Loretta Lees | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | British Irish |
Academic background | |
Education | University of Edinburgh (PhD) Queen's University of Belfast (BA Hons) |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Geography |
Institutions | Boston University Initiative on Cities London Housing Panel University of Leicester King's College London |
Main interests | Urban Geography Gentrification Urban Sociology Urban Studies Human Geography |
Loretta Lees is a university professor,urbanist,author,and scholar-activist. She is the Director of the Initiative on Cities and professor of sociology at Boston University. [1] Prior to moving to Boston,she was Professor of Human Geography at the University of Leicester in the UK and served as Chair of the London Housing Panel working with the Mayor of London and Trust for London. [2] Since 2009,she has co-organized The Urban Salon,a London forum and seminar series for architecture,cities,and international urbanism,which examines urban experiences using an international and comparative frame. [3] Lees’scholarship focuses on gentrification,urban regeneration,global urbanism,urban policy,urban public space,architecture,and urban social theory. [4] She was identified as the only woman in the top 20 most referenced authors in urban geography worldwide and the top author on gentrification globally. [5] She was awarded the 2022 Marilyn J. Gittell Activist Scholar Award from the Urban Affairs Association. [6] Other accolades of Lees include her election as a fellow of Academia Europaea (MAE) in 2022,and Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) in 2013. [7] [8] She has published 16 books and over 100 journal articles and book chapters. [9] Her research has been featured extensively in documentaries,newspapers,and in podcasts.
She received a PhD from the University of Edinburgh and a BA (Hons) in Geography from Queen's University of Belfast. Lees was born in Manchester,England,to a Northern Irish mother and Mancunian father. The Lees side of her family originated in Salford;her first cousin Mike Holden held the British heavyweight boxing title in 2000. [10] She currently resides in both Boston and London.
In 2013 she joined the University of Leicester as Professor of Human Geography and Director of Research,where she worked until 2022. She was Professor of Human Geography and Chair of the Cities Research Group at King's College London from 1997 to 2013. From 1995 to 1997,she was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in geography at the University of British Columbia in Canada and a visiting lecturer in geography at the University of Waikato in New Zealand in 1994. [11]
Professor Lees became Director of the Initiative on Cities at Boston University in September 2022,where she is also a tenured professor of sociology. [12]
Lees has been at the forefront of authorship on gentrification globally,coining the term "super-gentrification" in relation to the resurgence of a new form of gentrification in Brooklyn Heights,New York City at the beginning of the 21st century and used it in reference to Barnsbury in London. [13] [14] Her 2008 book Gentrification focused on the development of theories and concepts in gentrification studies,and looked at how gentrification as a process had mutated over time,particularly in Anglo-America. [15] Her 2016 Planetary Gentrification took the lens global and informed by comparative urbanism looked at ideologies and practices of gentrification in different parts of the world. [16] Lees has also been at the forefront of researching state-led gentrification in London:she undertook Antipode Foundation and ESRC funded research on the demolition and redevelopment of council estates in London and presented evidence in three public inquiries. [17] Working with Just Space and the London Tenants Federation,she co-produced Staying Put:An Anti-gentrification Handbook for Council Estates in London and a website estatewatch.london. [18] With the late Italian urbanist Sandra Annunziata,she also produced an anti-gentrification toolkit for Southern European cities. [19] Her work has been cited over 17,855 times and she has a h-index of 51. [20]
Lees has published 16 books in geography and urban studies.
Lees has served on numerous editorial boards,including the Journal of Urban Affairs,Urban Geography,Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers,Environment and Planning A,City and Society,Urban Planning,Dialogues in Human Geography,The Canadian Geographer, ACME. [1]
She currently sits on the editorial boards of Dialogues in Urban Research,Sustainability, [21] Art and the Public Sphere, [22] Geography Compass –Urban Geography. [23]
Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more affluent residents and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse,it has been used to describe a wide array of phenomena,usually in a pejorative connotation.
Urban sociology is the sociological study of cities and urban life. One of the field’s oldest sub-disciplines,urban sociology studies and examines the social,historical,political,cultural,economic,and environmental forces that have shaped urban environments. Like most areas of sociology,urban sociologists use statistical analysis,observation,archival research,U.S. census data,social theory,interviews,and other methods to study a range of topics,including poverty,racial residential segregation,economic development,migration and demographic trends,gentrification,homelessness,blight and crime,urban decline,and neighborhood changes and revitalization. Urban sociological analysis provides critical insights that shape and guide urban planning and policy-making.
Urban geography is the subdiscipline of geography that derives from a study of cities and urban processes. Urban geographers and urbanists examine various aspects of urban life and the built environment. Scholars,activists,and the public have participated in,studied,and critiqued flows of economic and natural resources,human and non-human bodies,patterns of development and infrastructure,political and institutional activities,governance,decay and renewal,and notions of socio-spatial inclusions,exclusions,and everyday life. Urban geography includes different other fields in geography such as the physical,social,and economic aspects of urban geography. The physical geography of urban environments is essential to understand why a town is placed in a specific area,and how the conditions in the environment play an important role with regards to whether or not the city successfully develops. Social geography examines societal and cultural values,diversity,and other conditions that relate to people in the cities. Economic geography is important to examine the economic and job flow within the urban population. These various aspects involved in studying urban geography are necessary to better understand the layout and planning involved in the development of urban environments worldwide.
Saskia Sassen is a Dutch-American sociologist noted for her analyses of globalization and international human migration. She is a professor of sociology at Columbia University in New York City,and the London School of Economics. The term global city was coined and popularized by Sassen in her 1991 work,The Global City:New York,London,Tokyo.
Urban history is a field of history that examines the historical nature of cities and towns,and the process of urbanization. The approach is often multidisciplinary,crossing boundaries into fields like social history,architectural history,urban sociology,urban geography,business history,and archaeology. Urbanization and industrialization were popular themes for 20th-century historians,often tied to an implicit model of modernization,or the transformation of rural traditional societies.
Elaine L. Graham is the Grosvenor Research Professor at the University of Chester. She was until October 2009 the Samuel Ferguson Professor of Social and Pastoral Theology at the University of Manchester. In March 2014,she was installed as Canon Theologian of Chester Cathedral.
Charles Asher Small is a Canadian intellectual,the founder and director of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy the first international interdisciplinary research center dedicated to studying antisemitism with a contemporary focus.
Sharon L. Zukin is an American professor of sociology who specializes in modern urban life. She is a professor emerita at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center,City University of New York. She has been a fellow of the Advanced Research Collaborative at the CUNY Graduate Center and chair of the sections on community and urban sociology and consumers and consumption of the American Sociological Association Consumers and Consumption Section,as well as a visiting professor at Tongji University (Shanghai),the University of Amsterdam,and the University of Western Sydney.
Doreen Barbara Massey was a British social scientist and geographer. She specialized in Marxist geography,feminist geography,and cultural geography,as well as other topics. She was Professor of Geography at the Open University.
Neil Robert Smith was a Scottish geographer and Marxist academic. He was Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York,and winner of numerous awards,including the Globe Book Award of the Association of American Geographers.
Harvey Luskin Molotch is an American sociologist known for studies that have reconceptualized power relations in interaction,the mass media,and the city. He helped create the field of environmental sociology and has advanced qualitative methods in the social sciences. In recent years,Molotch helped develop a new field—the sociology of objects. He is currently a professor of Sociology and of Metropolitan Studies at New York University. His Introduction to Sociology is featured as one of NYU Open Education's courses available to stream freely. Other courses that he teaches include Approaches to Metropolitan Studies and Urban Objects. He is also affiliated with the graduate program in Humanities and Social Thought.
Ariel Salleh is an Australian sociologist who writes on humanity-nature relations,political ecology,social change movements,and ecofeminism.
Xiangming Chen served as the founding dean and director of urban and global studies and director of the Center for Urban and Global Studies at Trinity College in Hartford,Connecticut,from 2007 to 2019. He is currently the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of Global Urban Studies and Sociology at Trinity College. Prior to this,Chen served as assistant to full professor of sociology and adjunct professor of political science and urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
David Frederick Ley is a geographer and a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia. Ley was born in Swansea,Wales,earned his B.A. at Oxford University,and his M.S. and Ph.D. at Pennsylvania State University. He is known for his substantial empirical and theoretical contributions to the field of social,cultural and urban geography.
The Initiative on Cities (IOC or IoC) is an interdisciplinary center at Boston University. It serves as a hub for urban research and experiential learning,and engages with urban leaders,policymakers,academics,communities,and students from around the world to work toward sustainable,just,and inclusive urban transformation.
Philip Hubbard is a British geographer. He is currently Professor of Urban Studies at King's College London,having previously served as the head of the School of Social Policy,Sociology,and Social Research,University of Kent. Hubbard has written widely cited work on urban sociology,urban geography,and social geographies. This work has often engaged with questions of gentrification,social segregation and housing.
Environmental,ecological or green gentrification is a process in which cleaning up pollution or providing green amenities increases local property values and attracts wealthier residents to a previously polluted or disenfranchised neighbourhood. Green amenities include green spaces,parks,green roofs,gardens and green and energy efficient building materials. These initiatives can heal many environmental ills from industrialization and beautify urban landscapes. Additionally,greening is imperative for reaching a sustainable future. However,if accompanied by gentrification,these initiatives can have an ambiguous social impact. For example,if the low income households are displaced or forced to pay higher housing costs. First coined by Sieg et al. (2004),environmental gentrification is a relatively new concept,although it can be considered as a new hybrid of the older and wider topics of gentrification and environmental justice. Social implications of greening projects specifically with regards to housing affordability and displacement of vulnerable citizens. Greening in cities can be both healthy and just.
Marilyn Jacobs Gittell was an American scholar and education reformer. She is known for her role in decentralizing the New York City public school administration,shifting power from the New York City Board of Education to 32 community school boards throughout New York City's five boroughs.
Rachel Pain is Professor of Human Geography at Newcastle University since 2017 and was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2018.
Neil Brenner is an American urban theorist and academic holding the title of Lucy Flower Professor of Urban Sociology at the University of Chicago. He previously served as Professor of Urban Theory and Director of Urban Theory Lab at Harvard Graduate School of Design,and as Professor of Sociology at New York University. He has also held previous visiting appointments at National University of Singapore,University of Amsterdam,Bard College,Maynooth University,University of Bristol,and University of Urbino. He is a member of the American Sociological Association and the Association of American Geographers.
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