Initiative on Cities

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🏙️🚶🚋🚎🚲 Interdisciplinary Center for Urban Research & Learning @bostonu.bsky.social. Work in, on, and with cities locally to globally. Led by Director @lorettaclees.bsky.social. 🔗 https://www.bu.edu/ioc/

The Boston University Initiative on Cities Gentrification & Urban Displacement Lab (GUDL) is proud to announce the recipients of our first pilot partnership seed grant matched by GUDL between the City of Cambridge Redevelopment Authority (CRA), City of Cambridge Economic Opportunity and Development Division (EODD), and the Small Business Anti-Displacement Network (SBAN). The pilot partnership award is part of GUDL’s aim to foster new, cross-sector collaborations to advance innovative anti-displacement policy and practice. The CRA and EODD will work with SBAN to host the Cambridge Small Business Talks at the end of 2026. These talks, facilitated by SBAN Director and Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Maryland, Willow Lung, Ph.D., will include a commercial anti-displacement workshop for Cambridge leaders and members of the City’s primary business associations. They will also have site visits to the CRA’s Neighborhood Storefronts Project at 1175 Cambridge Street, Central Square, and Porter Square. This program seeks to bridge local knowledge with SBAN’s national expertise in anti-displacement solutions for small businesses. The collaboration also provides opportunities for the City of Cambridge to listen, inform, and support local businesses.
When: Tuesday, April 21, 2026, 5:00 – 7:00 PM Where: Initiative on Cities, 75 Bay State Road, Boston, MA 02215 Join the Boston University Initiative on Cities, the Boston University Center on Forced Displacement (CFD), and the Boston Urban Salon for a discussion exploring how displacement – both structural and episodic – shapes people’s lives, identities, and urban spaces. Focusing on the United Kingdom, Dr. Romola Sanyal (Department of Geography and Environment, LSE) examines how displaced populations often occupy the racialized margins of urban economies, facing precarious work, persistent poverty, and the risk of further displacement. Dr. Sanyal will be joined by Nazli Kibria (Boston University Department of Sociology) and Ayşe Parla (Boston University Department of Anthropology).
Public meetings are a paradox. 44% of mayors say they reduce the amount of housing that gets built, and 68% say they don’t represent community views. Yet strong majorities still see them as useful—for gauging public sentiment and building trust between communities and developers.
“In Austin, we’ve modernized our land use and reduced unnecessary regulation barriers so we can add homes where people most want to live. When cities lack supply, it drives up costs and undermines generational wealth. If we believe supply matters, our policies have to reflect it.”
When mayors describe housing projects they wanted to build but couldn’t, they cited these barriers: 💰 40%: financing problems 🗣️ 25%: public opposition 📝 15%: permitting issues
And on some issues, there’s no clear agreement at all. Mayors are evenly divided on whether homelessness is primarily a housing affordability problem, with roughly equal shares (20–25%) in each camp—from strong agreement to strong disagreement.
While allowing more apartments near transit is popular across party lines, there are still gaps: nearly all Democratic mayors (91%) support it, compared with 63% of Republican mayors. 80% of Democratic mayors support converting underused commercial space to housing, compared with 25% of Republicans.
Strong majorities of mayors support policies to make it easier to build multifamily housing—through zoning changes and faster permitting. Some ideas draw strong bipartisan backing, such as allowing city staff to approve new housing permits that comply with all existing rules (~70%).
Housing costs are rising, and mayors point to a clear cause: not enough homes. 3-in-4 say underbuilding is a major driver of rising costs, and 80% say competition for too few homes to rent or buy is making it worse. But the housing supply story isn’t one-size-fits-all. 86% of Democratic mayors say underbuilding is a major cause of rising costs—nearly 50 percentage points higher than Republican mayors.
80% of mayors say their cities have too little multifamily housing—and more than 60% report a shortage of rental housing. At the same time, 58% believe there’s too little single-family housing, while just 9% say there’s too much.
As Congress debates housing legislation, the 2025 #MeninoSurvey makes clear that mayors believe that supply matters for affordability. 75% of US mayors now believe that increasing the supply of market-rate housing will reduce housing prices (up from 60% in 2021).
Join the Boston University Initiative on Cities for the launch of the Gentrification & Urban Displacement Lab (GUDL) – a new hub bringing together faculty, students, practitioners, and community partners committed to understanding urban change, culture, and inequality. At the center of the launch is a discussion of Professor Japonica Brown-Saracino’s important new book, The Death and Life of Gentrification. Brown-Saracino explores how the term “gentrification” has evolved far beyond Ruth Glass’s original meaning – shifting from a description of neighborhood change to a socially charged metaphor for cultural appropriation, upscaling, and the loss of authenticity. Drawing on film, literature, journalism, and art, the book illuminates how gentrification has become a lens through which we understand transformations in everyday life and popular culture. Brown-Saracino will be joined by Karilyn Crockett (MIT), Lawrence Vale (MIT), and Stephanie Ternullo (Harvard University) for a conversation on the book. Following the discussion, the program will feature lightning talks showcasing recent BU research on gentrification and displacement, as well as next steps for GUDL. Learn more and register on our website at bu.edu/ioc/ideas-to-action
Join us for a virtual discussion of Urban Health in Africa, co-edited by Boston University Associate Professor of Global Health, Elaine Nsoesie. The event will feature contributing authors highlighting case studies from the volume and a panel conversation on Africa’s rapid urbanization and its implications for health, prosperity, and sustainability. Essays in the book explore a range of topics—from housing to climate change—across diverse African cities. Contributing authors sharing: Blessing Mberu, Senior Research Scientist and the head of population dynamics and urbanization, African Population and Health Research Center; Dina Machuve, Co-Founder and CTO, DevData Analytics; Jane Weru, Executive Director, Akiba Mashinani Trust; Deo Okure, Head of Research & Global Partnerships, AirQo; Elizabeth Bakibinga, Legal Adviser, Commonwealth Secretariat, London, UK
Cover of the 2025 Boston University Initiative on Cities Annual Report
Join the Initiative on Cities, Children's HealthWatch, and End Poverty in California (EPIC) for a special film screening of Poverty & Power, followed by a panel discussion, Q&A, and a reception. When: April 24, 2025 | 4:30 – 6:30 PM ET Where: 610 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 101 (Eichenbaum Colloquium Room) Directed by Emmy award-winning filmmaker Jacob Kornbluth, Poverty & Power is the story of what happens when you bring people with lived experience — their voices, ideas, and aspirations — to the halls of power.
Recently, Boston University Initiative on Cities affiliates Dr. Molly Richard, a Postdoctoral Scholar at Boston University’s Center for Innovation in Social Science (CISS), and Dr. Kenton Card, an IOC Visiting Urban Scholar and current Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, University of Minnesota (CURA), prominently shared their insights and research on housing and “good cause” or “just cause” eviction protections in the United States through different platforms. Both made the case that passing new tenant protection legislation across the country had major benefits for renting families, reducing evictions and homelessness, and did not come at the expense of housing production. 🏘️ On February 24, 2025, Dr. Richard testified as an expert panelist for Rhode Island’s Special Legislative Commission to Study and Provide Recommendations to Update and Clarify the “Residential Landlord and Tenant Act” on good/just cause eviction protection laws (citing Dr. Card and colleagues' research) and the causes of and solutions to homelessness. 📄 On March 3, 2025, Dr. Card, in collaboration with Evan A. Davis (CURA), Edward Goetz (CURA), and Jeremy Schwartz (Loyola University Maryland), published a report and op-ed with evidence that good/just cause eviction protections do not harm housing production and supply. Learn more about Dr. Richard and Dr. Card's activities: https://www.bu.edu/ioc/2025/03/14/ioc-affiliates-published-and-presented-research-on-housing-and-eviction-protections/
ICYMI: We’re proud to announce that Director Loretta Lees will receive the American Association of Geographers’ 2025 E. Willard and Ruby S. Miller Award and the 2025 Contribution to the Field of Urban Affairs Award from the Urban Affairs Association (UAA) in recognition for her years of groundbreaking international collaborative and multidisciplinary research, mentorship, and working with and in communities as a scholar-activist. Congratulations, Director Lees!
We’re excited to announce Pinar Çobanyilmaz as the Initiative on Cities Visiting Postdoctoral Scholar. She is a Turkish urban scholar who is currently researching urban and rural climate resiliency measures and management after forest fires. Her academic research areas include climate change and urban resilience, the right to the city, urban conflicts, the politics of urban space, mega projects and urban regeneration, and planning theories. Dr. Çobanyilmaz received an undergraduate and a master’s degree from Gazi University’s Department of City and Regional Planning, focused on climate resiliency measures taken by the University. She worked as a research assistant and received her doctorate in Urban Planning from Middle East Technical University. Her doctoral dissertation focused on Urban Social Movements and the Production of Urban Space. After earning her doctoral degree, she worked as a Program Coordinator at the Institute of Urban Studies. She contributed to academic studies and led projects primarily focusing on local governments. Notably, she executed the Handbooks for Local Governments project, which involved broad participation from government institutions, academia, civil society organizations, and experts. She co-authored The Right to the City Handbook for Local Governments and Safety on the Axis of Climate Change for the Republic of Turkey’s Ministry of Internal Affairs. Additionally, she played an active role in organizing a series of conferences on various urban issues. As an Urban and Regional Development Advisor, Pinar continued her professional career at the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) GmbH. Beyond her institutional experience, Pinar has maintained freelance consultancy work and pursued independent academic studies in her field.
Join the Boston University Initiative on Cities and the City Planning & Urban Affairs Program on March 6, 2025, from 4-5:30 PM at 75 Bay State Road for a panel discussion on how innovations and the latest in infrastructure delivery, materials, AI, electrification, data, and autonomy impact our built environment. The panel will delve into private and public sector approaches — and differences — to new technological advances and how to proactively engage with interactive opportunities for research and development in cities. Jamey Tesler, Executive Director of Mass Mobility Hub, and Paul Lam, Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Finance of BOT.Auto will join the panel. Register for the event on our website: https://www.bu.edu/ioc/2024/11/01/accelerating-change-in-the-mobility-sector-trends-cutting-edge-technology-and-how-cities-can-proactively-engage-and-participate/
Calling Boston University scholars! Applications for the Initiative on Cities Public Impact Scholars program are now open. Public Impact Scholars offers scholars of all types, ranging from tenure and tenure track professors to adjunct and postdocs, a series of workshops and discussions to: • Leverage their research and expertise for policy impact • Learn and build new skills for research, academic translation, and communicating with policymakers • Connect and work together with like-minded scholars (and more!) This Public Impact Scholars cohort will cover housing, heat, and/or health in urban populations as part of our Urban-H research agenda. Instructors for the program include faculty, staff, and leaders in policy, public service, and urban practice. Applications will close on January 31, 2025.
Led by the Initiative on Cities at Boston University, Loretta Lees (Boston University), Kenton Card (Boston University, now the University of Minnesota), and Andre Comandon (University of Southern California) developed a new Anti-Displacement Assessment Tool (ADA Tool) to be implemented by the Louisville Metro Government. The ADA Tool was developed in collaboration with government officials, Councilmember Jecorey Arthur, and in discussions with the Louisville Tenants Union. This first-of-its-kind planning tool to protect low-income and marginalized groups from displacement passed unanimously on November 21, 2024, at a full Metro Council meeting.
Post sharing the Initiative on Cities' Urban Inequalities Workshop on November 25, 2024, from 12 noon to 1:30 PM ET at the Boston University Initiative on Cities (75 Bay State Road, Boston, MA 02215) featuring Dr. Louise Seamster of the University of Iowa. Dr. Seamster will discuss her research on the Flint, MI, water crisis. Please RSVP for the event to Andrew Ward (amward@bu.edu).