Fall 2024

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All colloquia are held via Zoom webinar from 12:00-1:00 pm ET

Recordings will be made available after the presentation

September 25th
Peter Norton presents Urban Mobility for Human Autonomy

Measured by distance and speed, today North Americans move more than ever. Movement, however, is but a means to an end; more movement is not in itself beneficial. Movement is a cost of meeting daily needs, and provided these needs are met, less movement is generally advantageous. Nevertheless, since the 1930s traffic engineers have pursued movement maximization in North American cities as if movement is an end in itself, and even as if movement is in itself freedom. The human costs have included unbearable burdens measurable as financial, health, safety, equitability, livability and environmental costs. Together these burdens impair human autonomy; that is, by constraining people’s choices about where and how to live, they diminish freedom. Automobility, promoted as a deliverer of freedom, has instead imposed car dependency, a kind of unfreedom. Paradoxically, many engineers now pursue so-called “autonomous” (robotic) driving, promising thereby to sustain unsustainable quantities of movement, when the sole worthy end of movement is not machine but human autonomy. To escape the traps that these errors set for us, we must trace them to their origins. Though engineering is defined as applied science, history reveals that the origins and persistence of prevailing traffic engineering principles lie not in scientific research but in power politics, and that such principles have more in common with religious dogmas than with natural laws. Far more practical possibilities await us when we escape the confines these dogmas impose on us and recognize movement as a secondary good that serves us only as it contributes to human autonomy.

Peter Norton is associate professor of history in the Department of Engineering and Society at the University of Virginia. He is a member of the University of Virginia’s Center for Transportation Studies and has been a visiting faculty member at the Technical University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands. Norton is the author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City, and of Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving. He is a winner of the Usher Prize of the Society for the History of Technology, and a frequent speaker on the subject of sustainable and equitable urban mobility.

October 9th

Karilyn Crockett present Hacking the Archive: The Quest for More Just Urban Futures <<1969-2069>>

This talk explores a Boston-based project that gamifies collective memory-driven social research and local knowledge sharing to anchor the intergenerational creation of future urban plans. Hacking the Archive (HTA) is a coalition of two dozen civic, faith-based and archival institutions advancing a novel data gathering and dissemination approach for populations underrepresented in the archive yet overrepresented in land-based battles for urban space. This talk focuses on HTA's current work to examine past and present grassroots strategies for tackling economic justice.

Karilyn Crockett’s research focuses on large-scale land use changes in twentieth century American cities and examines the social and geographic implications of structural poverty, racial formations and memory. Karilyn’s book "People before Highways: Boston Activists, Urban Planners, and a New Movement for City Making" (UMASS Press 2018) investigates a 1960s era grassroots movement to halt urban extension of the U.S. interstate highway system and the geographic and political changes in Boston that resulted. In 2019 this book was named one of the “ten best books of the decade” by the Boston Public Library Association of Librarians. Karilyn holds a PhD from the American Studies program at Yale University, a Master of Science in Geography from the London School of Economics, and a Master of Arts and Religion from Yale Divinity School. She has previously served in Boston city government; first, as Director of Economic Policy & Research in the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development and later as the City of Boston's first Chief of Equity, a Cabinet-level position. She is a professor of urban history, public policy and planning at MIT and currently leads the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce in partnership with the Boston Federal Reserve Bank to assess the regional racial wealth gap.

October 23rd
Charisma Acey presents Urban Environmental Marronage: Connecting Black Ecologies from Coastal Nigeria to the American South

This talk explores how marginalized communities in coastal Nigeria and the American South draw upon historical practices of marronage to create autonomous spaces and combat environmental degradation within cities. Marronage refers to the practices of enslaved Africans who escaped to form free communities in inaccessible terrains. By connecting Black ecologies from Lagos and the Niger Delta to New Orleans and South Carolina, this presentation examines how communities adapt to environmental challenges, preserve cultural heritage, and develop alternative socio-ecological systems as forms of political and ecological empowerment. These contemporary case studies of resistance and resilience reflect the enduring legacies of maroon societies across the Black Atlantic, offering new insights into global struggles for human rights and environmental justice.

Charisma Acey is Associate Professor and Arcus Chair in Social Justice and the Built Environment in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on environmental justice, urban sustainability, and equitable access to basic services in cities. Dr. Acey's work spans the Americas and Africa, addressing issues such as climate vulnerability, access to clean water and safe sanitation, women's empowerment, and urban agroecology. She currently leads projects on air quality and food justice in California, employing participatory action research to identify inequitable policies impacting vulnerable communities. As Faculty Director of the Berkeley Food Institute and co-founder of the Dellums Clinic to Dismantle Structural Racism at the Institute for Urban and Regional Development, she champions interdisciplinary approaches to urban planning and environmental governance. Dr. Acey holds a Ph.D. in Urban Planning and a Master's in Public Policy from UCLA. She is a UW-Madison Health Equity Leadership Institute Scholar. Her work has been recognized with awards for excellence in community-based scholarship. Dr. Acey's publications appear in journals such as World Development, Landscape and Urban Planning, and The Lancet Global Health.

October 30th
Jose Richard presents Reimagining Urban Planning

Reimagining Urban Planning is a talk based on the monthly webinar series of the same name hosted by the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley. This talk openly critiques the ways in which Urban Planners have been trained and the impacts it has had in the ways Planners approach the Land, and the People that inhabit the land. Based on the webinar series this talk will share the key highlights from the series while also providing examples, shared by the speakers, that get us to an alternative approach to planning. The hope is that this talk will inspire planners to be more critical of the ways in which the field currently operates.

Jose Richard Aviles is a Transportation Analyst for the Othering and Belonging Institute. As part of the Community Power and Policy Partnerships team, they support government agencies and partners with community organizations by providing trainings, technical assistance, and evaluation support centering lived experience, vision, and self-determination of the communities most impacted by transit inequities. Aviles draws inspiration from their involvement with the Bus Riders Union in Los Angeles and participation in other social justice movements like marriage equality.

November 13th
Ginette Wessel presents Mobilizing Food Vending: Planning and Policy for Gourmet Food Trucks in the American City

Throughout US history, street food vending has rarely been considered an improvement to modern society or its capitalist economy. However, beginning in 2008, a new generation of mobile vendors serving high-quality, inventive foods became popular among affluent populations. Ginette Wessel’s new book, Mobilizing Food Vending: Gourmet Food Trucks in the American City (Routledge 2024), investigates the gourmet food truck movement in the US and provides a clearer understanding of the social and economic factors that shape vendor autonomy and industry growth. Using a human-centered approach, the book features case studies in a variety of American cities and uses top-down and bottom-up urban theory to frame a discussion of food trucks’ rights, displacement, and resiliency. Wessel shows that food truck vendors are critical actors that support local economies and contribute to the public realm while shaping regulatory policy from the bottom up. This talk will appeal to urban scholars studying the contemporary neoliberal city, the public realm, and communication technology and mobility, as well as to urban planners seeking to understand how vendors shape city plans and policies

Ginette Wessel, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Architecture at Roger Williams University, where she teaches courses in urban design, urban planning, and environmental design research. As an urbanist, designer, and scholar, Ginette has published articles in the Journal of the American Planning Association, New Media & Society, and the Journal of Urban Design, as well as chapters in Food Trucks, Cultural Identity, and Social Justice (MIT Press 2017) and Participatory Urbanisms (UC Berkeley 2015). Her forthcoming book, Mobilizing Food Vending: Gourmet Food Trucks in the American City (Routledge 2024), investigates food trucks’ rights and resiliency in the urban foodscape using ethnography, policy analysis, and spatial interpretation. Her co-authored book Social Media and the Contemporary City (Routledge 2022) explores the interplay of communication technology, social life, and urban development using real-time data analysis. Her research interests include current social and cultural transformations underway in city making—with an emphasis on public space, social equity, and communication technology. She holds degrees from the University of California (UC), Berkeley, and the University of North Carolina (UNC), Charlotte, and she is an experienced urban designer who has worked with communities throughout her teaching at RWU, San Jose State University, UC Berkeley, and UNC Charlotte.

November 20th

Noel Healy presents Decolonizing Climate and Energy Policy: Forging a Just Global Green Transformation

This talk will argue that addressing the climate crisis requires more than incremental reforms; it necessitates a transformative approach that dismantles deep-seated inequalities and confronts the historical injustices embedded in global structures. Achieving global climate justice hinges on decolonizing fossil fuel politics and dismantling obstructionist forces at both national and international levels. By drawing from and critiquing the Green New Deal movement, this talk will explore what genuine economic and political transformation looks like in practice, emphasizing that these systemic changes are inseparable from the pursuit of global justice.

Noel Healy is a Professor in the Geography and Sustainability Department at Salem State University (SSU) and the Director of the Climate Justice and Just Transitions Lab. His research explores the socio-political dimensions of rapid climate change mitigation, climate justice, fossil fuel politics, and climate obstructionism, with a focus on economic and racial justice in climate and energy policy. Dr. Healy was a contributing author on the UN’s IPCC (AR6/WGIII) report, and he serves on the advisory board of Cell Reports Sustainability and the editorial board of Energy Research and Social Sciences. He has been an invited speaker at the Oxford Union and received SSU’s Civic Engagement Hall of Fame award in 2018. Dr. Healy has held fellowships at LMU Munich and the Global Center for Climate Justice and is currently a visiting professor at EAFIT University in Medellín. His work has been published in leading journals such as One Earth, WIREs Climate Change, Energy Policy, and Climatic Change, as well as in popular outlets including The Guardian, The Hill, and Scientific American. His research has garnered attention from major media outlets like The Boston Globe, WRadio Colombia, The Times, and Forbes. You can follow him on Twitter/X: @DrNoelHealy.

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