’s seed grant cycle is the second to […]

#BUandBoston: Interview with Tyler Critz – Running the Boston Marathon Representing Back on My Feet Boston

This post is part of our #BUandBoston series, highlighting the work and research of BU students, faculty, and staff throughout the City of Boston and the Greater Boston region. Interested in having your Boston-related work featured? Tag us on Instagram or Twitter (@BUonCities) using the #BUandBoston or send us an email at ioc@bu.edu. By Julia Kapusta “It was somewhat of […]

Associate Directors Danielle Mulligan and Stephanie Ettinger de Cuba Co-Authored Op-Ed on the Youth Mental Health Crisis

Associate Director Danielle Mulligan and Professor Stephanie Ettinger De Cuba co-authored an op-ed, “Diagnosing the youth mental health crisis? Don’t forget housing and extreme heat,” in CommonWealth Beacon. The Boston Public Health Commission published a report detailing the extensive crisis of sadness and anxiety among young adults; from 2015 to 2021, the percentage of youth […]

Dan Li Publishes New Paper on Urban Heat and Will Become IOC’s New Urban-H Associate Director of Heat

Boston University Associate Professor of Earth & Environment Dan Li’s new publication, Persistent Urban Heat, with co-authors Linying Wang (Boston University), Weilin Liao (Sun Yat-sen University), Ting Sun (University College London), Gabriel Katul (Duke University), Elie Bou-Zeid (Princeton University), and Björn Maronga (Leibniz University Hannover), tackles the urban heat island effect and demonstrates that urban […]

2023 Menino Survey of Mayors: Mayoral Accountability and Control Report

Latest findings from the annual Menino Survey of Mayors from the Boston University Initiative on Cities, supported by The Rockefeller Foundation Elected officials often grapple with the gap between the policy issues within their control, and for those which their constituencies hold them accountable. For example, at the national level, voters use the national economy’s […]

#BUandBoston: Interview with Man Nguyen on Translating and Adapting the USDA’s Household Food Security Survey Module for Vietnamese Residents in Boston

This post is part of our #BUandBoston series, highlighting the work and research of BU students, faculty, and staff throughout the City of Boston and the Greater Boston region. Interested in having your Boston-related work featured? Tag us on Instagram or Twitter (@BUonCities) using the #BUandBoston or send us an email at ioc@bu.edu. By Julia Kapusta Man Nguyen, a senior […]

New Brief: Political Lessons Learned from the Initial MBTA Communities Act Rollout

In partnership with the Initiative on Cities’ MetroBridge program and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), Urban-H Associate Director Katherine Levine Einstein and students enrolled in the Inequality in American Politics (CAS PO 519) course during the Fall 2023 semester recently published their findings concerning the implementation of the 2021 MBTA Communities Act (MBTA-C) in Arlington, […]