
I’d rather be the tree
Squash flowers
From “Squash in Blossom,’’ by poet Robert Francis (1901-1987). He lived most of his life in Amherst, Mass., in the Connecticut River Valley, New England’s dominant agricultural area
“Let the squash be what it was doomed to be
By the old Gardener with the shrewd green thumb.
Let it expand and sprawl, defenceless, dumb.
But let me be the fiber-disciplined tree
“Whose leaf (with something to say in wind) is small,
Reduced to the ingenuity of a green splinter
Sharp to defy or fraternize with winter,
Or if not that, prepared in fall to fall.’’
A time for reflection
“Laid Back, Eastern Chimpanzee, Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania’’(photo), by Tom Mangelsen, at Springfield (Mass.) Museums, in the ongoing show “Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards.’’
Philip K. Howard: A way to reboot America
This is a lightly edited version of a press release touting my old friend Philip K. Howard’s latest book. The New York-based lawyer, civic leader and photographer is chairman of the nonprofit reform organization Common Good.
In Saving Can-Do: How to Revive the Spirit of America civic philosopher Howard proposes a governing framework to revive America’s can-do culture — not by DOGE’s Indiscriminate Cuts, and nor by “Abundance”.
Saving Can-Do shows why the waste and paralysis of the red-tape state can be cured only by a new governing framework that empowers human responsibility on the spot. Letting Americans use common sense also holds the key to relieving populist resentment.
This brief book, to be published by Rodin Books on Sept. 23, responds to Americans’ desire for government that delivers results, not overbearing red tape.
“Washington needs to be rebooted, but neither party presents a vision to do this,” Howard notes.
“Republicans focus on cutting programs, not making them work. Democrats want to throw more money at a failing system. Aspiring to abundance is important, but escaping bureaucratic quicksand requires a radical shift in governing philosophy — replacing the red-tape compliance system with a framework activated by human responsibility.”
All societies periodically undergo a major shift in the social order. America is at one of those moments of change, and needs a coherent new overhaul vision to avoid the risks of extremism.
President Trump is swinging a wrecking ball at the status quo, but has no plan for how Washington will work better the day after DOGE. Democrats are in denial, waiting their turn to run a bloated government that Americans increasingly loathe.
Saving Can-Do offers a dramatically simpler governing vision: Replace red tape with responsibility. Let Americans use their judgment. Let other Americans hold them accountable for their results and their values.
“The geniuses in the 1960s tried to create a government better than people,” Howard says. “Just follow the rules. Or prove that your judgment about someone is fair. But how do you prove who has poor judgment, or doesn’t try hard? Bureaucracy makes people go brain dead—so focused on mindless compliance that they can’t solve the problem before them. Americans hate it.”
“We must scrap the red tape state,” argues Howard. “New leadership is not sufficient, because the new leaders will be shackled by rigid legal mandates. Trying to prune the red tape still leaves a jungle of other mandates.’’
“What’s required is a multi-year effort to replace command-and-control bureaucracies with simpler codes that delineate the authority to make tradeoff judgments. The idea is not radical, but traditional— it’s the operating philosophy of the U.S. Constitution. As America approaches the 250th anniversary of the revolution, it’s time to reclaim the magic of America’s unique can-do culture.”
For more information, please contact Henry Miller at hmiller@highimpactpartnering.com.
SELECTED PRAISE FOR PHILIP HOWARD’S PREVIOUS BOOKS
Everyday Freedom, Rodin Books, 2024
“Everyday Freedom offers a master class in consequences of lost agency. Agency not only promotes freedom, but its deprivation through policies and regulations saps civil vitality. Politicians’ inattentiveness to the problem stokes alienation and populism. Re-empowering individuals can produce a can-do, let ‘er rip economy of opportunity and flourishing. We’ve corrected such ‘system failure’ before, and Howard provides a roadmap for doing so again. The book is a must read for any student of what ails this society—that is, all of us.”
— Glenn Hubbard, Russell L. Carson Professor of Economics and Finance, Columbia University, and former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Not Accountable, Rodin Books, 2023
“I love cities and want them to thrive. Philip Howard shows a major reason why American cities struggle, and why they fail so many of their citizens: public employee unions prevent accountability, efficiency, and reform.
“Howard’s novel insight: Their power is not only unconscionable, for its harm to the public good; it might also be unconstitutional.”
— Jonathan Haidt, Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business, author of The Righteous Mind and co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind.
Try Common Sense, W. W. Norton, 2019
“A thunderous little book.”
— Gillian Tett, Financial Times
The Rule of Nobody, W. W. Norton, 2014
“Philip Howard offers a startlingly fresh slant on what is holding America back. No one is free to make choices, including, especially, government officials. Regulatory law has become a nearly impenetrable web of detailed prohibitions and specifications. Everyone is hamstrung. Dense regulation discourages individuals, communities, and companies from taking new initiatives. It also prevents government officials from making the case by case judgment needed for effective regulatory oversight.”
— Edmund S. Phelps, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Economics
Life Without Lawyers, W. W. Norton, 2009
“Philip Howard’s Life Without Lawyers hits the nail on the head -– incoherent legalities stultify necessary change and frustrate attempts to use common sense in solving the problems that face our country. This is a real wake-up call from one of America’s finest public minds.”
—Bill Bradley, former U.S. senator
The Collapse of the Common Good, Ballantine Books, 2007
“Philip K. Howard’s book rings true. Teachers have such a hard time being themselves, dragging around the millstone of bureaucracy. Will all our well-intentioned efforts to regulate and manage our way to social welfare backfire, creating a society where people aren’t free to exercise their own judgment and good will?”
— Wendy Kopp, founder and president of Teach for America
The Death of Common Sense, Random House, 1995
“A brilliant diagnosis … forceful, trenchant, and eloquent.”
— Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Pulitzer Prize-winning historian.
Can we import power from Nova Scotia wind farms?
Some have suggested laying an underwater cable to send power from wind farms off Nova Scotia to southern New England.
Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com.
Given local opposition by some to current and proposed wind-farm projects off southern New England and the Trump administration’s dislike of wind-power projects, and, indeed, of “green energy” in general, it’s perhaps not surprising that Massachusetts officials are sounding out Canada about getting power from planned offshore wind projects around Nova Scotia.
Of course, this would pose such challenges as the need to install extra transmission capacity to bring the power to southern New England and would undermine hopes for jobs in construction and maintenance for offshore wind projects in our region. And building a transmission line on land could face the sort of pushback from powerful groups and localities that has long delayed such projects as getting more hydroelectricity from Quebec into New England.
Of course, laying a mostly underwater line would be possible but would present problems, too, perhaps including complaints from fishermen.
And would Trump seek a way to put a tariff on that electricity?
We should bear in mind that Trump’s gyrational tariffs and his threats to take over what had been such a friendly ally have created long-term distrust and animosity there toward our crazy country, which over time will do considerable economic and geopolitical damage to the United States.
Meanwhile, visits by Canadians to New England, a region our northern neighbors have long favored, continue to fall because of Trump policies.
New ancient art
“Face First” (mosaic), by Pat McChristian, in the show “New England Mosaic Society: Ten Years on the Cutting Edge,’’ at the Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, Mass., opening Aug. 17.
The museum says:
“Mosaics as an art form is constantly stretching and expanding to be used in endlessly different ways. This exhibition features work made from multitudes of materials, used in unexpected and compelling ways, which completely relate to the current world and circumstances.’’
Llewellyn King: A way forward for PBS from genteel poverty
Studios of WGBH-TV, on Guest Street in Boston (with “digital mural" LED screen). The now PBS affiliate, which opened in 1955, is one of the oldest and best endowed public-television stations, and the site of much programing used by PBS.
The station's call letters refer to Great Blue Hill, in Milton, the highest point in the inner Greater Boston area, at 635 feet. The top of the hill served as the original location of WGBH-TV's transmitter facility. The transmitter for WGBH radio, a major NPR affiliate, continues to operate to this day.
WEST WARWICK, R.I.
Over the years, I have often been critical of the Public Broadcasting Service. That in spite of the fact that for 28 years, I have produced and hosted a program, White House Chronicle, which is carried by many PBS stations.
It is an independent program for which I find all the funding and decide its direction, content and staffing.
My argument with PBS — brought to mind by the administration’s canceling of $1.1 billion in funding for it and National Public Radio — is that it is too cautious, that it is consciously or by default lagging rather than leading.
Television needs creativity, change and excitement. Old programs, carefully curated travel, and cooking shows don’t really don’t cut it. News and public-affairs shows are not enough. Cable does them 24/7.
My co-host on White House Chronicle, Adam Clayton Powell III, a savant of public broadcasting, having held executive positions at NPR and PBS, assures us that they aren’t going away, although some stations will fail.
I believe that PBS has often been too careful because of the money, which has been dribbled out by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Some conservatives have been after PBS since its launch.
It is reasonable to look to the British Broadcasting Corp. when discussing PBS because the BBC is the source of so much of the programming that is carried by PBS — although not all the British programming is from the BBC. Two of the most successful imports were from the U.K. — Upstairs, Downstairs, which aired in the 1970s, and, more recently, Downton Abbey — were developed by British commercial television, not by the BBC.
Even so, the BBC is a force that has played a major role in shaping state broadcasters in many countries. At its best, it is formidable in news, in drama and in creativity. It is also said to be left-of-center and woke. Both of these are things PBS is accused of, but I have never found bias in the news products. What I have found is a kind of genteel poverty.
I once asked the head of a major PBS station why it didn’t do more original American drama. “It would cost too much,” was the response in a flash. Yet, there are local theater companies aplenty who would love to craft something for PBS if they were invited.
Sometimes the idea is more important than the money. Get that right, and PBS will have something it can sell around the world. It should be an on-ramp for talent.
Maybe, stirred by its newly induced poverty, PBS can lead the television world into a new business paradigm.
First, of course, take advertising and don’t be coy about it, as Masterpiece Theater is about Viking cruises. Take the advertising.
Second, see what is happening across the television firmament, where more TV is now viewed on YouTube than on TV sets. This happens at a time of the viewer’s choosing. PBS needs to jump on this and create a pay-per-view paradigm so that when it has a big show, as it did with Ken Burns’ Civil War years ago, it can prosper, as well as selling the show around the globe.
PBS is a confederation of stations, each one independent but tethered to PBS in Washington, which provides what is known as the hard feed. These are programs pre-approved for central distribution by PBS. Independent producers aren’t acknowledged on this, nor do they get listed as being PBS programs.
I remember how I had heard that WHUT, Howard University’s television station, was open to new programs. So I took a pilot over to WHUT. One young woman said “yes” and a program was born.
PBS needs to open its doors to new talent, new shows and uses of new technologies. Leading the pack in broadcasting innovation would be the best revenge. New money will follow.
NPR is a different story. Its product is successful. But it needs to be open to new funding, including much better acknowledged corporate funding. If Google or some other cash-laden entity wants to underwrite a day of broadcasting, let it. Don’t give it the editor’s chair, just a seat in accounting.
On X: @llewellynking2
Bluesky: @llewellynking.bsky.social
Subscribe to Llewellyn King's File on Substack
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS. He’s based in Rhode Island.
xxx
Tom Lehrer —The great mid-century singing songwriter/ satirist
Tom Lehrer performing in Copenhagen in 1967.
Tom Lehrer, mathematician, satirical songwriter and performer, died July 26 in Cambridge, Mass., at 97.
In the ‘50’s and ‘60’s he was a darling of upper-middle class college-educated people, especially in the Northeast, though his fame spread beyond them.
Thee are indirect references to Harvard and Yale in this song, “Bright College Days’’. His this link to hear him sing it.
And here’s his most famous record album.
Bright college days, oh, carefree days that fly
To thee we sing with our glasses raised on high
Let's drink a toast as each of us recalls
Ivy-covered professors in ivy-covered halls
Turn on the spigot
Pour the beer and swig it
And gaudeamus igit-ur
Here's to parties we tossed
To the games that we lost
(We shall claim that we won them some day)
To the girls young and sweet
To the spacious back seat
Of our roommate's beat up Chevrolet
To the beer and Benzedrine
To the way that the dean
Tried so hard to be pals with us all
To excuses we fibbed
To the papers we cribbed
From the genius who lived down the hall
To the tables down at Mory's
(Wherever that may be)
Let us drink a toast to all we love the best
We will sleep through all the lectures
And cheat on the exams
And we'll pass, and be forgotten with the rest
Oh, soon we'll be out amid the cold world's strife
Soon we'll be sliding down the razor blade of life
But as we go our sordid sep'rate ways
We shall ne'er forget thee, thou golden college days
Hearts full of youth
Hearts full of truth
Six parts gin to one part vermouth
We all need more escape routes these days
“Escape Routes” (acrylic on canvas), by Marcia Santore, in her show “The Long View Paintings,’’ at the Belknap Mill Museum Riverside Gallery, Laconia, N.H., opening Sept. 2
The gallery explains:
“This exhibition draws on half-remembered, dreamed, or imagined places created by seen or unseen openings, indeterminate interior and exterior spaces, the questions raised of who might inhabit those spaces or what lies over the horizon, and the potential to tell or conceal multiple, unfolding stories.’’
Jules Roscoe: Alleged drug dealers attack 2 Globe journalists and 2 other people at infamous Boston intersection
Addicts near “Mass and Cass,’ in Boston.
From The Boston Guardian
(Robert Whitcomb, editor of New England Diary, is chairman of The Boston Guardian board.)
Two South End residents and two Boston Globe staff members were attacked on the street last week by a group of alleged drug dealers after taking photos of open-air drug use.
The attack marks an escalation in the continuing health crisis at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, colloquially Mass and Cass, which is widely considered the epicenter of Boston’s drug problem.
The two residents were touring the area around Rosie’s Place on Harrison Avenue on July 16 with Globe reporter Niki Griswold and photographer Barry Chin, to document instances of open-air drug use. It was a humid 93-degree day, and the city had just conducted a sweep to disperse groups of drug users from Mass and Cass.
“The city had swept the main intersection 15 minutes before [the reporter] got there,” one of the residents said. “Seems to keep happening before reporters show up.”
When Chin started to take photos, the residents said, a drug user approached them and started threatening them by swinging a “cat’s paw” weapon, a metal rod with nails sticking out of it.
They managed to deter this person, but as the Globe staffers continued taking photos, the person got the attention of some others whom the residents identified as dealers.
“I don’t know for a fact that he’s a dealer,” the second resident said. Both residents were granted anonymity for their safety. “But it is my observation that many of the dealers ride on blue bikes from encampment to encampment. He was much more threatening. He wanted to take the camera, wanted us to delete the pictures.”
To protect the photographer, the first resident started to usher the group out of the area, which got the alleged dealer’s attention.
“He starts going toe-to-toe with me, saying, ‘I’m going to ruin your life,’” the first resident said. “Then he reaches for his pocket, and I think he’s going for a knife or a gun or something, and I’ve got one second here.”
This resident has some self-defense training, so he managed to flip the assailant onto the ground, stunning him and the other dealers long enough for the group to run towards the nearby Boston Water and Sewer commission.
“I started banging on the door, grabbing every single piece of glass, trying to find something open, screaming, trying to draw attention,” the resident said. When the group got in, the alleged dealers stopped pursuing them, allowing them to call the police. The second resident had to be escorted home to ensure they weren’t followed.
“I’m glad no one was hurt,” the second resident said. “The bigger thing was that the city still hasn't cleaned this up. They try to hide it, but it’s still dangerous. The reporter was trying to figure out how dangerous it was, and it was not our intention to give them such accurate firsthand knowledge.”
Since the attack, the residents have been contacted by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office and the detective assigned to the case, but have not received outreach from Mayor Wu or her staff. As of July 20, the two residents had not yet been given a copy of the police report.
Mass and Cass has been a sore point for city government for over a decade, but Michelle Wu’s administration has continually made claims that it’s improving thanks to such initiatives as shelter construction and voluntary treatment options. Residents, however, say that such city measures are not effective.
“It’s not improving,” City Councilor Ed Flynn, who reached out to both residents after the attack, said in a phone call. “It is a public health and public safety crisis, and it’s impacting so many neighborhoods throughout Boston. The problem has spread significantly. There is an escalation of violence.”
One of the residents shared a catalogue of photo and video evidence he had taken from their home windows with The Boston Guardian, including photos of active drug use, cash changing hands, and people carrying what look like firearms.
“The one team doing the job is [the Coordinated Response Team],” the first resident said. “I have only good things to say about Kelly Young’s team. There’s only five of them and they do miracles. But other than that, everyone’s patting us on the head saying they’re making it better, and you’re not. We’re getting attacked. We’re getting hurt, we’re documenting it. You’re lying to us.”
Cubism in Cushing
“Forest Geometries Cube (Earth),’’ by Gina Siepel, at Langlais Art Preserve, Cushing, Maine.
This is a site-specific installation by interdisciplinary artist Siepel on the preserve’s 2.3-mile woodland trail.
Olson House, in Cushing, in 1995
Photo by lcm1863
This description is edited from Wikipedia:
The Olson House was depicted in Andrew Wyeth's famous 1948 painting Christina's World, which was used as Dahlia Gillespie's house in the horror video game series Silent Hill, and inspired the farmer's house in the 1978 film Days of Heaven.
Chris Powell: Why all the hungry children in Conn.?
MANCHESTER, Conn.
Connecticut's summer meals program for children is being treated by state government and news organizations as a sort of triumph. Necessary as it may be, the program is actually a sign of disaster.
The program, operated by the state Education Department, Connecticut Foodshare, the U.S. Agriculture Department, and municipal governments, serves free breakfasts and lunches every day at 600 locations around the state -- schools, parks, and community facilities -- to an estimated 37,000 children 18 and under, no questions asked.
Connecticut News Junkie reports that the program is meant to substitute for the free breakfasts and lunches provided at schools during the school year.
Additionally, during school vacation state government has authorized an extra $36 million in welfare benefits to households with children.
Discussing the program the other day, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz said, “One in six of our kids are food insecure. The summer months are a strain on family budgets without access to those free meals."
If one out of every six children is “food insecure" -- unable to be fed reliably at home -- that's nearly 17 percent of Connecticut's children. That sounds like poverty approaching depression levels. Even greater poverty is indicated by the estimated 40 percent of births in the state that are being covered by Medicaid, welfare medical insurance. How are people on Medicaid prepared to have children?
The lieutenant governor noted that heavy participation in the free-meals program clashes with Connecticut's image as a wealthy state. Indeed, it should clash enough to prompt an investigation by the General Assembly as to the causes of all this poverty.
Simply appropriating more and more money to ameliorate poverty shouldn't be enough. Why can't so many parents support their children?
Failing to ask about and act against the causes of Connecticut's deepening poverty guarantees that it will get worse still.
* * *
When prisons in Connecticut release inmates, the former offenders aren't necessarily set free. They are usually delivered into poverty. Most never had much in the way of work skills to begin with, many are mentally ill, and few jobs except menial ones are available to unskilled and mentally ill people with prison records.
For 150 years Community Partners in Action, formerly the Connecticut Prison Association, has provided transitional services to former offenders returning to society, helping them find housing, jobs, and mental health and addiction treatment, as well as providing moral support.
The organization operates “re-entry welcome centers" throughout the state, in large part with grants from state government, since rehabilitating and resettling former offenders is really government's obligation -- not just its obligation to the former offenders but its obligation to society generally, which is in danger if former offenders return to crime.
So to help released prisoners achieve a decent life, state government should provide them with a year of basic housing, medical insurance, and a job at minimum wage or better. They could do plenty, if only by collecting roadside litter -- if the state employee unions wouldn't be overcome by jealousy.
But the other week the Connecticut Mirror reported that the new state budget has erased the $1.5 grant that Community Partners in Action was scheduled to receive next year. As a result the organization will curtail accepting new clients.
House Speaker Matt Ritter says the grant was removed to help keep the new state budget within spending limits but legislators hope to revisit the issue in a special session this fall.
How much more hypocritical bleating about the poor will Democratic legislators do before then?
At least one group won't have to worry about its appropriations.
Gov. Ned Lamont recently said that he is confident that his administration will reach agreement with the state employee unions on new contracts. The governor reminded the unions that $100 million for raises already has been budgeted, and the contracts probably will provide raises around 5 percent.
Since next year is a gubernatorial and legislative election year, that $100 million is a lock, and for the moment it could seem as if state employees raises devoured the prisoner re-entry centers and some other more compelling things.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net).
Ian Smith/Lucy Hutyra: To reduce summer heat in Boston and other big cities, think trees and white roofs
The albedo of several types of roofs (lower values means higher temperatures). Albedo means the proportion of the incident light or radiation that’s reflected by a surface.
The famously well-treed Commonwealth Avenue Mall, in Boston’s affluent Back Bay section. Poorer sections in that city tend to have less tree density.
From The Conversation, except for images above.
Ian Smith is a research scientist in Earth & Environment at Boston University
Lucy Hutyra is a prrofessor & chairperson of the Earth and Environment Department at Boston University
Lucy Hutyra has received funding from the U.S. federal government and foundations, including the World Resources Institute and Burroughs Wellcome Fund, for her scholarship on urban climate and mitigation strategies. She was a recipient of a 2023 MacArthur Fellowship for her work in this area.
Ian Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
BOSTON
When summer turns up the heat, cities can start to feel like an oven, as buildings and pavement trap the sun’s warmth and vehicles and air conditioners release more heat into the air.
The temperature in an urban neighborhood with few trees can be more than 10 degrees Fahrenheit (5.5 Celsius) higher than in nearby suburbs. That means air conditioning works harder, straining the electrical grid and leaving communities vulnerable to power outages.
There are some proven steps that cities can take to help cool the air – planting trees that provide shade and moisture, for example, or creating cool roofs that reflect solar energy away from the neighborhood rather than absorbing it.
But do these steps pay off everywhere?
We study heat risk in cities as urban ecologists and have been exploring the impact of tree-planting and reflective roofs in different cities and different neighborhoods across cities. What we’re learning can help cities and homeowners be more targeted in their efforts to beat the heat.
The wonder of trees
Urban trees offer a natural defense against rising temperatures. They cast shade and release water vapor through their leaves, a process akin to human sweating. That cools the surrounding air and reduces afternoon heat.
Adding trees to city streets, parks and residential yards can make a meaningful difference in how hot a neighborhood feels, with blocks that have tree canopies nearly 3 F (1.7 C) cooler than blocks without trees.
Comparing maps of New York’s vegetation and temperature shows the cooling effect of parks and neighborhoods with more trees. In the map on the left, lighter colors are areas with fewer trees. Light areas in the map on the right are hotter. NASA/USGS Landsat
But planting trees isn’t always simple.
In hot, dry cities, trees often require irrigation to survive, which can strain already limited water resources. Trees must survive for decades to grow large enough to provide shade and release enough water vapor to reduce air temperatures.
Annual maintenance costs – about US$900 per tree per year in Boston – can surpass the initial planting investment.
Most challenging of all, dense urban neighborhoods where heat is most intense are often too packed with buildings and roads to grow more trees.
How cool roofs can help on hot days
Another option is “cool roofs.” Coating rooftops with reflective paint or using light-colored materials allows buildings to reflect more sunlight back into the atmosphere rather than absorbing it as heat.
These roofs can lower the temperature inside an apartment building without air conditioning by about 2 to 6 F (1 to 3.3 C), and can cut peak cooling demand by as much as 27% in air-conditioned buildings, one study found. They can also provide immediate relief by reducing outdoor temperatures in densely populated areas. The maintenance costs are also lower than expanding urban forests.
Two workers apply a white coating to the roof of a row home in Philadelphia. AP Photo/Matt Rourke
However, like trees, cool roofs come with limits. Cool roofs work better on flat roofs than sloped roofs with shingles, as flat roofs are often covered by heat-trapping rubber and are exposed to more direct sunlight over the course of an afternoon.
Cities also have a finite number of rooftops that can be retrofitted. And in cities that already have many light-colored roofs, a few more might help lower cooling costs in those buildings, but they won’t do much more for the neighborhood.
By weighing the trade-offs of both strategies, cities can design location-specific plans to beat the heat.
Choosing right mix of cooling solutions
Many cities around the world have taken steps to adapt to extreme heat, with tree planting and cool roof programs that implement reflectivity requirements or incentivize cool roof adoption.
In Detroit, nonprofit organizations have planted more than 166,000 trees since 1989. In Los Angeles, building codes now require new residential roofs to meet specific reflectivity standards.
Workers plant a series of trees at the Coleman Young Community Center in Detroit in 2023. AP Photo/Carlos Osorio
In a recent study, we analyzed Boston’s potential to lower heat in vulnerable neighborhoods across the city. The results demonstrate how a balanced, budget-conscious strategy could deliver significant cooling benefits.
For example, we found that planting trees can cool the air 35% more than installing cool roofs in places where trees can actually be planted.
However, many of the best places for new trees in Boston aren’t in the neighborhoods that need help. In these neighborhoods, we found that reflective roofs were the better choice.
By investing less than 1% of the city’s annual operating budget, about US$34 million, in 2,500 new trees and 3,000 cool roofs targeting the most at-risk areas, we found that Boston could reduce heat exposure for nearly 80,000 residents. The results would reduce summertime afternoon air temperatures by over 1 F (0.6 C) in those neighborhoods.
While that reduction might seem modest, reductions of this magnitude have been found to dramatically reduce heat-related illness and death, increase labor productivity and reduce energy costs associated with building cooling.
Not every city will benefit from the same mix. Boston’s urban landscape includes many flat, black rooftops that reflect only about 12% of sunlight, making cool roofs that reflect over 65% of sunlight an especially effective intervention. Boston also has a relatively moist growing season that supports a thriving urban tree canopy, making both solutions viable.
In places with fewer flat, dark rooftops suitable for cool roof conversion, tree planting may offer more value. Conversely, in cities with little room left for new trees or where extreme heat and drought limit tree survival, cool roofs may be the better bet.
Phoenix, for example, already has many light-colored roofs. Trees might be an option there, but they will require irrigation.
Getting solutions where people need them
Adding shade along sidewalks can do double-duty by giving pedestrians a place to get out of the sun and cooling buildings. In New York City, for example, street trees account for an estimated 25% of the entire urban forest.
Cool roofs can be more difficult for a government to implement because they require working with building owners. That often means cities need to provide incentives. Louisville, Kentucky, for example, offers rebates of up to $2,000 for homeowners who install reflective roofing materials, and up to $5,000 for commercial businesses with flat roofs that use reflective coatings.
In Boston, planting trees, left, and increasing roof reflectivity, right, were both found to be effective ways to cool urban areas. Ian Smith et al. 2025
Efforts like these can help spread cool roof benefits across densely populated neighborhoods that need cooling help most.
As climate change drives more frequent and intense urban heat, cities have powerful tools for lowering the temperature. With some attention to what already exists and what’s feasible, they can find the right budget-conscious strategy that will deliver cooling benefits for everyone.
Seize the day or go back to bed?
“Cape Cod Morning” (oil on canvas), by Edward Hopper (1882-1967), at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art.
“A swarm of bees in May. Is worth a load of hay. A swarm of bees in June. Is worth a silver spoon. A swarm of bees in July. Isn't worth a fly.’’
— Alleged old New England saying
Microscopic Marvels
Work (pencil, ink and encaustic medium) by Cambridge-based artist Katrina Abbott.
She is a member of New England Wax.
She explains:
“Nature, color and climate change inspire my art. By representing the beauty and diversity of the natural world, I hope to inspire viewers to take a closer look at the world around us, and ultimately be more thoughtful and careful stewards of our planet. I bring my background in marine biology and environmental studies and the experience of years spent both on the ocean and in the backcountry to my art. I paint, print and work in wax to represent large and small visions of nature from the earth from space to frogs, cells and diatoms.’’
‘Looking as transformation’
“Medusa #’’ (pigment print, resin, Venetian pigment), by Jennifer Liston Munson, in her sh0w “The Petrifying Gaze,’’ at Kingston Gallery, Boston, Sept. 4-28.
Edited from the gallery’s comments:
‘‘Jennifer Liston Munson’s work embodies the quiet power of close attention and layered seeing. ‘The Petrifying Gaze’ explores the myth of Medusa, resonates with curiosity and contemplation, asking us to linger and to look again….
“Yet it is less the horror than the grace
Which turns the gazer's spirit into stone…”
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, “On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci’’
“Munson’s interest in Medusa mythology speaks to contemporary aesthetics that reverse the gaze and honor the liveliness of objects. As a museum professional accustomed to caring for objects, she brings that reverence to her own practice—looking closely, holding space, and honoring the presence of the maker within the object…
“In ‘The Petrifying Gaze,’ translucent forms hold both the gaze and the memory of what they contain, like a pool of water reflecting back layered realities. This translucency fosters ambiguity and mystery, encouraging multiple understandings of what an object, a space, or an idea can be. It is an invitation to embrace the uncertain, to allow the vagueness that asks us to look deeper….
“In Munson’s words and practice, the image of the object becomes an object again—quietly, insistently, reminding us that looking can be an act of transformation.’’
Should such places be for-profit?
Gabriel House before the fire.
— Fall River Tax Assessor Office photo
Taken from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
The horrific fire in Gabriel House, the assisted-living place for elderly people in Fall River, an inferno that killed 10 residents and has left 29 injured, raises the question of how much local, state and federal oversight there is over such places serving low-income people. Especially given the rapid increase in America’s elderly population, we must address this.
It seems that some of Gabriel House’s residents would more properly have been in nursing homes, which are more tightly regulated than assisted-living establishments. And there have been complaints about very substandard conditions at the building.
Gabriel House is owned by Gabriel Care, a corporation controlled by Dennis Etzkorn, who owns some health-care facilities in Massachusetts and is listed as an officer in numerous corporations registered in that state. He has had his share of legal controversies. How much of a role, if any, did the drive to maximize profit cause conditions that helped lead to the fire?
William Morgan: Sensing the soul of winter
The search for New England postcards recently produced this scene of a snowed-in village from a bin in the Red Chair shop in Hudson, N.Y. The Red Chair specializes in French antiques, linens, glassware and silver. But this undramatic townscape curiously appeared amidst a box of slightly naughty belle époque cards.
In the Red Chair
— Photo by William Morgan
This could be any town in northern New England, back when we had more major snowfalls than we do now. The giveaway that it might be farther north is the church, clearly not your wooden white Congregational meeting house, and so my guess was northern, francophone Maine. There was no legend on the back side, just a cryptic identification in pencil: “Canada’’.
The picture that this postcard evoked for me was the opening image in a slide presentation by the brilliant Canadian architect Peter Rose. He was one of three noted designers invited to interview at the Speed Museum, a limited competition to see who might to chosen to craft a master plan for the Louisville art museum. The other two were Robert Venturi, the guru of Post Modernism, and his opposite, the neo-Corbusian “white” architect, Charles Gwathmey. Both the rumpled Philadelphian and the super-slick New Yorker spoke about their work, that is, mostly themselves. The Montreal native showed several pictures of his native city and the Quebec landscape blanketed in snow.
Rose, who gave up a spot on the Canadian Olympic ski team to go to Yale’s architecture school, described how a downhill racer has to read the snow, “experiencing and understanding space and materials – snow, ice and trees, effects of light and contour–while hurtling through space as fast as possible.” Buildings, too, Rose noted, are experienced through motion as well; successfully reading topography, he declared, played an important part in his role as a designer.
Peter Rose in a private house in Manhattan in 2008.
—Photo by William Morgan
As Rose spoke of suns low in the sky and ice-covered farms and streets, one of the members of the Speed selection committee whispered to me that he did not understand why the talk of winter. While Rose prevailed over his more famous competitors in Louisville, that misunderstanding of the quiet yet passionate soul of America’s northern neighbor was sadly typical.
Providence-based architectural critic and historian William Morgan has written a number of books that deal with architecture in northern climes, including Snowbound: Dwelling in Winter and Peter Rose: Houses.
His recent books include Academia — Collegiate Gothic Architecture in the United States and his updated edition of The Cape Cod Cottage.
Too scared to open it?
“Letter from Karl”(1940) (oil on canvas), by Gertrude Abercrombie (1909-1977), in the show “Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery,’’ at the Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, through Jan. 1, 2026.
The curator says:
The show is the first nationally touring presentation of Abercrombie’s art, celebrating “an artist who has been historically marginalized. Abercrombie (1909–1977) was a critical figure in the mid-20th Century Chicago art and jazz scenes. Though she had a singular vision, her reliance on her inner consciousness and use of a fantastical style connected her to broader developments in American Modernism.’’
Honoring a musical pioneer
Lowell Mason
Lowell Mason House, in Medfield, Mass.
This is an edited version of a press release
MEDFIELD, Mass.
Following years of historic-house restoration and national fundraising campaigns, the birthplace of one of America’s most influential musical figures will soon be transformed into a space for music education in Medfield. The plan is for it to open in 2027.
Lowell Mason (1792-1872) was responsible for introducing music as a subject to be taught in public schools at a time when this was unheard of. Mason famously said: “Children should be taught music as they are taught to read.” He paid from his own funds for the first-year trial program in Boston schools in 1836, and when this became a great success, other schools followed suit.
Mason also composed and arranged thousands of popular hymns, including “Joy to the World" and “Nearer My God to Thee,’’ as well as publishing many of America’s earliest hymn books and musical instruction manuals.
In 2011, Mason’s birthplace was saved from being razed by the concerned citizens of Medfield. The Lowell Mason House foundation was formed, and the house was moved nearby in Medfield and preserved to become a public place for music-making and musical education. This effort is now close to being accomplished, with multiple practice rooms, a library and the acquisition of the last Mason and Hamlin grand piano made under Mason family ownership all coming together.
“This has become a labor of love not only for local residents but also for those affiliated with music education advocacy at the state and national levels,” says Thomas Reynolds, executive director of the Lowell Mason House.
“We are now embarking upon the Lowell Mason House ‘Fund-to-the-Finish’ campaign with the goal of opening the center to the public in 2027. We encourage all those who love music and value music education for children and adults to visit the Lowell Mason House website to learn more and to consider supporting our final push to completion.”
The Lowell Mason House foundation is excited to be working this summer in an advisory capacity with a class that is a part of the Boston University Arts Administration Graduate Program. The class will be researching potential individual and corporate/foundation prospects as well as advising on the Lowell Mason House fundraising plan.
“In working together, we hope to help the leadership of the Lowell Mason House advance its fundraising efforts and demonstrate to students the opportunities and challenges experienced by nonprofit leaders in raising funds,” says Mary Doorley-Simboski, an ACFRE (Advanced Certified Fund Raising Executive) and faculty member conducting the class.
The board of the Lowell Mason House is eager to receive input from Ms. Doorley-Simboski and her class. “Small volunteer non-profits, such as ours, do not have the resources to hire a staff of professionals, so the opportunity to have a group of people passionate about arts and arts administration to assist us with this effort is fantastic,” says Reynolds.
This summer has been particularly important for the Lowell Mason House as another unique opportunity has presented itself to the group. A direct descendent of Lowell Mason, Will Mason, currently an associate professor of music at Wheaton College, in Norton, Mass., will be taking a new position as associate professor of music at Skidmore College, in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Professor Mason contacted us because he owns the Mason Family piano and is willing to part with it.
This grand piano was manufactured by Mason & Hamlin in 1929 while under family ownership and made for Henry Mason, Lowell Mason’s grandson. Mason family friends Sergei Rachmaninoff, a famous Russian composer, conductor and pianist, and French composer Maurice Ravel were both huge advocates of Mason & Hamlin pianos, specifically requesting them when planning solo performances.
“The opportunity to acquire the Mason Family piano at this time, adding it to our collection of Lowell Mason handwritten music and other personal items, is incredibly timely as we make our final fundraising push,” says Reynolds.
Information about the Lowell Mason House and its “Fund-to-the-Finish” campaign can be found at this link.
A tune from Mason's Handbook for the Boston Academy of Music.