Arthur Jemison - Boston Planning & Development Agency

Good Dirt: Conversations with Leaders in Real Estate & Beyond

Arthur Jemison – City of Boston/Boston Planning & Development Agency

Arthur Jemison is the City of Boston’s Chief of Planning and the Director of the Boston Planning and Development Agency (‘BPDA’). A nationally respected public-private development leader, Chief Jemison came “back” to the City of Boston with 28 years of planning and affordable housing expertise, working with community members to create equitable places in Detroit, MI, Washington D.C. and Boston, MA. Most recently, Jemison served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), where he led the Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) and served as the policy lead and HUD partner for American Cities, Counties, States, and other local units of government.

Jemison joined HUD from the City of Detroit, where he was Group Executive for Planning, Housing & Development, leading the City’s efforts toward equitable growth. In early 2014, Jemison was recruited to lead the Housing & Revitalization Department for the City of Detroit, to assist as the City recovered from bankruptcy. In that capacity, Jemison led strategy, deployment and management of municipal housing policy and HUD entitlement funding.

Before going to Detroit, Jemison held leadership positions at the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) for Massachusetts under Governor Deval Patrick. Prior to that, he held a variety of public and private-sector positions, including service at Massachusetts Port Authority, Boston Housing Authority, the then-Boston Redevelopment Authority, and in private development work at GLC Development Resources, as well as in the District of Columbia.

Jemison has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He also holds a Master of City Planning degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) Fellow. Jemison is also a 2021 Spirit of Detroit Award winner, a 2016 Michigan Chronicle Men / Women of Excellence awardee, and a member of the team recognized with the 2013 Robert Larson Public Policy Award for Workforce Housing from the Urban Land Institute, on behalf of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Our conversation with Chief Jemison starts with his familial roots and upbringing in Detroit, MI and Amherst, MA and his college days at UMass Amherst, where he was first introduced to economics, urban planning and public policy. Through a fellowship opportunity for under-represented students, Arthur blazed his trail to MIT where he earned his Master in City Planning (MCP) degree, and turned his focus to real estate’s private sector, working initially in Miami for Arthur Andersen doing development feasibility consulting before following his calling in the public domain.

Much of our discussion with Chief Jemison, not surprisingly, focuses on the Boston market and his important work as the Director of the BPDA and as the City’s Planning Chief. We enjoyed this candid discussion, in which Arthur stressed the importance of collaboration and cooperation between his team and the development community. We were encouraged by this discussion and hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

For more information on the Boston Planning & Development Agency, please visit http://www.bostonplans.org/

Mentioned in this Episode:

What Arthur’s Reading Right now: Small Mercies (Dennis Lehane)

New Book Alert: Look for Me There (Luke Russert)

Required RE Reading: The Reichmanns: Family, Faith, Fortune, and the Empire of Olympia & York

Tom Greeley

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Mike Greeley

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgreeley1/