Cities@Tufts Lectures

In this Cities@Tufts episode, Myers discusses her eight years working on the research, design, and production of the urbanism podcast Here There Be Dragons. HTBD starts with residents first and seeks to forefront methods from the social sciences as crucial techniques in the analysis of the built environment. The podcast covers one city per season. Myers has sat down with residents in New York, Par...

What is co-design, and what does it look like in global initiatives that produce data about development indicators? Projects that strive for inclusivity might hold well-designed multi-stakeholder engagement workshops throughout a project but still see limited local uptake of their data in the end. Why are multi-stakeholder workshops usually not enough? How might global data initiatives find ground...

"Infrastructure Apartheid to Liberatory Infrastructures" - this phrase highlights a fundamental shift in our framing of both harms and solutions, respectively, from individual and direct, to systemic and distributed. Dr. Carrasquillo and the Liberatory Infrastructures Labs' aim, as they continue to not only challenge the theoretical framings but also engineering approaches, is to research and pilo...

Welcome to the second episode of the Imaginal Cells of the Solidarity Economy: Democratizing Power. This a special series of episodes that we've been sharing over the summer until Cities@Tufts officially resumes for our fourth season in the Fall. Over the course of our lecture series, we've talked a lot about the crucial role that community plays in building alternatives to capitalistic models of...

Urban agriculture has a long and diverse history throughout the world. Its health, social, and economic benefits for communities have been the subject of many studies and advocacy efforts seeking recognition of urban food production as a legitimate use of city space and as "real" agriculture. In the US, the past decade has seen policy support for urban food production expand at multiple scales of...

Welcome to the third episode of the Imaginal Cells of the Solidarity Economy: Democratizing Power. This a special series of episodes that we've been sharing over the summer until Cities@Tufts officially resumes for our fourth season in the Fall. We are living through an historic moment where a number of crises-- climate change, growing economic and cultural divide, virulent racism, and the slide t...

We have a special series of episodes that we'll be sharing over the next few months between now and when Cities@Tufts officially resumes for our fourth season in the Fall. Over the course of our lecture series, we've talked a lot about the crucial role that community plays in building alternatives to capitalistic models of access, resource distribution and social equity. We are living through a hi...

Globally, contemporary cities face seemingly insurmountable challenges such as urban inequality, inadequate infrastructure, climate crisis, and increasingly, threats to democracy. In the face of such challenges, the Dr. Aseem Inam introduces the concept of "co-designing publics" by examining what lies at the potent intersection of the public realm and informal urbanisms. He defines the public real...

Distilled into a four-step framework, Results is the much-needed implementation guide for anyone in public service, as well as for leaders and managers in large organizations hamstrung by bureaucracy and politics. With a broad range of examples, Baker, a Republican, and Kadish, a Democrat, show how to move from identifying problems to achieving results in a way that bridges divides instead of exac...

European cities have increasingly highlighted diversity as a marker of their progressive status. A growing field of research argues that "super-diverse" neighborhoods exemplify a normalization of ethnic and racial difference as a positive facet of everyday life. However, contemporary manifestations of urban diversity cannot be disentangled easily from the European colonial legacy that underlies a...

Public spaces are symbolic urban icons. Cities compete with their public spaces, often using them as tools for commodification to attract capital and labor. At the same time, public space is an expansive common social and material realm and the past decades have erased any doubts of the resurgence of public space in its political form. This is a good time to focus our attention on public space. Th...

On Today's show we explore how communities respond to extreme weather with Rev. Vernon K. Walker. Research has shown, over and over, how communities that are more connected fare much better doing periods of acute disaster. The more robust relationships and networks of solidarity that exist within communities, the more likely they are to weather the figurative and literal storms that are only incre...

In the decades following the Civil War, recently emancipated people created freedom colonies through intentional and tactical design, ensuring refuge from political repression and violence. However, most freedom colonies were founded in ecologically vulnerable landscapes, making them disproportionately susceptible to flooding and other natural disasters in the present day. This talk tracks the his...

In this Cities@Tufts presentation, we turn the microphone around and interview Cities@Tufts colloquium host, Julian Agyeman. Join us as Julian reflects on the origins of the series, highlights some of the most memorable moments, and underscores the importance of Cities@Tufts as a cutting-edge, indispensable resource. In addition to this audio, you can watch the video and read the full transcript o...

This week on Cities@Tufts, Rashad Williams presents "Three Models of Reparative Planning: A Comparative Analysis." In this presentation we explore reparative planning. As cities and states continue to experiment with reparations for the historical legacies of slavery and Jim Crow, an enduring question remains: how should subnational, particularly municipal, reparations be structured? To be sure, a...

This week on Cities@Tufts, Loretta Lees presents "Planetary Gentrification: Impacts and Futures". In this presentation, we explore the phenomenon of planetary gentrification . What is it? Where in the world has it occurred geography and spatially? When did it occur? What have the impacts been? And critically — what might its future look like? In addition to this audio, you can watch the video and...

This week on Cities@Tufts, Jennie C. Stephens presents "Diversifying Power: Why We Need Antiracist, Feminist Leadership on Climate and Energy". In this presentation, we explore why climate policies that are transformative require integrating sacred, humanistic dimensions so that society can move beyond the narrow, patriarchal technocratic lens of climate isolationism that continues to dominate and...

What is planetary gentrification and its tangible effects? Has institutionalized white supremacy led to isolationist attempts at addressing our climate crisis? And could reparative urban planning be the key to addressing distributive, structural injustices?  These are just a few of the questions we'll be exploring on Season 3 of Cities@Tufts. Here's a short preview of what we have in store this Fa...

This week on Cities@Tufts, Quilian Riano presents "Spatial and Political Change". In this presentation, we explore examples of work that look at how spatial games — defined as processes with loose rules for others to interpret and execute as they see fit — can become design tools to broaden the socio-spatial imagination and conversation. In addition to this audio, you can watch the video and read...

This week on Cities@Tufts, Kyle White and Justin Schott present on The Energy Equity Project. The Energy Equity Project is working to create a framework for measuring equity across energy efficiency and clean energy programs among utilities, state regulatory agencies, and other practitioners, while engaging and centering Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities and frontline communities. An equity...

This week on Cities@Tufts, Tamika Butler presents "Transportation Inequities: What's Data Got to do With It?" How have white supremacy and structural racism shaped transportation and the built environment throughout the history of the United States? And how does engagement, data, and policy add to these disparities and challenge us all to think about data differently? Join national transportation...

This week on Cities@Tufts, Stacey Sutton presents: Punitive and Cooperative Cities. The City of Chicago's automated traffic enforcement fines and fees are disproportionately borne by Black, Latinx, and low-income residents. Simultaneously, Chicago is on the precipice of implementing one of the largest community wealth building initiatives in the country, defined by the city as "an approach to econ...

This week on Cities@Tufts, Lind Shi presents: Collective Land Governance for a Changing Climate. Human civilization is headed towards a collision between rapidly changing conditions of land under climate change and static institutions governing land and property. Contemporary development models are predicated on Western European land ethics, property rights regimes, and land policies that evolved...

In this episode of Cities@Tufts Lectures, Sara Meerow synthesizes the current state of extreme heat governance research and practice and outlines a framework for urban heat resilience.  Meerow leads the Planning for Urban Resilience Lab at Arizona State University and some of her research group's current projects focus on planning for extreme heat, flooding, and multifunctional green infrastructur...

In this episode of Cities@Tufts Lectures, Vivek Shandas will examine differential climate-induced impacts on urban residents, including those who have been historically marginalized from decision-making processes. Shandas is a Professor of Climate Adaptation and Founding Director of the Sustaining Urban Places Research Lab (SUPR Lab) at Portland State University. In addition to this audio, you can...