For our next IUSD lecture, which will take place on 26 May 2025 in classroom 9.06 of the K1 building, we will watch the documentary film he made titled ‘Never surrender: The fight for environmental justice in Bayview-Hunters Point, San Francisco’. After that, we will have a discussion with Dr. Reza Shirazi, who directed the film.
This documentary film is the result of over two years of research and fieldwork in Bayview- Hunters Point, San Francisco. It tells the story of a community’s struggle for environmental justice and their ongoing conflict with the government over the safety of the Hunters Point Shipyard. Once a military base contaminated during World War II and beyond, the site underwent decades of remediation—later exposed as fraudulent, with falsified data. What was intended to be San Francisco’s largest redevelopment project became the country’s biggest eco-fraud case, raising urgent questions about accountability, environmental racism, and the politics of urban redevelopment.
The Lecturer
Dr. M. Reza Shirazi is Associate Professor in Sustainable Urban Design and Development at the School of the Built Environment, Oxford Brookes University, UK. He leads the Land, Design, and Development (LDD) research group and the Oxford FMC (15-Minute City) Lab. He has completed over 16 international research projects across 15 countries (total value: €1.9M) and has served as PI for multiple EU-funded projects. His expertise is in community development, urban justice, citizen participation, discourse studies, and social sustainability.
