Roxbury Youth Explore Urban-Planning Solutions to Extreme Heat

THIS SUMMER, 25 high school students from Roxbury studied how extreme heat affects their communities and the city, and what role urban planning and design have in mitigating it. The program, which ran for the month of July, was offered by UMass Boston’s Department of Urban Planning and Community Development and its Sustainable Solutions Lab in partnership with the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA), Boston Public Schools, and Roxbury Community College.

The 2023 Summer Program in Urban Planning, now in its second year, introduces youth of color from environmental justice communities to careers in urban planning, design, and development. It is part of 2023 Expanding Boston’s Pipeline for Youth of Color in Urban Planning, a citywide project launched by the BPDA, Boston Public Schools, UMass Boston, and Boston Architectural College that is aimed at increasing the percentage of non-white urban planners in Boston from 5 to 25 percent over the next 20 years. The BPDA supported this program with an award of $100,000. The program also received generous support from the Conatus Foundation.

As part of the program, students toured Roxbury’s historic Wakullah Dale neighborhood, used temperature sensors to record air temperatures at various public sites, conducted interviews with residents to understand how they cope with increasing temperatures, and researched design practices that alleviate urban heat islands. The high school students found that the air temperatures were, on average, 10 degrees warmer in Roxbury than the temperatures recorded at Logan Airport, which is where Boston’s official temperature is measured. A subgroup of the students also worked with local urban designers to come up with guidelines and proposals for a new children’s playground to be constructed on the Roxbury Community College campus near historic Dudley House.

The youth presented their extreme heat results, trends they found in their interviews, and their design ideas and guidelines at an event at Roxbury Community College on July 27. Their work will be compiled in a report that will be publicly available this fall.

For more information on the summer program, or to get a copy of the report when available, contact Ken Reardon at kenneth.reardon@umb.edu or email the Sustainable Solutions Lab at ssl@umb.edu.

Alumni and Faculty Bookshelf

Redeem the Lines

Michael Patrick Murphy ’99

Redeem the Lines follows the lives of protagonist Patrick and his best friend from high school, Nate. Patrick, an Irish-Catholic boxer fresh out of prison for something he didn’t do, returns to his old neighborhood, which he barely recognizes because of the widespread flooding of heroin and its zombie addicts. At the same time, Nate, a Black out-of-state college graduate, comes back to Boston to attend yet another funeral. Breaking down neighborhood boundaries and racial biases, Redeem the Lines will thrust readers through whiskey benders, bare-knuckle brawls, and midnight rendezvous to expose the true colors of prejudice and corruption and find the key to resolving both.

Harlem World: How Hip Hop’s Super Showdown Changed Music Forever

Jonathan Mael ’14, G’17

Harlem World chronicles a fateful night of hip-hop rivalry between the Fantastic Romantic Five and the Cold Crush Brothers and shares a new look at how Harlem helped ignite a musical revolution. This is the first book of its kind to focus on 1979 to 1983 and the legendary battles at Harlem World while connecting the genre's formative years to its massive role in American society today.

When All Else Fails

Lana Ayers ’91

When All Else Fails is a collection of poems that explores a rocky childhood, self-discoveries, losses of adulthood, and more. Ayers is a poet, novelist, publisher, and timetravel enthusiast. Her poems have appeared in such places as Rattle, The London Reader, Peregrine, MacGuffin, and Verse Daily. An author of seven full-length poetry collections, she has two more forthcoming: Overtures and The Autobiography of Rain.

Correction: In the last issue of Beacons, we mistakenly printed outdated information on Stephen O’Connor’s G’89 publishing history. O’Connor is the author of three novels and two collections of short stories. For more information on his projects, visit lowellwriter.com.

Africa’s New Global Politics: Regionalism in International Relations

Rita “Kiki” Edozie, former Interim Dean, McCormack Graduate School (co-authored with Moses Khisa)

Africa’s New Global Politics: Regionalism in International Relations is a culmination of six years of research and writing and offers important contributions to the field, not least of which is that Africa has much to offer international relations, even if scholars have minimized or overlooked its place in post-colonial international relations theories. Edozie’s eighth scholarly book, Africa’s New Global Politics has been well-received since its publication, earning a spot on the prestigious Choice Outstanding Academic Titles list from the American Library Association, which noted it as a “well-constructed, thoughtful book [that] is highly recommended.”