Lara Awarded a Fulbright and DAAD to study social change and the built environment

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Jesus Lara in Knowlton Hall

Professor of City and Regional Planning Jesus J. Lara has been awarded a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award and a DAAD Research Stays for University Academics and Scientists Award for this project “A Place to Call Home: A study of the relationship between social change and the built environment, and the role of immigrant populations in the process of sustainable urban design, informality and placemaking.”

The proposed research will explore ways in which public space has been created in geographically and socially uneven ways by immigrants and refugees as part of the core of urban planning, design, and informality in Berlin, Germany. It will also investigate new directions of the revitalization efforts in immigrant communities that enhance local assets and support the implementation of sustainable urbanism strategies and promotes the development of socially and culturally healthier communities.

This project expands the transnational migration and cities literature by identifying specific forms of social capital, configurations, and representation of placemaking processes as they relate to the built environment.

Lara will teach courses and conduct research at two universities during the 2022-23 academic year. Lara will be hosted in fall 2022 and spring 2023 at the Institute for Sustainable Urbanism at the Technische Universität Braunschweig. In spring 2023, he will be hosted at the Technische Universität Berlin as Fellow at the GCSMUS Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability.