It's great to see the Wu administration unveil their plans for expanding Boston's urban forest. Here are a few of my favorite city parks and woodlands along the Walking City Trail that offer the sensation of being deep in the woods...in the middle of a major city. 1/ The Neponset River Greenway and its shaggier, soon to be further developed cousin, the Edgewater Greenway (Mattapan)

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To ring in the Fourth of July, I'm going for a midday hike on this little-known pathway through the backyards of mansions in Brookline. The rich people who live there try to keep the path hidden but it's open to the public from dawn to dusk. I'll post photos and a trail map soon. This hike is actually a combined walk along two paths. The Cottage Street Preserve and the Sargent Beechwood Nature Walk. Weirdly enough, both preserves are listed on the Town of Brookline website but there are no trail maps. INTERESTING.

In any event, I'll be creating a GPS map

If towns in Massachusetts refuse to open their beaches to the general public, the state should not subsidize the cost of managing and restoring these beaches. If a town wants to privatize the coast, they should have to pay for it alone. #mapoli
wgbh.org/news/local-new… There's a *huge* disconnect between Massachusetts' identity as a liberal state and the more conservative ground reality, and I can't think of a more on-the-nose example of this than our mostly-privatized coastline and how hard it is for the public to access beaches in this state.

Today's the day, folks.

I'd like you to meet the WALKING CITY TRAIL: a 25-mile hike through Boston's parks and urban woodlands. The trail is divided into four sections that are accessible by public transit.

Here's where the trail will take you....

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bostontrails.org Section 1 of the Walking City Trail begins at the Harvest River Bridge, where you'll cross into Boston from Milton and hike through the woods of the Neponset River Greenway to Mattapan center.

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And here we go! Walking the missing final section of the Emerald Necklace, from Franklin Park to Castle Island (and maybe a little extra, if my feet are up for it.) It’s about an 8-9 mile walk, so...a pretty big missing piece of Olmsted’s grand design!

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https://twitter.com/MilesPerHoward/status/1390851727469989890

This is the part of Franklin Park where I began my Emerald Necklace traverse two weeks ago. It’s on the west edge, near Shattuck hospital. Today, we go east through the park, and on to Dorchester and Southie.

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Currently doing this and *really* enjoying it.

Hence follows an urban hike thread for Boston.

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https://twitter.com/MilesPerHoward/status/1385784226252005380

Starting the Emerald Necklace traverse at the western edge of Franklin Park. Estimated journey to Boston Common will be roughly 9 miles. I’m not keeping track of mileage in real time but I am taking plenty of photos and trying to remember to hydrate just as often.

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If you live in Massachusetts, this thread is for you:

Our eviction moratorium expires in 1 week. There's a bill in the House that would stop the resultant homelessness crisis. In this thread, I'll cover why that bill is crucial, why it hasn't been passed, and what we can do.

1/ Back in spring, Massachusetts passed one of the nation's strongest eviction bans. It allowed people to stay in their homes during the pandemic. But there's a problem: renters and small landlords are accruing debt (back rent or missed mortgage payments)

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shelterforce.org/2020/05/20/res…

Folks: I am a travel writer by trade, and after a summer of nervously hitting the road for a couple of socially distanced work trips (within my region of America)...I am asking you, begging you to not travel until our political leaders have committed to containing Covid-19...

1/ I live in Massachusetts and back in March, when we went into lockdown, the idea of leisure travel before a vaccine struck me as ludicrous. Hundreds of people were dying each week. So instead of extolling the virtues of travel, I began writing articles that discouraged travel.

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This piece by @MilesKlee succinctly cuts to the bone of why Mayor Pete is a nightmare for many young people. As someone who wrote a book about today's young voters and the forces that shaped our politics, I'd like to offer some additional words on this. 1/
melmagazine.com/en-us/story/wh… Back in 2013, I began taking dirt cheap bus trips across the U.S. to interview young adults about how they were coping in a post-recession economy. It began as a curiosity (inspired by my own shitty recession job market experience.) Slowly, the conversations became political. 2/

I'm very "glad" to see more people writing and talking about the resurgence of ecofascism as climate change becomes worse. As a former backcountry resident, I've seen how this ideology can take root in people of all political leanings. It indulges a deeply territorial paranoia 1/ Ecofascism emerged from the concept of Aryan fatherhood, which stipulated that bloodlines are intertwined to the land like roots. So, any effort to preserve racial bloodlines must be accompanied by environmental protectionism. This is how the basic ideology of ecofascism goes. 2/

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley have convincingly made the argument that in the Trump era, blue states need to go bigger and bolder when it comes to progressive policy-making—which makes it really weird that Charlie Baker is still so popular in Massachusetts. #mapoli I would love to know what kind of logic allows someone in Massachusetts to simultaneously vote for Ayanna Pressley and Charlie Baker—for a woman whose campaign slogan is #changecantwait and a guy who chains progressive policy-making to the Trump/GOP agenda. I don't get it #mapoli

Dear liberal America. There are a few things I'd like to say about Gov Charlie Baker, in light of his signing our state's first automatic voter registration bill today and being championed by national media. Am I happy he signed the bill? Yes. However, it's complicated... #mapoli Over the last two years, Charlie Baker has been characterized as a "reasonable, moderate, bipartisan Republican" who often stands up to Trump. The adjectives are debatable. However, when it comes to the "standing up to Trump" part, nothing could be further from the truth #mapoli

Last year, I wrote this piece on Charlie Baker's popularity and the fact that Baker has quietly supported Trump's agenda on climate, taxes, and immigration. Now, he's poised to win re-election: even as MA Democrats rage about ICE and child prisons. #mapoli wbur.org/cognoscenti/20… Charlie Baker's popularity among Democrats in Massachusetts is a mass scale act of cognitive dissonance. There are too many people here who decry the destruction of local immigrant families one day and celebrate Baker as a "reasonable, bipartisan moderate" the next day. #mapoli