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Spring 2014 Symposium-Gentrification & Displacement in Boston: New Challenges, Evolving Struggles

This panel brings together activists, scholars and planners working on the front lines of the struggle to maintain and strengthen communities affected by gentrification and displacement in the greater Boston area. The panel is hosted by MIT’s Displacement Research & Action Network (DRAN), an international collaboration drawing attention to the global impact of development-induced displacement. As part of DRAN’s efforts to build new theory and evidence in a variety of world regions, this panel seeks to deepen the conversation on gentrification and evictions in American cities.

Greater Boston, where destruction and displacement associated with urban renewal have shaped the metropolitan region we know today, is now experiencing some of the greatest gentrification pressure in the country. Rising rent burdens, real estate speculation, and substantial losses of subsidized units signify a new gentrifying dynamic with immediate consequences for communities. The time to rethink responses at the community and governmental levels is now.

This event seeks to generate dialogue between activists, scholars, and planners about the current challenges for Greater Boston with an emphasis on the strategies these actors are utilizing in the struggle against displacement. What is the link between gentrification and contemporary displacement in the Boston region? How have the forces behind displacement evolved and with what consequences? What strategies are communities and planners utilizing to pro-actively address gentrification and displacement?
Displacement Panel Discussion Symposium video