Seeking a Solution for Gentrification
As the widening wealth gap leads to increasing gentrification in US cities, BU is committed to finding answers to stop this inequitable destruction of communities. Leading this charge is Loretta Lees, faculty director of BU’s Initiative on Cities. The Initiative on Cities is a hub for urban-related research and teaching across the University, engaging policymakers, academics, and students to work toward sustainable and just urban transformation.
A professor of sociology, Lees is internationally known for her research on gentrification and urban regeneration, urban policy, and more. She served as an expert witness to the demolition of the largest public housing project in Europe, providing her insights on the displacement of a low-income, multiracial, and multiethnic community.
“There is hope that we can achieve the ‘caring city,’ looking at what the city does to care for the people who live in it.”
—LORETTA LEES
She brings that global expertise to BU, where gentrification is taking place outside her window. “Boston is what you might call a hypergentrified city,” says Lees. “It’s nigh impossible for a regular professional to buy a property anywhere in the vicinity of downtown Boston at all—myself included.”
To help cities like Boston, Lees and her colleagues initiated “Gentrification & Displacement: What Can We Do About It? An International Dialogue,” the first major international academic conference on the topic since 2002. Lees organized the conference with Professor of Sociology Japonica Brown-Saracino, a faculty fellow at the Initiative on Cities and an ethnographer who has researched the social preservation of longstanding urban communities in relation to gentrification.
Gentrification is about more than housing. It impacts underrepresented populations, directly and indirectly, in many areas of life, including mental and physical health, maternal and infant mortality, addiction, cultural identity, stability of social networks, general quality of life, and of course, economic opportunity.
As progress is made, Lees says, “There is hope that we can achieve the ‘caring city,’ looking at what the city does to care for the people who live in it.”