Cities@Tufts Lectures

• Local Leadership for Climate Justice with Hessann Farooqi

  This talk explores how and why city governments can step up to lead on climate action and how resident organizing is critical in making this happen. This talk also explores how to build and sustain the political coalition to ensure climate justice policies can be passed and implemented. Hessann Farooqi is the Executive Director of the Boston Climate Action Network. He is the youngest person and the first person of color appointed to lead BCAN. Hessann studied economics at Boston University, worked in the United States Senate under Sen. Ed Markey, and served on various federal, state, and local political campaigns. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu also appointed him to oversee the implementation of Boston’s key climate law on the Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO) Review Board. Hessann is Co-Coordinator of the Boston Green New Deal Coalition and serves as an Environmental Justice Advisor to the Metropolitan Area Planning Council on developing their Greater Boston Climate Action Plan. Hessann previously served as an advisor to The White House and Department of Energy’s Opportunity Project. In addition to this audio, you can read the full transcript of the conversation and watch the lecture recording on Shareable.net – while you’re there get caught up on past lectures. Cities@Tufts Lectures explores the impact of urban planning on our communities and the opportunities to design for greater equity and justice with professor Julian Agyeman.  Cities@Tufts Lectures is produced by Tufts University and Shareable.net with support from Barr Foundation,  Paige Kelly is our co-producer and audio editor. The original portrait of Hessann Farooqi was illustrated by Jess Milner, and the series is co-produced and hosted by Tom Llewellyn.  “Light Without Dark” by Cultivate Beats is our theme song.

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• From City to Sink: Urban Carbon Removal as Promise and Practice with Duncan McLaren

  Climate policy increasingly relies on techniques to remove CO2 from the environment as a supplement to cutting emissions: counter-balancing residual emissions in ‘net-zero’ and reducing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 to safer levels. In this talk, Duncan will survey how cities are engaging with carbon removal – reviewing the realistic scope of possibilities such as carbon negative building materials, and carbon removal through urban waste management; and suggest ways in which urban carbon removal could be governed to contribute to goals of justice and sustainability. Duncan McLaren is currently a Research Fellow with the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal at American University. His research examines the politics and implications for justice of novel technologies, particularly using public engagement methods. Prior to his PhD studies, completed in 2017, Duncan worked as an environmental researcher and campaigner, most recently as Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland from 2003 to 2011. He has advised and consulted for research and financial institutions, government departments, philanthropic donors and non-governmental bodies on energy, climate, urban and sustainable development issues. Duncan can be found on Bluesky @duncanmclaren.bsky.social, and at www.duncanmclaren.net. In addition to this audio, you can read the full transcript of the conversation and watch the lecture recording on Shareable.net – while you’re there get caught up on past lectures. Cities@Tufts Lectures explores the impact of urban planning on our communities and the opportunities to design for greater equity and justice with professor Julian Agyeman.  Cities@Tufts Lectures is produced by Tufts University and Shareable.net with support from Barr Foundation,  Paige Kelly is our co-producer and audio editor. The original portrait of Duncan McLaren was illustrated by Jess Milner, and the series is co-produced and hosted by Tom Llewellyn.  “Light Without Dark” by Cultivate Beats is our theme song.

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• Solidarity Cities: Examining Solidarity Economies at the Urban Level with Maliha Safri

  Contemporary urban discourse is caught in a binary between the Gentrified City, and the Disinvested City. Maliha Safri’s new book presents an alternative urban imaginary: the Solidarity City. Her new co-authored book Solidarity Cities. Confronting Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation introduces an alternative spatial imaginary highlighting solidarity relations as definitional features of urban life. In contrast to profit-motive and competition, solidarity economies and the corresponding international movement have commitments to cooperation, democracy, and inclusion. The movement is exceptionally diverse, bringing together community gardens, worker cooperatives, credit unions, all kinds of consumer cooperatives, mutual aid societies, and other organizations. The book makes visible through mapping solidarity economies in three cities - New York City, Philadelphia, and Worcester, MA and analyzes its impact on urban space through spatial analysis, qualitative research, interviews, and economic impact modeling. About the speaker Maliha Safri is Professor of economics at Drew University. Her academic research has focused on collective economic practices (including worker, food, and housing cooperatives, amidst other organizations). By teaching popular education seminars and courses with activists since 2000, and specifically with migrant workers at a variety of worker centers in the process of forming collectives, her research was based in concrete issues faced by participants of what some movement activists call solidarity economies, which are economies prioritizing cooperation and inclusion. She has published articles in Signs, Antipode, Environmental Policy and Governance, the Economist's Voice, Organization, among other journals and edited book collections. She has a new co-authored book Solidarity Cities: Confronting Racial Capitalism and Mapping Transformation (January 2025, University of Minnesota Press). Resources Solidarity Cities Confronting Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation by Maliha Safri, Marianna Pavlovskaya, Stephen Healy and Craig Borowiak In addition to this audio, you can read the full transcript of the conversation and watch the lecture recording on Shareable.net – while you’re there get caught up on past lectures. Cities@Tufts Lectures explores the impact of urban planning on our communities and the opportunities to design for greater equity and justice with professor Julian Agyeman.  Cities@Tufts Lectures is produced by Tufts University and Shareable.net with support from Barr Foundation,  Paige Kelly is our co-producer and audio editor. The original portrait of Maliha Safri was illustrated by Jess Milner, and the series is co-produced and hosted by Tom Llewellyn.  “Light Without Dark” by Cultivate Beats is our theme song.

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• Environmental Justice, Political-Economic Inequalities, and Pathways to Justice with Prakash Kashwan

  Most researchers of environmental and climate justice agree that political and economic inequalities hurt the environment, racial minorities, Indigenous Peoples, and other marginalized communities. Yet, these conclusions are based, almost exclusively, on analyses of the distribution of "environmental bads" (e.g., industrial pollution and toxic waste). Drawing on a longstanding and cumulative multi-methods research program focused on the distribution of "environmental goods" (biodiversity conservation), this lecture offers an alternative analysis of the relationship between environment and inequality with normative implications that are more complex than those implied in the environmental justice literature. Such ambiguous normative implications test the ability of societies to prioritize climate justice over climate action with dubious social impacts. In conclusion, we engage in collective reflections on the prospects of developing politically-resilient strategies for promoting environmental and climate justice. About the speaker Prakash Kashwan is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Brandeis University. He is also the Chair of the Environmental Justice concentration in the Master of Public Policy (MPP) program at the Heller School of Social Policy and Management. His teaching, research, and scholarship focus on the intersections of environment, development, and socioeconomic and political dimensions of global environmental and climate change. Kashwan’s academic engagements build on this interdisciplinary background, including a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.), a Master’s in Forestry Management), and a Ph. D. in Public Policy awarded under the tutelage of late Professor Elinor Ostrom, a political economist, who was the joint winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences. Equally important, Kashwan’s research and writings are shaped profoundly by his over two decades-long engagements with global and international environmental governance, including a pre-academia career in international development (1999-2005). In addition to this audio, you can read the full transcript of the conversation and watch the lecture recording on Shareable.net – while you’re there get caught up on past lectures. Cities@Tufts Lectures explores the impact of urban planning on our communities and the opportunities to design for greater equity and justice with professor Julian Agyeman.  Cities@Tufts Lectures is produced by Tufts University and Shareable.net with support from Barr Foundation,  Paige Kelly is our co-producer and audio editor, the original portrait of Prakash Kashwan was illustrated by Jess Milner, and the series is co-produced and hosted by Tom Llewellyn.  “Light Without Dark” by Cultivate Beats is our theme song.

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  54:51
• Mutual Aid Lessons from East Boston

  This is a special bonus episode of the Cities@Tufts podcast! Last fall, Tufts University Distinguished Senior Lecturer of Urban Environmental Policy and Planning, Penn Loh, hosted a discussion following the release of a new report, Mutual Aid Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic: Strengthening Civic Infrastructure in East Boston through Community Care. This episode is from that live event, hosted by Tufts UEP, on October 3, 2024 where panelists shared their mutual aid experiences, lessons learned, and other key findings from UEP-community report on how mutual aid can strengthen civic infrastructure, contribute to movements for social justice, and build communities of care. Resources: Report: Mutual Aid Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic: Strengthening Civic Infrastructure in East Boston through Community Care Shareable's Mutual Aid 101 Learning Series In addition to this audio, you can read the full transcript of the conversation on Shareable.net – while you’re there get caught up on past lectures. Cities@Tufts Lectures explores the impact of urban planning on our communities and the opportunities to design for greater equity and justice with professor Julian Agyeman.  Cities@Tufts Lectures is produced by Tufts University and Shareable.net with support from Barr Foundation,  Paige Kelly is our co-producer and audio editor, the original portrait of the panelists was illustrated by Jess Milner, and the series is co-produced and hosted by Tom Llewellyn.  “Light Without Dark” by Cultivate Beats is our theme song.

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