James Arthur Jemison

Chief of Planning for the City of Boston James Arthur Jemison also serves as the Director of the BPDA. He oversees the agency’s core missions of community-engaged planning, regulation of major real estate development, management of the BPDA’s real estate property (over 20 million square feet), and workforce training programs.

Jemison is a creative public-private development leader with over 28 years of planning and affordable housing expertise, working with community members to create equitable places in Detroit, Washington D.C., and Boston. Prior to joining the City of Boston, Jemison served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

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, working in partnership with Directors of the Housing & Revitalization Department, the Planning & Development Department, the Detroit Land Bank Authority, Detroit Housing Commission, and the Bridging Neighborhoods program.

Before going to Detroit, Jemison served as Deputy Undersecretary and Deputy Director for the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts under Governor Deval Patrick. Prior to that, he held a variety of public and private-sector positions, all related to city planning and urban development, primarily in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. This includes service at the Massachusetts Port Authority, Boston Housing Authority, the then-Boston Redevelopment Authority, and private development work at GLC Development Resources.

Jemison has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and 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.