tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/boston-14025/articlesBoston – The Conversation2023-10-27T12:16:47Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2138532023-10-27T12:16:47Z2023-10-27T12:16:47ZA Halloween party in Boston turned ugly when a gang hurled antisemitic slurs and attacked Jewish teenagers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556223/original/file-20231026-25-u7ye03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Boston Globe detailed the Hecht House attacks in its Nov. 3, 1950, edition.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://bostonglobe.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe/134054748/">Boston Globe</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On a chilly Halloween night in late October 1950, dozens of Jewish teenagers and their friends gathered for merriment in the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester at the Hecht House, a Jewish community center that provided job training and hosted social events. While there, they celebrated the holiday with dancing, cake and ice cream.</p>
<p>Then, terror approached. </p>
<p>Motivated by antisemitism, neighborhood teens launched a brutal attack on the premises of Hecht House that left many of the young Jews at the party injured and some hospitalized. The attackers faced no repercussions.</p>
<p>The assaults at Hecht House sparked community conversations about anti-Jewish violence and its minimization by local authorities, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/antisemitic-attacks/2021/05/23/8907864e-bbdd-11eb-83e3-0ca705a96ba4_story.html">themes that resonate today</a> given the rising numbers of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/antisemitic-incidents-on-rise-across-the-u-s-report-finds">antisemitic hate crimes</a>.</p>
<p>Details of the Hecht House attacks remain overlooked in <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/antisemitism-in-america-9780195101126">historical analyses about antisemitism</a>, where outbursts like these are often discounted as sporadic or insignificant.</p>
<p>Yet the incident – and what led up to it and its subsequent fallout – underscore the importance of taking antisemitic extremism seriously. </p>
<h2>Origins of violence</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.american.edu/cas/history/phd/phd-students.cfm">My research</a> on the history of antisemitic radicalism in America led me to the papers of the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization that fights antisemitism and extremism, where I learned about the Hecht House attacks. </p>
<p>The trouble started months before the attacks, when non-Jewish teens began <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/02/americas-forgotten-pogroms-222181/">assaulting Jews throughout Boston</a>, a prominent destination for Jewish people displaced by World War II. </p>
<p>Coupled with longtime antisemitic myths, the presence of these Jewish teens, called “foreigners” by some white Bostonians, spelled disaster for some members of <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/what-happened-to-the-jews-of-bostons-jew-hill-avenue/">Boston’s Jewish community</a>. As I learned further in my research, new immigrants were not the only Jews to suffer violence throughout the 1950s. </p>
<p>Youth gangs roamed the streets shouting regularly, “Come on out you dirty Jews, we’re going to stone and kill you!”</p>
<p>In one incident, a group attacked a disabled Jewish war veteran incapable of defending himself. In another, they beat a Jewish refugee boy whose parents had perished in a Nazi concentration camp.</p>
<p>In comments to local newspapers and official reports, Boston police downplayed such attacks as symptoms of “juvenile delinquency,” blaming bad parenting and teenage mischief rather than a toxic ideology.</p>
<p>When the <a href="https://www.jcrcboston.org/about-jcrc-2/">Jewish Community Council of Boston</a> complained to authorities about the wave of youth violence, officials responded with indifference, if not outright disdain.</p>
<p>“Kids have always called each other names and fought,” said one official to local Jewish leaders. According to the Jewish Community Council’s records, another common response was that the Jews were “just trying to stir up trouble,” reading “prejudice into fist fights.”</p>
<h2>Halloween at Hecht House</h2>
<p>Days before the Halloween attack, drunken teens broke into Hecht House and spouted antisemitic slurs. A fight erupted with Jewish residents, who kicked them out. </p>
<p>But the drunken teens promised to eventually return and “clean up the Jews.” </p>
<p>At the house, a Jewish boy soon discovered a note warning that “Hecht House Jews” had better “watch out.” The Anti-Defamation League collected the facts of the encounter from the Jews involved.</p>
<p>When the Halloween attack finally happened, between 1,500 and 2,000 spectators gathered close to Hecht House, hoping to catch a glimpse of the action.</p>
<p>The first victim, David Sault, was a Christian friend of the Jewish residents. He tried to enter the house through a back door when six boys seized him and beat him unconscious with a baseball bat. A police report listed the incident as “injured by falling from a ledge.”</p>
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<img alt="An image of a Boston police record detailing the beating of a man who had Jewish friends." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555916/original/file-20231025-22-8571o6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555916/original/file-20231025-22-8571o6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=137&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555916/original/file-20231025-22-8571o6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555916/original/file-20231025-22-8571o6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=137&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555916/original/file-20231025-22-8571o6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=172&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555916/original/file-20231025-22-8571o6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=172&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555916/original/file-20231025-22-8571o6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=172&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Boston police record detailing the beating of David Sault.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anti-Defamation League</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to eyewitnesses, a gang of at least 15 assailants began a violent rampage chasing Jews from Hecht House down poorly lit neighborhood streets. They battered one Jewish boy, Milton Segal, with a tire chain, leaving him with a broken nose and cuts on his face and chest. Though he was hospitalized, Segal’s case did not appear in police records.</p>
<p>Two Jewish teens traveling to the party heard of the commotion and removed their trouser belts, prepared to defend themselves. Police accosted the pair and cuffed them for “being armed with a weapon,” but they were quickly released.</p>
<p>Two days later, when false rumors circulated within the Jewish community that a Jewish boy had died as a result of his injuries, some Jewish teenagers vowed revenge.</p>
<p>To avoid suspicion, they left Hecht House in small groups to confront the gang by a bowling alley. Both groups came armed with axes, razors and brass knuckles, but a policeman drew his revolver to stop the factions from fighting. </p>
<p>Eighteen of the 25 Jewish boys present were booked for participation in a fight, but the dozens of white Bostonians involved escaped consequences. </p>
<p>The violence persisted throughout the 1950s as Jews and others in the Boston community disagreed over its origins and the role of antisemitism. One writer for the Boston Herald commented that some community members might “dismiss these incidents as boy stuff and unavoidable.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An image of a newsletter shows the details of antisemitic incidents in Boston." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555915/original/file-20231025-19-t7ntuq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555915/original/file-20231025-19-t7ntuq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555915/original/file-20231025-19-t7ntuq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555915/original/file-20231025-19-t7ntuq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555915/original/file-20231025-19-t7ntuq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555915/original/file-20231025-19-t7ntuq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555915/original/file-20231025-19-t7ntuq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The November 1950 edition of an Anti-Defamation League publication highlights antisemitic attacks in Boston.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anti-Defamation League</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another journalist in the Boston Traveler wrote that “the youth-gang warfare has more of the coloration of juvenile delinquency than of antisemitism.” </p>
<p>Boston’s police commissioner also denied that the issue was racial or religious. After the Halloween debacle, he told Anti-Defamation League representatives that “vandalism and hoodlumism” were responsible for the affronts.</p>
<h2>The Jewish reaction</h2>
<p>Boston’s Jewish Community Council insisted that “deep-seated antisemitic” attitudes were to blame. Nationally, the Jewish press condemned the Boston police for its inability to “cope with organized kid pogroms.” </p>
<p>Jews drew connections between Christian youth gangs, the antisemitic and massively popular radio priest <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/holocaust-coughlin/">Father Charles Coughlin</a>, and his followers in the extremist militia group the Christian Front. Between the 1930s and 1940s, Coughlin preached anti-Jewish conspiracies to 30 million listeners each week, while his admirers in the <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/02/americas-forgotten-pogroms-222181/">Christian Front assaulted Jews</a> in large cities, including Boston.</p>
<p>Jewish and anti-fascist activists urged citizens to recognize the significance of ideological hatred in youth gangs. They argued that attributing violence against Jews to youthful delinquency sidestepped the real issue of antisemitism. </p>
<p>In early November 1950, the Anti-Defamation League finally convinced Boston’s police commissioner that the Hecht House assaults were the result of “organized bigotry.”</p>
<p>The flare-ups in Boston peaked on a particularly frightful Halloween in 1950 and exemplify not only the brutality of antisemitism but <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/lethal-threat-white-power-ideologues/629874/">the harms</a> of its trivialization by authorities who downplay claims of antisemitism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213853/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Sperling 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.</span></em></p>Shortly after World War II, European Jews immigrated to American cities like Boston and were often met with violent antisemitism.Andrew Sperling, PhD Student in History, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2099442023-07-24T12:15:09Z2023-07-24T12:15:09ZMassachusetts is updating its sex education guidelines for the first time in 24 years<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537922/original/file-20230717-232909-qmmoii.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5472%2C3628&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A dozen U.S. states still do not mandate sex education in schools.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/happy-young-group-of-multiracial-students-hanging-royalty-free-image/1415841874?phrase=high+school+classroom+students&adppopup=true">Xavier Lorenzo/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In June 2023, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts shared with the public a draft of a new framework that will guide <a href="https://www.doe.mass.edu/sfs/healthframework/">how elementary, middle and high schools in the state approach sex education</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.doe.mass.edu/frameworks/health/1999/1099.pdf">last time Massachusetts issued guidelines</a> that specify expectations for what Massachusetts students learn about sex in schools was 24 years ago, when most U.S. homes were not yet internet-connected. </p>
<p>The new guidelines are part of a larger framework that addresses many aspects of health, including physical education, nutrition and hygiene. They include important improvements over the 1999 version, including standards that pertain to the well-being of gender and sexual minority populations. That’s noteworthy, given that other U.S. states have recently <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/19/florida-bans-teaching-gender-identity-sexuality-through-12-th-grade/11695779002/">prohibited classroom education about gender identity and sexual orientation</a>.</p>
<p>The draft Massachusetts framework has been in development since 2018 but is not yet final. After a public comment period, which is open until Aug. 28, the framework is subject to approval by the commonwealth’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and could be adopted as early as the fall of 2023.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537923/original/file-20230717-184356-u9hkhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A teenager lies on his bed while looking at his laptop." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537923/original/file-20230717-184356-u9hkhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537923/original/file-20230717-184356-u9hkhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537923/original/file-20230717-184356-u9hkhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537923/original/file-20230717-184356-u9hkhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537923/original/file-20230717-184356-u9hkhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537923/original/file-20230717-184356-u9hkhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/537923/original/file-20230717-184356-u9hkhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">For information about sex, young people turn to online pornography more often than talking to friends or parents.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/teenage-boy-in-his-bedroom-using-a-laptop-royalty-free-image/1097875056?phrase=high+school+students+watching+disturbing+images+online&adppopup=true">Richard Bailey/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>I’m a public health researcher who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BgjSYDgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">focuses on sex education and healthy relationships</a>. I have co-developed and tested a new sex education module for high school students in Massachusetts with funding from the National Institutes of Health, so I read the part of the framework that deals with sex education with great interest. </p>
<p>I’ll provide some more detail on the Massachusetts framework below, but first it is important to understand the state of sex education in the U.S.</p>
<h2>Sex education and pornography</h2>
<p>Many young people in the U.S are not getting the sex education that they need. Currently, only 38 U.S. states and the District of Columbia mandate any kind of sex education. As a result, it isn’t surprising that <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/adolescents-teens-receipt-sex-education-united-states">fewer than half</a> of U.S. adolescents say that they have received information about where to get birth control before having heterosexual intercourse for the first time. And the racial disparities are concerning: Black and Hispanic teens are less likely than white teens to receive education about prevention of sexually transmitted infections or HIV, or <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2021.08.027">where to get birth control</a>. </p>
<p>So where do teenagers and young adults go to get information about sex, in the absence of comprehensive sex education at school? </p>
<p>According to a nationally representative <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01877-7">study that my team published in 2021</a>, young adults in the U.S. are more likely to turn to pornography than to their friends, parents, doctors or any other source. That’s a problem, because pornography isn’t designed to relay medically accurate or helpful information about sex — it’s designed to get clicks or likes, make money and entertain the viewer.</p>
<p>Massachusetts is not one of the states that mandates sex education. However, <a href="https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXII/Chapter71/Section1">state law does require</a> all public schools to teach health education. As a local control state, Massachusetts issues frameworks and guidance and allows local school districts boards to decide how to implement them. This approach will continue with the new framework once adopted.</p>
<p>Importantly, the new Massachusetts framework recognizes the prevalence of pornography, and it addresses other critical sex education topics for the modern world. </p>
<p>For example, the framework specifies that in grades 6 to 8, adolescents should learn about laws related to sexual digital imagery. This is important because otherwise they may not realize that possessing or sending nude digital photos of people younger than 18 years old is a crime even if the sender is also a minor. </p>
<p>The framework also suggests that adolescents should be able to analyze similarities and differences between friendships, romantic relationships and sexual relationships, and discuss various ways to show affection within each. It expects them to be able to define sexual consent and describe factors, such as drug and alcohol use, that can influence capacity to give consent. It recommends teaching strategies to help students recognize when someone is grooming or recruiting a young person for possible commercial sexual exploitation like human trafficking.</p>
<p>While these points are strong, I would like to see a recommendation that schools tell youth that mainstream online pornography is not a good source of information about sexual behavior.</p>
<h2>A series of online games</h2>
<p>Our research team, which includes <a href="https://www.bu.edu/sph/profile/kimberly-nelson/">Kimberly Nelson of Boston University,</a>, <a href="https://sph.unc.edu/adv_profile/julia-campbell/">Ph.D student Julia Campbell of the University of North Carolina</a> and BU <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomeka-frieson/">masters student Tomeka Frieson</a>, has been working on new sex education teaching materials for Massachusetts high schools for <a href="https://reporter.nih.gov/search/2sD11hHbEka-FPXly3o0yw/project-details/10406366">the past two years</a>. As researchers, we endeavored to create an online sex education module that reflected the best available evidence and feedback that we got from young people. </p>
<p>Our teaching materials are in the form of short, online games that students engage with on their own time, and then come back to the classroom to discuss. One of the games has students order the effectiveness of 11 different contraceptive methods. Another provides them with information about ways pornography can provide unhelpful expectations about sex and sexuality. A third game invites students to act as an advice columnist to solve relationship problems for peers. </p>
<p>When we tested the materials with 54 teens ages 14-18 years old in Massachusetts in 2022, we found a statistically significant positive impact on a range of outcomes, from increased condom use to fewer experiences of abuse by a dating partner. We will partner with a number of Massachusetts high schools in the next several years to continue testing the impact of our module. </p>
<h2>Reading the framework</h2>
<p>In reading the new Massachusetts guidelines, our team noted several strengths of its approach. </p>
<p>First, the framework is evidence-based. In other words, the recommendations reflect the latest and best available research about how adolescents develop, learn and behave with regard to sex and sexuality. </p>
<p>Second, the guidance is developmentally and age-appropriate, with different recommendations for different grade levels, and with careful attention to diverse perspectives, cultural differences, and the importance of delivering material in a way that would not traumatize students.</p>
<p>Third, the framework encourages youths’ critical thinking, reasoning, decision-making and problem-solving. </p>
<p>It is my hope that Massachusetts will strengthen the guidance on pornography. If it does, the new framework will be well positioned to serve as a national model.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209944/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Rothman receives funding from the National Institutes of Health. The content is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. </span></em></p>Twelve states do not require sex education of any kind.Emily Rothman, Professor and Chair, Occupational Therapy; and Professor of Community Health Sciences, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2022302023-06-06T12:29:50Z2023-06-06T12:29:50ZA community can gentrify without losing its identity – examples from Pittsburgh, Boston and Newark of what works<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526633/original/file-20230516-23757-xm3dyf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C16%2C3567%2C2549&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A street mural by Manuel Acevedo at Halsey Place in Newark, N.J.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.fourcornerspublicarts.org/projects#/the-gantalism-dedication-2019/ ">Anthony Alvarez</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>How can neighborhoods gentrify without erasing their heart and voice?</p>
<p>It’s an important question to ask now, I’d suggest, since many communities across the U.S. are at risk of losing their historical identities as new people and businesses move in, displacing residents and affecting the fabric of the community. This <a href="https://www.pps.org/article/gentrification">process is known as gentrification</a>, and while a neighborhood “upgrade” can bring new vitality, diversity and opportunity, that is a win only if existing residents and businesses are not forced or priced out.</p>
<p>How to have the positive effects without the negatives isn’t obvious. President Joe Biden’s 2023 budget proposes a US$195 million increase in the Community Development Block Grant program that targets development in 100 <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2022/03/30/president-bidens-fy-2023-budget-advances-equity/">underserved communities</a>. By creating infrastructure that attracts new development, some of these projects will likely support gentrification.</p>
<p>I’m an <a href="https://sasn.rutgers.edu/about-us/faculty-staff/anthony-alvarez">educator</a>, arts administrator and public policy fellow who has worked with Fortune 500 companies and exhibited my own photography nationally. I teach fine arts classes at Rutgers in Newark, New Jersey, where I was raised.</p>
<p>As an artist, I believe that it is important to preserve diverse communities with unique characteristics. Public art is one way to highlight and honor our shared spaces <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0309-1317.2003.00492.x">even as we reshape them</a>. Art can help present the values that communities want to project and protect as a way of maintaining and creating great places to live.</p>
<h2>Defining spaces</h2>
<p>What makes a great place to live? </p>
<p>Or, as urban planner <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/artv.2017.0009">Maria Rosario Jackson</a> – now serving as chair of the National Endowment for the Arts – asks: What makes “a just place where people can thrive”? </p>
<p>The answer is, many elements working together. Accessible transportation, diverse housing stock, good schools and jobs, to name a few. Places and spaces in which visitors and residents can convene and connect, be entertained, engage creatively, and find experiences that expand and challenge imaginations. </p>
<p>Public art projects are at the center of many revitalization projects, and they are crucial to the fabric and vitality of their communities. Consider as just one example <a href="https://undergroundinkblock.com/about-2">Underground at Ink Block</a> in Boston, a project that transformed an ordinary underpass into a place where neighbors come together to honor shared histories and play, connect and create community surrounded by outstanding street art. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1425846544700518406"}"></div></p>
<p>Successful projects like this one don’t just happen. Rather, urban planners and community leaders rely on proven techniques that bring them together with community members to practice what urban planners call placemaking, creative placemaking and placekeeping.</p>
<h2>First came placemaking</h2>
<p>Placemaking entered into the urban planning vocabulary in a <a href="https://www.arts.gov/about/publications/creative-placemaking">2010 white paper</a> by Ann Markusen and Anne Gadwa for The Mayors’ Institute on City Design. </p>
<p>More recently, the Project for Public Spaces published a <a href="https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/5810e16fbe876cec6bcbd86e/6335ddc88fbf7f29ec537d49_2022%20placemaking%20booklet.pdf">Primer on Placemaking</a> in 2022 titled “What if we build our cities around places?”</p>
<p>The paper argues that successful cities need destinations: strong communities with distinct identities to help attract new residents, businesses and investment. </p>
<p>Walkable, safe, comfortable and dynamic public spaces and buildings are key components to the creation of spaces where “people want to live, work, play and learn,” as Michigan State University <a href="https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/lpis_mark_wyckoff_authors_article_on_four_different_types_of_placemaking">urban planner Mark Wyckoff argues</a>.</p>
<p>Placemaking began as an economic development strategy focusing on “<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/why-we-need-to-invest-in-transformative-placemaking/">economic districts</a>,” but recent shifts also call for thoughtful and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/about-the-bass-center/">sensitive social impact</a> focusing on what residents and commuters want, like cultural activities, accessible parks, and healthy and sustainable food sold at farmers markets.</p>
<h2>Harnessing creativity</h2>
<p>Creative placemaking connects traditional economic placemaking with arts and cultural strategies. Markusen and Gadwa explain that creative placemaking involves partnering with the community to re-imagine a neighborhood while maintaining its social and cultural character. </p>
<p>Movements such as <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/socially-engaged-practice">Socially Engaged Art</a> allow artists and community to come together in a public space that encourages conversation around a common goal. Rick Lowe’s <a href="https://projectrowhouses.org/">Project Row Houses</a> in Houston and the <a href="https://www.theastergates.com/project-items/dorchester-art-and-housing-collaborative-dahc">Dorchester Art and Housing Collaborative</a>’s Theaster Gates in Chicago are just two of many examples of this blurring of the lines between art, activism and economic development.</p>
<h2>Placekeeping</h2>
<p>More recently, the idea of placekeeping expands on these earlier concepts by recognizing that having communities at the table when revitalization projects are being planned is key to growing urban environments that have a good chance of keeping displacement at bay. Placekeeping emphasizes learning what is important to the fabric of the community and how to weave that into revitalization projects.</p>
<p>A former mayor of Oakland, California, Libby Schaaf, said <a href="https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2019/11/12/toward-placekeeping-how-design-dialogue-can-make-cities-better-everyone">in 2019</a>: “Placekeeping is about engaging the residents who already live in a space and allowing them to preserve the stories and culture of where they live.” </p>
<p>Oakland was one of the participants of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ <a href="https://www.bloomberg.org/press/bloomberg-philanthropies-launches-asphalt-art-initiative-providing-cities-how-to-guidance-to-transform-streets-and-public-spaces-with-artwork/">Asphalt Art Initiative</a>. This <a href="https://asphaltart.bloomberg.org/projects/">64-city program</a> has the goal of assisting “cities looking to use art and design to improve street safety, revitalize public spaces, and engage their communities.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1393271880157630464"}"></div></p>
<p>Here in Newark, New Jersey, <a href="https://www.audible.com/about">Audible</a>, an audiobook and podcasting subsidiary of Amazon, has led a dynamic partnership with local leaders, elected officials, stakeholders, residents and artists called the <a href="https://www.archpaper.com/2022/06/newark-artist-collaboration-honors-the-citys-history-and-residents-through-13-just-unveiled-art-installations/">Newark Arts Collaboration</a>. The installation takes the form of 13 murals reflecting the vibrancy and histories of the city’s neighborhoods and the people within them. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1651984063559761927"}"></div></p>
<h2>Avoiding gentrification</h2>
<p>The best way of knowing what a community values is to ask the people who live there. </p>
<p><a href="https://nlihc.org/resource/gentrification-and-neighborhood-revitalization-whats-difference">Community benefits agreements</a> are contracts that bring community groups and stakeholders to a shared planning table. These agreements provide negotiated, binding contracts that help leverage tools such as <a href="https://www.ura.org/pages/lower-hill-lerta-greater-hill-district-neighborhood-reinvestment-fund">tax assistance programs and reinvestment funds</a> with concrete community investment plans. </p>
<p>For example, in Pittsburgh, community benefits agreements provided an opportunity for the community and developers to co-shape major revitalization projects beginning with the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9qqXHa3Gs0&list=PL45AA4AF0740EF212&index=1">PPG arena 2008</a> and expanding with the renovation of <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/hill-district-ura-concert-venue-lower-hill-district/">the historic New Granda Theater in 2023</a>.</p>
<p>Any anti-gentrification effort begins with an inclusive process. Under Mayor Michelle Wu, the city of Boston <a href="https://www.boston.gov/departments/arts-and-culture/allston-brighton-arts-culture-and-placekeeping">provides another example</a> of placekeeping by promising to learn “what exists, what is treasured and what contributes to the unique characteristics of Allston-Brighton,” a quickly developing neighborhood within the city.</p>
<p>Embracing the heart of the community, honoring its artistic expression, and creating access for the community was key in the development of <a href="https://www.evartscollective.com/frogtown-artwalk">Frogtown Arts Walk</a> in Los Angeles. And keeping this regeneration equitable is center to Newark’s <a href="https://newarkarts.org/newark-creates/">cultural plan</a>. </p>
<p>To quote Newark Mayor Ras Baraka: “Newark should be the place to be for artists. And, I want Newarkers to benefit from their presence.”</p>
<p><em>This story was updated to correct the number of Asphalt Initiative grants.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202230/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Alvarez 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.</span></em></p>Art can help anchor places even as they are reshaped.Anthony Alvarez, Lecturer of Arts, Culture & Media, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1925482022-12-12T13:36:16Z2022-12-12T13:36:16ZDo accents disappear?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499828/original/file-20221208-14190-uu5no9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=27%2C352%2C6079%2C2821&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Speech patterns.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/diverse-cultures-international-communication-royalty-free-image/1390317952?phrase=language&adppopup=true">Bobboz via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Boston, there are <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/boston-accent-endangered-growing-population-language-expert-marjorie-feinstein-whittaker-david-wade/">reports of people pronouncing the letter “r</a>.” Down in Tennessee, people are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMggeVfS6j8">noticing a lack of a Southern drawl</a>. And Texans have <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/are-texans-losing-their-distinctive-twang/">long worried about losing their distinctive twang</a>.</p>
<p>Indeed, around the United States, communities are <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/03/health/regional-american-accents-wellness/index.html#:%7E:text=What%20I%20came%20to%20find,at%20a%20very%20slow%20pace.&text=The%20significance%20of%20evolving%20accents,used%20to%20in%20the%20past.">voicing a common anxiety</a>: Are Americans losing their accents?</p>
<p>The fear of accent loss often emerges within communities that face demographic and technological changes. But on an individual level “losing one’s accent” is also part of a profit-driven industry, with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal0004">accent reduction services</a> promising professional and personal benefits to clients who change their speech by ironing out any regionalisms or foreign pronunciations.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Boston has one of the most famous – and often-parodied – American accents.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But is it really possible to lose one’s accent? <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=FKWfqK0AAAAJ&hl=en">Linguistic researchers</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=7wvy13gAAAAJ&hl=en">like us</a> suggest the answer is complicated — no one becomes truly “accentless,” but accents can and do change over time.</p>
<p>To us, what’s more interesting is why so many people believe they can lose their accent – and why there are such differing opinions about why this may be a good or bad thing.</p>
<h2>Is there a ‘standard’ accent?</h2>
<p>It’s best to think of an accent as a distinct, systematic, rule-governed way of speaking, including sound features such as intonation, stress and pronunciation.</p>
<p>Accent is not a synonym for dialect, but it’s related. Dialect is an umbrella term for the way a community pronounces words (phonology), creates words (morphology), and orders words (syntax).</p>
<p>Accent is the phonological part of a dialect. For example, when it comes to the Boston dialect, a key feature of its accent is <a href="https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=pwpl">r-deletion, or r-dropping</a>. This occurs most frequently after certain vowels, so that a phrase like “far apart” could be pronounced like “fah apaht,” with the “r” sound vocalizing, or turning into a vowel. This results in a longer vowel pronunciation in each word.</p>
<p>Many people believe that there is a single standard way of speaking in each country, and that this perceived standard is inherently the best form of speech. However, linguists often point out that the concept of a standard accent is better understood as <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9780203348802-5/standard-language-myth-rosina-lippi-green">an idealization rather than a reality</a>. In other words, no one speaks “standard English”; rather, it is an imagined way of using language that exists only in grammar and style books.</p>
<p>One reason linguists agree there is no one true standard is that, through the years, there have been multiple supposed standards, such as <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/network-standard">Received Pronunciation in the U.K. and Network Standard in the U.S.</a> – think of a newsreader’s cadence in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amgzdqbdsHQ">1950s BBC newsreel</a>, or Kent Brockman’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4jWAwUb63c">on “The Simpsons</a>.”</p>
<p>The idea of a standard changes over time and place. There has never been a single standard that’s been fully agreed upon – and broadcast outlets across the spectrum have never consistently held to those standards anyway.</p>
<p>Even so, this idea of a standard accent is powerful. An episode of NPR’s podcast “Code Switch” tells the story of <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/636442508">Deion Broxton</a>, who in recent years applied for jobs as a broadcasting reporter but was repeatedly turned down because of his Baltimore accent.</p>
<p>Many other workplace and educational environments similarly perpetuate the idea that nonstandard accents are less appropriate, or even inappropriate, in certain professional spaces. Scholars have found that Southern U.S. accent features are more accepted in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023121999161">government, law and service-oriented workplaces than in the technology sector</a>. The acceptability of nonstandard accents may correlate with differences in class and culture, with newer or higher-prestige industries expecting more standard speech in the workplace.</p>
<h2>What is accent leveling?</h2>
<p>The pressure to sound standard is one force that can lead to what linguists describe as “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/flin.1998.32.1-2.35">dialect leveling</a>” or “accent leveling.” This occurs when there is a loss of diverse features among regional language varieties. For example, if a U.S. Southerner feels social or economic pressure to shift from pronouncing the word “right” with one vowel – sounding like “raht” – to make it sound like “ra-eeyt” with a diphthong (two vowel sounds), they may be diminishing their use of <a href="https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/united-states-of-accents-southern-american-english">a common marker for Southern speech</a>. This is technically not accent loss, but rather accent change. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UcxByX6rh24?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A guide to U.S. accents.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But accent leveling can also be motivated by language contact, when people with multiple dialects come into regular interaction because of migration and other demographic mobility. Areas that have in recent decades experienced high levels of immigration have often pointed to the mixing of different languages and accents as driving the loss of traditional, distinctive speech patterns.</p>
<p>Although modern conveniences such as cars, highway systems and the internet make moving and interacting across distances easier than ever before, accent leveling due to human geography is not new. As the U.S. South became more industrial in the late 19th century, and people moved into bigger communities, <a href="https://benjamins.com/catalog/veaw.g18.24bai">an accent leveling occurred</a>, resulting in some of the features we now say are distinctly Southern. We see this in, for example, the <a href="https://www.acelinguist.com/2020/01/the-pin-pen-merger.html">pin/pen merger</a>. Before 1875, vowels before nasal sounds like “m” and “n” in words such as “pin” and “pen” were pronounced differently. But some Southern speakers in the late 19th century began to pronounce “pen” and “pin” identically, with this merger generally spreading throughout Southern American English in the first half of the 20th century.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://benjamins.com/catalog/veaw.g18.24bai">similar trajectory occurred</a> with other Southern accent features, such as the shifting of the diphthong in “right” to a single vowel sound closer to “raht” and <a href="https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1815&context=pwpl">the spread of Southern drawl</a> – with lengthening of vowels, in which words such as “that” are pronounced more like “thaa-uht.”</p>
<p>As long as humans continue moving and time keeps passing, accent change will continue happening, too.</p>
<h2>Why people fear accent loss</h2>
<p>Many people fear accent loss because <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1360780418816335">language is intimately tied to identity</a>. But when considering the connection between language and identity, it is worth distinguishing genuine concerns about dialect loss from more irrational fears about language change. </p>
<p>In a broader sense, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781119147282.ch3">the spread of American English on a global scale</a>, and its economic and social effects, can lead to the loss of local identities, traditions and languages. There are similar concerns about loss of regional accents in the U.S.</p>
<p>Linguists argue that <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/417058">dialect death should be taken seriously</a>. It results in the loss of diverse cultures and intellectual traditions. Because language is so important to identity, some communities around the world have made deliberate efforts to <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/ijsl.2005.2005.175-176.193/html">revitalize dialects</a> that have been dying, such as the rural Valdres dialect of Norwegian. This variety experienced a resurgence thanks to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1395.2012.01116.x">a dialect popularity contest</a> held by a radio network in Norway.</p>
<p>Similarly, in the U.S. there have been efforts to revitalize particular dialects of Indigenous languages, such as the <a href="https://shareok.org/handle/11244/44895">Skiri and South Band dialects of the Pawnee language in Oklahoma</a>, and to embrace varieties such as <a href="https://www.routledge.com/African-American-English-Structure-History-and-Use/Mufwene-Rickford-Bailey-Baugh/p/book/9780367760687">African American English</a>.</p>
<p>The successes of language revitalization and maintenance can be applauded without suggesting that all types of language change must be resisted. There is a difference between powerful social and economic forces compelling a shift in one’s accent and the natural shifting of language due to regular interactions among people from different backgrounds and regions. </p>
<h2>Embracing accents, embracing change</h2>
<p>When people talk of “accent loss,” it is always good to explore the shifting demographics of the area to question whether the accent is truly being lost, whether it is changing or whether it is being maintained alongside many other accents new to the region.</p>
<p>For example, when students at our school, Kennesaw State University in Georgia, were <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZRQA0zpqmY">recently asked why the Southern accent was changing</a>, several noted the number of people from the North who are moving to the Atlanta metro area. </p>
<p>When people move from one region to another, our desire to communicate effectively can lead to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444318159.ch10">accommodating one another’s accent</a>, producing slight shifts in how we speak and at times even adopting features of one another’s accents. </p>
<p>With time, these shifts become normalized, and new accent features can emerge. </p>
<p>But such accent evolution isn’t something that should cause concern.</p>
<p>Linguistic accommodation allows for better communication among individuals and groups from different geographic locations and across different spaces and cultures – a thing to celebrate and not automatically fear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192548/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many people fear the disappearance of the unique way some communities speak. But accent loss is a complicated notion and embracing both language variation and change can be an important social goal.Chris C. Palmer, Professor of English, Kennesaw State UniversityMichelle Devereaux, Associate Professor of English Education, Kennesaw State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1880322022-08-01T18:38:02Z2022-08-01T18:38:02ZBill Russell’s legacy of NBA championships and cerebral fight for equal rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476971/original/file-20220801-9120-m3wm0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C3%2C2627%2C1885&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bill Russell, left, celebrates with Celtics coach Red Auerbach after defeating the Los Angeles Lakers to win their eighth-straight NBA Championship, in Boston, April 29, 1966.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Obit-BillRussellBasketball/54de891d3f834b2b95558fd38c0d476e/photo?Query=(renditions.phototype:horizontal)%20AND%20%20(Bill%20Russell)%20&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=998&currentItemNo=10">AP Photo/File</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On May 1, 1968, Bill Russell led the Boston Celtics to <a href="https://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/1968-nba-finals-lakers-vs-celtics.html">another NBA championship</a>, triumphing over the rival Los Angeles Lakers.</p>
<p>But this time Russell was not just the star center, the defensive stalwart, the linchpin of pro basketball’s most extraordinary dynasty. </p>
<p>He was also <a href="https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/bill-russell-did-the-impossible-when-he-led-the-celtics-to-two-championships-as-their-player-coach/">the coach</a>.</p>
<p>During the locker room celebration, reporters marveled at Russell’s legacy of achievement. What else he could possibly achieve? </p>
<p>He deflected the question.</p>
<p>“To tell you the truth, it’s been a long time since I tried to prove anything to anybody,” he said.</p>
<p>He got quiet for a second.</p>
<p>“I know who I am.”</p>
<h2>Undisputed champion</h2>
<p>Russell, who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/31/sports/basketball/bill-russell-dead.html">died on July 31, 2022</a>, had a winning <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/31/bill-russell-winner-nba-history/">record in basketball</a> that is unmatched. </p>
<p>From 1954 to 1956, he steered the University of San Francisco as a player to two consecutive NCAA championships and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25161913">a record 55-game winning streak</a>.</p>
<p>At <a href="https://usopm.org/1956-mens-basketball-team/">the 1956 Olympics</a> in Melbourne, Australia, he dominated the court and drove the United States to a gold medal. And during his 13-year professional career with the Boston Celtics, Russell <a href="https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/bill-russell-11-time-nba-champion-and-boston-celtics-legend-dies-at-88/">won an astonishing 11 NBA titles</a> – the last two, in 1968 and 1969, as the player-coach.</p>
<p>In my biography of Russell, “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520269798/king-of-the-court">King of the Court</a>,” <a href="https://www.memphis.edu/history/faculty/faculty/aram-goudsouzian.php">I argued</a> that he spearheaded a
“basketball revolution.”</p>
<p>During his athletic reign, the sport transformed from a white man’s game with a small-time, “bush league” reputation into a dynamic, modern, nationally televised sport associated with Black culture.</p>
<p>Russell was also the NBA’s essential barrier-breaker: its first Black superstar, its first Black champion, its first Black coach. </p>
<p>Most fascinating, though, was Russell himself.</p>
<p>As suggested by his proud comment after the 1968 title, he undertook an intellectual and personal journey during his career. He sought to find worth in basketball amid the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/08/01/1114795613/racial-justice-pioneer-nba-bill-russell">racial tumult of the civil rights movement</a>.</p>
<p>He emerged from that crucible not only as a stronger man, but also as one of the most potent figures at the intersection of sports and politics.</p>
<h2>A reluctant sports hero</h2>
<p>As fans crowded him for autographs at Madison Square Garden in December 1962, Russell raised a poignant question. </p>
<p>“What does all this mean?” he asked. “This is without depth. This is a very shallow thing.”</p>
<p>A few weeks later he confessed, “I feel that playing basketball is just marking time. I don’t feel that this can be it for a man. I
haven’t accomplished anything, really. What contribution have I made of which I can be really proud?”</p>
<p>At that point, Russell had won three MVP awards and five NBA titles. He had emerged as a hero in the media-driven rivalry with the taller and stronger scoring machine, <a href="https://bleacherreport.com/articles/450703-the-greatest-debate-in-nba-history-wilt-the-stilt-or-bill-russell">Wilt Chamberlain</a>. </p>
<p>The Celtics won plaudits for their spirit of cooperation, serving as sports’ <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=adande_ja&page=Celtics-071219">greatest example of racial integration</a> in action.</p>
<p>Yet Russell chafed at every reminder that he was still a second-class citizen. </p>
<p>He <a href="https://bleacherreport.com/articles/682589-bill-russell-civil-rights-hero-and-inventor-of-airborne-basketball">refused to accept segregated accommodations</a> on road trips. During a 1961 preseason tour, when a hotel coffee shop in Lexington, Kentucky, refused service to two teammates, Russell boycotted the exhibition game, and the Black players on both teams followed suit. </p>
<p>After the 1962 season, while driving back to his native Louisiana, he and his two young sons had to sleep one night in their car because no hotels would accommodate Black people.</p>
<p>If this happened to the best basketball player in the world, how much could basketball matter?</p>
<h2>Militant activism</h2>
<p>In response, Russell crafted a persona that one teammate called “a kingly arrogance.” </p>
<p>Most Black athletes gained wider public acceptance by acting humble and gracious.</p>
<p>In stark contrast, Russell started refusing to sign autographs. The ritual made him feel like a commodity, rather than a man with a real personality and his own ideas. He resolved to express his political opinions with fearless honesty.</p>
<p>During the 1963-64 season, in profiles in Sports Illustrated and the Saturday Evening Post, Russell questioned <a href="https://thekingcenter.org/about-tkc/the-king-philosophy/">the philosophy of nonviolence</a> espoused by Martin Luther King Jr., and he defended the ideas of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/black-nationalism-in-american-politics-and-thought/malcolm-x-and-the-nation-of-islam/228B60C6FAC120DB12F6D389FAF5A672">Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam</a>. </p>
<p>“We have got to make the white population uncomfortable and keep it uncomfortable,” he insisted, “because that is the only way to get their attention.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="With an NAACP banner behind them, two Black men sit at a table as the third speaks into a microphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476952/original/file-20220801-24-lk1v43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476952/original/file-20220801-24-lk1v43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476952/original/file-20220801-24-lk1v43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476952/original/file-20220801-24-lk1v43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476952/original/file-20220801-24-lk1v43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476952/original/file-20220801-24-lk1v43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476952/original/file-20220801-24-lk1v43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell, center, appears at meeting of the Boston branch of the NAACP.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/left-to-right-mr-kenneth-guscott-boston-celtics-player-bill-news-photo/158129197?adppopup=true">Hal Sweeney/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In his 1966 memoir, “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/542501/go-up-for-glory-by-bill-russell-with-bill-mcsweeny/">Go Up for Glory</a>,” Russell extolled the ideals of American democracy, but he kept describing its shortcomings in practice. </p>
<p>He recalled such indignities as police brutality during his teenage years in Oakland, the racist fans who called him slurs such as “baboon” and the bigotry of the Boston press who praised white stars like Bob Cousy at Russell’s expense.</p>
<p>He urged the Black freedom movement to grow more aggressive, to express Black unity and anger.</p>
<p>“It’s a thing you want to scream,” he wrote. “I MUST HAVE MY MANHOOD.”</p>
<p>Such militant pronouncements stoked a backlash from not only conservatives who resented him, but also from liberals who felt betrayed. </p>
<p>Russell stood firm. </p>
<p>He had weathered his period of personal crisis, and he
had sharpened the tools to express his authentic humanity, whatever the consequences.</p>
<h2>Bigger than sports</h2>
<p>In the late 1960s, Russell’s career entered its most extraordinary and underappreciated phase. </p>
<p>When he replaced Red Auerbach as coach, the aging Boston squad no longer dominated the NBA, and the Celtics lost in the 1967 playoffs, spurring doubts about Russell’s viability as player-coach. </p>
<p>Then, improbably, he led the Celtics to two more titles. </p>
<p>By the time he retired in 1969, the Boston press could no longer doubt his significance. </p>
<p>“The Celtics story,” wrote Jerry Nason of the Boston Globe, “is bigger than the sports page.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Black man dressed in a dark blue suit is placing a ribbon around the neck of another Black man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476955/original/file-20220801-77797-4bga7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476955/original/file-20220801-77797-4bga7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476955/original/file-20220801-77797-4bga7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476955/original/file-20220801-77797-4bga7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476955/original/file-20220801-77797-4bga7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476955/original/file-20220801-77797-4bga7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476955/original/file-20220801-77797-4bga7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. President Barack Obama presents Bill Russell the 2010 Medal of Freedom on Feb. 15, 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-barack-obama-presents-basetball-hall-of-fame-news-photo/109136573?adppopup=true">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>At the same time, he stood like a lighthouse for his fellow Black athletes. When <a href="https://andscape.com/features/the-cleveland-summit-muhammad-ali/">Muhammad Ali was exiled</a> from professional boxing for refusing to serve in the Vietnam War, Russell described him as a man of principle. </p>
<p>When Black athletes threatened to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2020/10/16/today-sports-history-black-power-salute-1968-summer-olympics/3671856001/">boycott the 1968 Olympics</a> in Mexico City, Russell supported their cause.</p>
<p>For a generation, Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics had showcased the glorious possibilities of racial integration. But Russell had demanded that the public see the Black athlete as something more than a symbol.</p>
<p>“We see each other as men,” he said after the Celtics’ final triumph in 1969. “We judge a guy by his character.”</p>
<p>As he defined his place in the world, Russell had demanded the same of the public.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188032/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aram Goudsouzian 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.</span></em></p>Bill Russell leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of winning championships and civil rights activism during a time of racial segregation.Aram Goudsouzian, Bizot Family Professor of History, University of MemphisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1823122022-05-03T13:10:22Z2022-05-03T13:10:22ZWhy the Supreme Court rejected Boston’s case against raising the Christian flag<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460866/original/file-20220502-18-rqunia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C5%2C3559%2C2392&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pedestrians walk near three flag poles flying the American flag, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts flag, and the City of Boston flag, from left, outside Boston City Hall, May 2, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Supreme%20Court%20Christian%20Flag%20Boston/2597bcf119554d378bdad17b4e6398a8?Query=boston&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=254395&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Charles Krupa</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are three flagpoles outside Boston City Hall. One flies the United States flag. Another flies the Massachusetts state flag. And on Monday, the Supreme Court ruled on what can fly from the third.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2021/20-1800">Shurtleff v. Boston</a>, the ruling which came down on May 2, 2022, the court unanimously held that the City of Boston violated the First Amendment’s free speech rights of a group that promotes the appreciation of “<a href="https://campconstitution.net/mission-statement/">God, home, and country</a>” by denying its request to raise a Christian flag at the site, given that the city had previously allowed secular groups to temporarily use the flagpole. </p>
<p>The key question, which determined the outcome in the case, was whether raising a flag on City Hall’s third flagpole was an act of government speech or private expression: categories covered by two different free speech doctrines, which I study in <a href="https://clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/hf1190">my work on the First Amendment</a>.</p>
<p>If it had been deemed an act of government speech, Boston would have had the right to selectively choose which messages it could endorse and could refuse to raise the Christian flag. But if, as the justices have now ruled, it is an act of private expression for which Boston provides a forum, then Boston cannot exclude it.</p>
<p>As such, <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/596/20-1800/#tab-opinion-4576621">the court ruled</a> that denying a request to temporarily raise the Christian flag violated the First Amendment – a clarification that may impact how other courts nationwide interpret the Constitution’s guarantee of free speech.</p>
<h2>Case background</h2>
<p>Boston has permitted groups to request that a flag temporarily fly alongside the American and Massachusetts flags at City Hall to mark special occasions, replacing the city flag that usually occupies the third post. Past examples include flag requests from the Chinese Progressive Association and the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation.</p>
<p>In 2017, Camp Constitution, a New Hampshire-based organization, requested to fly the <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/2008/august/do-you-know-history-of-christian-flag.html">Christian flag</a>, which has a cross in the upper left corner and was designed by a Sunday school teacher and a missionary executive in the late 1800s. Today, some Protestant denominations display the flag inside their churches.</p>
<p>Camp Constitution asked to fly the flag as part of a planned event “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1800/199877/20211115105458448_20-1800%20Brief%20for%20Petitioners.pdf">to celebrate the civic contributions of Boston’s Christian community</a>.” The organization <a href="https://campconstitution.net/mission-statement/">says its mission</a> is “to enhance understanding of our Judeo-Christian moral heritage, our American heritage of courage and ingenuity, including the genius of our United States Constitution, and the application of free enterprise.”</p>
<p>Boston denied the request. The city cited concerns that raising the Christian flag at Boston City Hall would violate <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/">the First Amendment’s</a> Establishment Clause, which <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/establishment_clause">bars the government</a> from promoting particular religions over others. After making a second request, which Boston also denied, Camp Constitution sued.</p>
<p>A federal district court and the First Circuit Court of Appeals <a href="http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/20-1158P-01A.pdf">sided with Boston</a> on the grounds that flying a flag on the third flagpole was government speech, not private speech – and therefore the city was entitled to refuse to fly the Christian flag on its flagpole.</p>
<p>Camp Constitution appealed to the Supreme Court, which granted review and <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-1800_7lho.pdf">rejected the lower courts’ conclusion</a>. Instead, the justices held that it would be Camp Constitution’s expression, not Boston’s, if the Christian flag were to be raised on the third flagpole.</p>
<p>As Justice <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/596/20-1800/#tab-opinion-4576619">Samuel Alito noted in his concurrence</a>, this meant that the court needed to apply the <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/824/public-forum-doctrine">public forum doctrine</a>, which in this case would not allow Boston to turn down Camp Constitution’s request to speak. </p>
<p>If the court had determined that the city of Boston was speaking, then the court’s <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/962/government-speech-doctrine">government speech doctrine</a> would have applied.</p>
<h2>Public forum doctrine</h2>
<p>Federal, state and local governments oversee a wide variety of public spaces: parks, universities and courthouses, just to name a few. The Supreme Court has organized government spaces into several categories, each of which permits different types of restrictions on free speech – rules referred to as the <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/824/public-forum-doctrine">public forum doctrine</a>. </p>
<p>Spaces like public parks and sidewalks are considered public forums, the category that permits the fewest restrictions on speech. In a public forum, a government can never restrict speech <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1028/viewpoint-discrimination">based on viewpoints</a> – specific positions on a topic – and is severely limited as to when it can restrict speech <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/935/content-based">based on content</a> – a given topic.</p>
<p>Normally, a flagpole outside a city hall would not be considered a public forum. However, the Supreme Court also recognizes a separate category, “designated public forums,” which are spaces the government converts into public forums. In a designated public forum, free speech regulation is limited in the same way it would be in a public forum.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A white flag with a red cross in the corner flies below an American flag, next to a church steeple." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439546/original/file-20220105-27-l9ujld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439546/original/file-20220105-27-l9ujld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439546/original/file-20220105-27-l9ujld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439546/original/file-20220105-27-l9ujld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439546/original/file-20220105-27-l9ujld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439546/original/file-20220105-27-l9ujld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439546/original/file-20220105-27-l9ujld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Christian flag flies beneath the American flag next to a church steeple.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/battle-weary-royalty-free-image/157034896?adppopup=true">nameinfame/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Shurtleff v. Boston, both parties agreed that the area surrounding the flagpole is a public forum. But they disagreed over whether the flagpole itself had become a designated public forum, with <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1800/199877/20211115105458448_20-1800%20Brief%20for%20Petitioners.pdf">Camp Constitution arguing</a> that it had, and <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1800/205184/20211215140356941_20-1800%20Respondents%20Brief.pdf">Boston arguing</a> that it had not.</p>
<p>Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority, noted that the “line between a forum for private expression and the government’s own speech is important, but not always clear.” </p>
<p>According to the court, on balance, more evidence suggested that Boston had turned the flagpole into a venue for private expression. The justices indicated that their conclusion applied to Boston’s specific policies. In other words, not all government flagpoles are public forums – and Boston could adopt new policies attempting to put restrictions on the type of flags public groups could fly on its flagpole.</p>
<p>[<em>3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-3-in-1">Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.</a>]</p>
<h2>Government speech doctrine</h2>
<p>Shurtleff v. Boston is now the newest precedent in the line of cases that constitutes the court’s <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/962/government-speech-doctrine">government speech doctrine</a>.</p>
<p>Over 30 years ago, in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/89-1391.ZO.html">Rust v. Sullivan</a>, the Supreme Court recognized that the government itself is a speaker with First Amendment rights. Government speech is not subject to the public forum doctrine. Instead, the government has much greater discretion in deciding which messages it endorses.</p>
<p>In 2009, for example, the Supreme Court held in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/08pdf/07-665.pdf">Pleasant Grove v. Summum</a> that the permanent monuments in a park owned and operated by the town were government speech. The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision allowed the town to deny <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=6292080&page=1">a request from a small religious group</a>, Summum, to install a permanent monument expressing its beliefs, even though the park had previously accepted a monument of the Ten Commandments.</p>
<p>And in 2015, the Supreme Court held in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-144_758b.pdf">Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans</a> that license plates were government speech. This permitted Texas to deny a request for a specialty license plate featuring the Confederate flag, even though Texas offered a wide range of other specialty plates. </p>
<p>But in 2017, the court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1293_1o13.pdf">unanimously held</a> that the U.S. Patent and Trademark office was not engaged in government speech when accepting or rejecting applications for trademarks. Therefore, officials could not make trademark approvals contingent on whether trademark applicants used language the government would be comfortable expressing.</p>
<p>In previous cases, the Supreme Court has focused on several factors to determine whether an act of expression is government speech. These factors include how such acts of expression have been used historically, who the public would tend to reasonably assume is speaking and who maintains control. </p>
<p>In Shurtleff v. Boston, the court denied using a “mechanical” test to determine when something is government speech versus private expression. <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-1800_7lho.pdf">Justice Breyer wrote</a> that the court’s inquiry had been “holistic,” implying that it did not strictly rule based on these same several factors, which the court referred to as “indicia.”</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the court’s analysis still relied on these considerations heavily. This may create confusion for lower courts about how exactly the government speech doctrine should be applied. Thus, while the court has resolved this particular case, it likely has not resolved longer-lasting disputes about the nature and scope of the government speech doctrine. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-a-christian-flag-fly-at-city-hall-the-supreme-court-will-have-to-decide-174022">an article first published on Jan. 6, 2022</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182312/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Satta 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.</span></em></p>The Supreme Court ruled May 2, 2022, in Shurtleff v. Boston, a free speech case.Mark Satta, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1740222022-01-06T14:20:42Z2022-01-06T14:20:42ZCan a Christian flag fly at City Hall? The Supreme Court will have to decide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439562/original/file-20220105-21-1h6x3gi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C17%2C3799%2C2108&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Organizations can apply to have their flag temporarily replace the Boston city flag, shown on far right, in front of City Hall.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/city-hall-in-boston-ma-royalty-free-image/182905783?adppopup=true">gregobagel/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>An updated version of this article was published on May 3, 2022. <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-supreme-court-rejected-bostons-case-against-raising-the-christian-flag-182312">Read it here</a>.</em></p>
<p>There are three flagpoles outside Boston City Hall. One flies the United States flag. Another flies the Massachusetts state flag. What can – and can’t – fly from the third is an issue that the Supreme Court considered during oral arguments on Jan 18.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/shurtleff-v-boston/">case, Shurtleff v. Boston, addresses</a> whether the city violated the First Amendment by denying a request to temporarily raise the Christian flag on a flagpole outside City Hall, where Boston has temporarily displayed many secular organizations’ flags. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?517003-1/shurtleff-v-boston-oral-argument">During oral arguments</a>, the justices and the parties agreed that if the flagpole is a public forum open to all comers, then the city of Boston would be unable to deny a request to temporarily raise a religious flag, like the Christian flag. </p>
<p>The key question in the case then is this: is the third flagpole a public forum open to all comers or is it government speech? </p>
<p>To answer this question, the court’s decision, which will be handed down later this term, will likely clarify one or more free speech doctrines that <a href="https://clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/hf1190">I study in my work on free speech and the First Amendment</a>. Such clarification of the court’s free speech doctrine would likely impact how courts nationwide interpret the First Amendment’s guarantees.</p>
<h2>Case background</h2>
<p>Boston permits groups to request that a flag temporarily fly alongside the American and Massachusetts flags at City Hall to mark special occasions, replacing the city flag that usually occupies the third post. Past examples include flag requests from the Chinese Progressive Association and the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation.</p>
<p>In 2017, Camp Constitution, a New Hampshire-based organization, requested to fly the <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/2008/august/do-you-know-history-of-christian-flag.html">Christian flag</a>, which has a cross in the upper left corner and was designed by a Sunday school teacher and a missionary executive in the late 1800s. Today, some Protestant denominations display the flag inside their churches.</p>
<p>Camp Constitution asked to fly the flag as part of a planned event “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1800/199877/20211115105458448_20-1800%20Brief%20for%20Petitioners.pdf">to celebrate the civic contributions of Boston’s Christian community</a>.” The organization <a href="https://campconstitution.net/mission-statement/">says its mission</a> is “to enhance understanding of our Judeo-Christian moral heritage, our American heritage of courage and ingenuity, including the genius of our United States Constitution, and the application of free enterprise.”</p>
<p>Boston denied the request. The city cited concerns that raising the Christian flag at Boston City Hall would violate <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/">the First Amendment’s</a> establishment clause, which <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/establishment_clause">bars the government</a> from promoting particular religions over others. After making a second request, which Boston also denied, Camp Constitution sued.</p>
<p>A federal district court and the First Circuit Court of Appeals <a href="http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/20-1158P-01A.pdf">sided with Boston</a> on the grounds that flying a flag on the third flagpole was government speech, not private speech – and therefore the city was entitled to refuse to fly the Christian flag on its flagpole.</p>
<p>Camp Constitution appealed to the Supreme Court, which granted review.</p>
<p>The case’s outcome will likely hinge on the Supreme Court’s determination of whose views are represented by the flagpole outside City Hall: the private organization whose flag is temporarily flying, or the government. In other words, this case is about who is “speaking” when that flag goes up, and whose free speech rights are protected.</p>
<p>If the court determines that Camp Constitution is speaking, then a framework the court has developed, known as the “<a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/824/public-forum-doctrine">public forum doctrine</a>,” will apply. This would likely result in a ruling favoring Camp Constitution.</p>
<p>If the court determines that the city of Boston is speaking, then the court’s <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/962/government-speech-doctrine">government speech doctrine</a> will apply. This would likely result in a ruling favoring Boston.</p>
<h2>Public forum doctrine</h2>
<p>Federal, state and local governments oversee a wide variety of public spaces, such as parks, universities and courthouses, just to name a few. These areas serve different functions, some of which require more regulation of speech than others.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court has organized government spaces into several categories, each of which permits different types of restrictions on free speech. This set of categories and permitted restrictions is referred to as the <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/824/public-forum-doctrine">public forum doctrine</a>. </p>
<p>Spaces like public parks and sidewalks are considered public forums, the category that permits the fewest restrictions on speech. In a public forum, a government can never restrict speech <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1028/viewpoint-discrimination#:%7E:text=When%20the%20government%20engages%20in,that%20given%20to%20other%20viewpoints.">based on viewpoint</a> – specific positions on a topic – and is severely limited as to when it can restrict speech <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/935/content-based">based on content</a> – a given topic.</p>
<p>Normally, a flagpole outside a city hall would not be considered a public forum. However, the Supreme Court also recognizes a separate category, “designated public forums,” which are spaces the government converts into public forums. In a designated public forum, free speech regulation is limited in the same way it would be in a public forum.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A white flag with a red cross in the corner flies below an American flag, next to a church steeple." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439546/original/file-20220105-27-l9ujld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439546/original/file-20220105-27-l9ujld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439546/original/file-20220105-27-l9ujld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439546/original/file-20220105-27-l9ujld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439546/original/file-20220105-27-l9ujld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439546/original/file-20220105-27-l9ujld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439546/original/file-20220105-27-l9ujld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Christian flag flies beneath the American flag next to a church steeple.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/battle-weary-royalty-free-image/157034896?adppopup=true">nameinfame/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Shurtleff v. Boston, both parties agree that the area surrounding the flagpole is a public forum. But they disagree over whether the flagpole itself is a designated public forum. <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1800/199877/20211115105458448_20-1800%20Brief%20for%20Petitioners.pdf">Camp Constitution argues</a> that Boston has turned the flagpole into a designated public forum by allowing other groups to fly their flags there. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1800/205184/20211215140356941_20-1800%20Respondents%20Brief.pdf">Boston argues</a> that it has not, because the city retained control by permitting limited types of groups to raise their flags.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1800/199877/20211115105458448_20-1800%20Brief%20for%20Petitioners.pdf">Camp Constitution notes</a> that Boston previously approved 284 requests to raise other flags, and that there is no record of a prior request being denied. </p>
<p>But Boston counters that none of those previous requests were for religious flags. <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-1800/205184/20211215140356941_20-1800%20Respondents%20Brief.pdf">The city argues</a> that only two types of flags have been permitted: flags representing territories, nations and ethnicities, and flags associated with publicly recognized days of observance, such as Veterans Day and <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/07/lifestyle/flying-over-city-hall-plaza-new-flag-reflects-lgbtq-diversity-pride-month/">LGBTQ Pride Month</a>. Boston argues that such limited categories of approval are not what one would expect in a designated public forum, and that this is evidence that Boston has not turned its flagpole into a designated public forum.</p>
<p>[<em>3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-3-in-1">Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.</a>]</p>
<h2>Government speech doctrine</h2>
<p>Over 30 years ago, in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/89-1391.ZO.html">Rust v. Sullivan</a>, the Supreme Court recognized that the government itself is a speaker with First Amendment rights – an idea known as the <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/962/government-speech-doctrine">government speech doctrine</a>. Government speech is not subject to the public forum doctrine. Instead, the government has much greater discretion in deciding which messages it endorses.</p>
<p>Boston argues that raising a flag on the third flagpole at City Hall is government speech and therefore the city has the right to determine what views it wants to express on its flagpole. Camp Constitution disagrees, maintaining that the flagpole is a designated public forum and therefore few restraints on private groups’ free speech are allowed on the flagpole.</p>
<p>Both parties’ arguments rely on competing interpretations of the government speech doctrine put forward by the Supreme Court in two cases, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/08pdf/07-665.pdf">Pleasant Grove v. Summum</a> and <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-144_758b.pdf">Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans</a>.</p>
<p>In 2009, the Supreme Court held in Pleasant Grove v. Summum that the permanent monuments in a park owned and operated by the town were government speech. The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision allowed the town to deny <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=6292080&page=1">a request from a small religious group</a>, Summum, to install a permanent monument expressing its beliefs, even though the park had previously accepted a monument of the Ten Commandments.</p>
<p>In 2015, the Supreme Court held in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-144_758b.pdf">Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans</a> that license plates were government speech. This permitted Texas to deny a request for a specialty license plate featuring the Confederate flag, even though Texas offered a wide range of other specialty plates. Unlike Pleasant Grove v. Summum, this case was decided by a slim 5-4 majority.</p>
<p>Shurtleff v. Boston will likely require the court to further clarify the government speech doctrine. The central issue is this: When another flag temporarily replaces Boston’s own, who is speaking? </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article first published on Jan. 6, 2022.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174022/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Satta 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.</span></em></p>Shurtleff v. Boston, a case argued before the Supreme Court on Jan. 18, raises important questions about free speech and religion in public spaces.Mark Satta, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1625872021-06-23T12:26:20Z2021-06-23T12:26:20ZFor flood-prone cities, seawalls raise as many questions as they answer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407732/original/file-20210622-23-juxm6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1957%2C1305&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Flooding caused by high tides in a Miami neighborhood on June 19, 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/FloridaFloodingRisks/3d2ecc80f0094fd091d094a965c5eaa8/photo">AP Photo/Ellis Rua</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The oceans are rising at <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2020.01.016">an accelerating rate</a>, and millions of people are in the way. Rising tides are already affecting cities along low-lying shorelines, such as the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts, where <a href="https://coast.noaa.gov/states/fast-facts/recurrent-tidal-flooding.html">sunny-day flooding has become common</a> during high tides. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.usace.army.mil/">U.S. Army Corps of Engineers</a>, whose mission includes maintaining waterways and reducing disaster risks, has proposed building large and expensive seawalls to protect a number of U.S. cities, neighborhoods and shorelines from coastal storms and rising seas. <a href="https://www.coastalconservationleague.org/projects/charleston-peninsula-coastal-flood-risk-management-study-by-the-us-army-corps-of-engineers/">Charleston</a>, <a href="https://www.nan.usace.army.mil/Missions/Civil-Works/Projects-in-New-York/New-York-New-Jersey-Harbor-Tributaries-Focus-Area-Feasibility-Study/">New York City</a> and <a href="https://www.swg.usace.army.mil/Business-With-Us/Planning-Environmental-Branch/Documents-for-Public-Review/">the Houston-Galveston metro area</a> are currently considering proposals to build barriers in response to hurricane surges and sea level rise, and the Corps recently published a draft proposal for a seawall for <a href="https://www.saj.usace.army.mil/MiamiDadeBackBayCSRMFeasibilityStudy/">Miami</a>.</p>
<p>As a scientist who studies the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=PCczXC0AAAAJ&hl=en">evolution and development of coastlines and the impacts of sea level rise</a>, I believe that large-scale seawall proposals raise important long-term questions that residents, urban leaders and elected officials at all levels of government need to consider carefully before they invest billions of dollars. In my view, this approach is almost certainly a short-term strategy that will protect only a few cities, and will protect only selected portions of those cities effectively.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZzZdqQ11tiI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Cities like Charleston, South Carolina, that are experiencing increasingly frequent tidal flooding need strategies for adapting to rising seas.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Coastal flooding is here</h2>
<p>The extent of high tide flooding in low-elevation Atlantic coastal cities is <a href="https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/publications/Techrpt_092_2019_State_of_US_High_Tide_Flooding_with_a_2020_Outlook_30June2020.pdf">well documented</a>, and so are <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/">future trends</a>. In a 2017 study, the Union of Concerned Scientists assessed chronic flooding risks in 52 large coastal cities and found that by 2030, the 30 cities most at risk can expect <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/when-rising-seas-hit-home">at least two dozen tidal floods yearly on average</a>. The study defined tidal flooding as seawater encroaching into at least 10% of a city. </p>
<p>These cities include New Haven, Connecticut; Boston; Philadelphia;, Washington, D.C.; Baltimore; Wilmington, Delaware; Norfolk, Virginia; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Jacksonville, Florida; and Miami. Cumulatively, they are home to about 6 million people. The study projected that by 2045, most of them will experience over 100 days of flooding annually.</p>
<p>This flooding won’t just become more frequent – it also will become deeper, extend farther inland and last longer as sea levels continue to rise. Greater encroachment will cause increasing harm to infrastructure, development and property. </p>
<p>The Army Corps of Engineers’ recent proposals include building an 8-mile (12.8-kilometer) seawall around Charleston at a cost of <a href="https://www.coastalconservationleague.org/projects/charleston-peninsula-coastal-flood-risk-management-study-by-the-us-army-corps-of-engineers/">nearly US$2 billion</a>; a 1-mile (1.6-kilometer) wall for Miami-Dade, with a price tag of <a href="https://www.coastalnewstoday.com/post/fl-miamis-4-billion-plan-to-combat-sea-level-rise-has-radical-urban-ideas">nearly $4.6 billion</a>; and a 6-mile (9.6-kilometer) barrier to shield portions of New York City and New Jersey, at an estimated cost of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/17/nyregion/sea-wall-nyc.html">$119 billion</a>. None of these investments would protect other Atlantic coastal cities <a href="https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/publications/Techrpt_092_2019_State_of_US_High_Tide_Flooding_with_a_2020_Outlook_30June2020.pdf">already experiencing high tide flooding</a>.</p>
<p>While these proposed projects differ slightly, they each involve major barriers or seawalls along the shoreline, or just offshore in the case of New York and New Jersey. The structures are intended to protect these areas from hurricanes and storm surges, and from some uncertain level of future sea level rise. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407734/original/file-20210622-19-1y2oizn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graphic of proposed flood-control system for Galveston Bay" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407734/original/file-20210622-19-1y2oizn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407734/original/file-20210622-19-1y2oizn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407734/original/file-20210622-19-1y2oizn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407734/original/file-20210622-19-1y2oizn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407734/original/file-20210622-19-1y2oizn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407734/original/file-20210622-19-1y2oizn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407734/original/file-20210622-19-1y2oizn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The proposed ‘Ike Dike’ to protect Galveston Bay and the Houston ship channel from flooding includes storm surge gates, seawalls along the shore and dunes and beaches engineered to absorb floodwaters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://coastal-texas-hub-usace-swg.hub.arcgis.com/">USACE</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Coverage and costs</h2>
<p>There are a number of key issues that I believe any city considering a major seawall proposal should consider. Here are some of the most critical questions: </p>
<p>– Who and what will be protected by these large walls, and at what cost? With so many U.S. cities already experiencing coastal flooding, and current proposals focusing on very large metropolitan areas, there are important questions about which portions of cities would be surrounded by walls and how much to spend. For example, New York City has a <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-nw-nyt-new-york-flooding-sea-wall-20200117-fsiy5kf2mzaz3czzl7w453lzne-story.html">520-mile coastline</a>, but seawall proposals there focus only on protecting lower Manhattan.</p>
<p>– How many years of protection might these barriers provide, and are they just short-term solutions? Flooding can result from short-term extreme events, such as hurricanes, and also from long-term sea level rise. What time frame should these projects be designed to address?</p>
<p>– Who selects which cities or areas to protect? To date, proposals have come from the Army Corps of Engineers. Which officials and local, state or federal agencies should be involved in making these decisions and establishing policies that will guide responses to future sea level rise? </p>
<p>– Do people really want to live behind walls? In New York, Miami and elsewhere, residents have objected to <a href="https://miami-grid.com/2021/03/01/sea-wall/">flood walls that would block views</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1400528750417125376"}"></div></p>
<p>– Who will pay for the walls? Proposing multibillion-dollar walls is one thing, but where will the funds come from to actually construct and maintain these massive structures? In Texas, where the proposed “Ike Dike” across Galveston Bay is projected to cost some $26 billion, the Legislature is considering <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Bill-to-create-taxing-entity-to-pay-for-Ike-16197375.php">creating a special flood-control district</a> with the power to levy property taxes within its boundaries to raise the state’s share.</p>
<p>– Would these structures encourage additional development behind the walls? Typically, providing flood control encourages new construction in the now-protected area, which increases future liabilities and losses when walls are overtopped or fail.</p>
<p>– What other long-term options should be considered? Boston recently considered flood barriers for either its outer or inner harbor, but rejected these options in favor of softer options like <a href="https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2021/01/04/bpda-climate-resilient-zoning-plan-boston-flooding">climate-resilient zoning</a> with special requirements for new projects in flood-prone areas.</p>
<p>– Can cities that reject seawalls agree on thresholds or trigger points for taking other steps, such as using some combination of incentives and mandates to move people out of high-risk areas? Norfolk, one of the most flood-prone cities on the Atlantic coast, has developed a plan that prioritizes development in less-vulnerable zones, which it calls “<a href="https://www.norfolk.gov/DocumentCenter/View/27768/Vision-2100---FINAL?bidId=">neighborhoods of the future</a>.”</p>
<p>Such decisions will affect coastal communities, infrastructure and residents for decades into the future, and I believe it is time to meet this crisis head-on. Sea level rise is a complex problem with no easy or inexpensive solution, but the sooner the science is understood and accepted, and everyone who is affected has an opportunity to get involved, the sooner cities can make plans. In the long run, there is no way to hold back the Atlantic Ocean.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162587/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gary Griggs 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.</span></em></p>Many coastal US cities are contending with increasingly frequent and severe tidal flooding as sea levels rise. Some are considering building seawalls, but this strategy is not simple or cheap.Gary Griggs, Director, Institute of Marine Sciences and Distinguished Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences, University of California, Santa CruzLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1508272020-12-23T13:41:37Z2020-12-23T13:41:37ZThe icy backstory to that ‘clink clink’ you’ll hear when raising a toast to the end of the year<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376434/original/file-20201222-19-ks8ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=85%2C8%2C5647%2C3807&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ice with a slice of history.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/celebration-concept-with-hand-close-up-of-a-couple-royalty-free-image/667560414?adppopup=true">Instants/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Accompanying many a New Year’s Eve toast to the end of another seemingly endless year will be the subtle tinkling of the ice in the glass.</p>
<p>Over the festive period, people around the world will be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/opinion/2021-covid-politics.html">raising a glass to better times ahead</a>.</p>
<p>Accompanying sighs of relief will likely be the subtle tinkling of ice.</p>
<p>In researching a book on the social, medical and moral history of gin and tonic, I have imbibed – moderately – in bars from the <a href="https://www.raffles.com/singapore/dining/long-bar/">Raffles Hotel in Singapore</a> to the <a href="https://www.experienceoxfordshire.org/venue/randolph-hotel-morse-bar/">Morse Bar in Oxford</a>. At each venue, my G&T was always served over ice.</p>
<p>The history of chilled drinks goes back to antiquity. But it was the innovative “frozen water” trade from New England to India in the mid-19th century that popularized ice.</p>
<h2>Frigid luxury</h2>
<p>By that time, ice had been used to chill the drinks for millennia – but only ever for the elite. </p>
<p>Chilled wine was <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/drsarahbond/2016/07/31/pass-me-a-cold-one-a-short-history-of-refrigerating-wine-and-beer/?sh=5789b0e74e2e">all the rage in first-century Rome</a>. Ice chunks were <a href="http://www.expo2015.org/magazine/en/economy/a-short-history-of-ice-cream--from-ancient-roman-snow-to-love-with-a-heart-of-cream.html">brought down from the summits</a> of Mounts Vesuvius and Etna to <a href="https://www.ancient.eu/books/0415186242/">chill the food and drink of the wealthy</a>. Roman author <a href="https://www.ancient.eu/Pliny_the_Younger/">Pliny the Younger</a> ascribes to Emperor Nero both the invention of the ice bucket and <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0132%3Alife%3Dnero%3Achapter%3D48">the chilling of water</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/037698360703400216">Mughal emperor</a> <a href="https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/cities/india/delhi/humayun/humayun.html">Humayun</a> chilled summer fruit juice into a frozen sherbet in the mid-1500s. He used ice shavings from huge blocks of ice he transported on muleback from Kashmir to the capital city of Delhi. To keep it from melting, the ice was treated with potassium nitrate, <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/an-interesting-tale-of-the-business-of-ice-and-its-history-in-india/articleshow/20252095.cms?from=mdr">otherwise known as saltpetre</a>. By the 18th century the Mughals were so dependent upon ice for chilling both food and palaces that they built large “baraf khana,” or ice houses, to store the product.</p>
<p>Across the world in 17th-century Florence, the ruling Medici family would host elaborate feasts featuring tabletop mountain ranges sculpted from ice made by chilling water in winter. They also acted as patrons to <a href="https://www.florenceinferno.com/the-invention-of-ice-cream-in-florence-history-and-legend/">Bernardo Buontalenti, the pioneer of modern-day ice cream</a>.</p>
<p>But until the early 1800s, only emperors and the fabulously wealthy enjoyed the cooling effects of ice.</p>
<h2>Cool customers</h2>
<p>That changed with a young man from Boston. <a href="https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/frederic-tudor-1806-brings-cocktails-and-ice-cream-world/">Frederic Tudor</a> was born in 1783 to a wealthy Boston family who summered on a pond in Rockwood, just north of the city. There, they enjoyed ice cream and chilled drinks thanks to ice harvested in winter and stored in an ice house.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376427/original/file-20201222-15-1bxwa7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376427/original/file-20201222-15-1bxwa7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376427/original/file-20201222-15-1bxwa7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376427/original/file-20201222-15-1bxwa7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376427/original/file-20201222-15-1bxwa7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376427/original/file-20201222-15-1bxwa7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376427/original/file-20201222-15-1bxwa7k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photograph of Frederic Tudor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=Frederic%20tudor">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When his brother, William, quipped that they should harvest ice from the estate’s pond and sell it in the tropics, Frederic took the notion seriously. He begged and borrowed from his <a href="https://www.library.hbs.edu/Citations/SC-Books/The-Ice-King-Frederic-Tudor-and-His-Circle">social network</a>, which included Revolutionary War heroes and merchant elite, to fund his ice enterprise. </p>
<p>According to Tudor’s diary, <a href="https://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/frederic-tudor-the-ice-king">held at the Harvard Business School</a>, he started shipping ice to <a href="https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/frederic-tudor-1806-brings-cocktails-and-ice-cream-world/">the Caribbean island of Martinique in 1806</a>. But islanders remained unconvinced of the benefits of chilling. The ice melted on the dock, and Tudor landed in debtors prison, owing over US$5,000 to his patrons.</p>
<p>Despite this setback, <a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/22407/surprisingly-cool-history-ice">Tudor’s entrepreneurial spirit</a> was said to be undimmed. By 1826 he had garnered enough business to hire noted inventor <a href="https://www.oregonhistoryproject.org/articles/biographies/nathaniel-wyeth-biography/#.X-IFxOlKhp8">Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth</a> as foreman for his company – The Tudor Ice Co. Wyeth created new types of saws, pulleys, iron grids and hoisters needed for <a href="https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/01/04/ice-king/">efficient ice harvesting</a>. He cut huge blocks of ice from Fresh Pond in Cambridge using horse-drawn ice cutters, and moved them via rail to ships in the Boston and Salem harbors. </p>
<p>From there, the world awaited.</p>
<h2>Ice houses of India</h2>
<p>In 1833 Tudor was approached by <a href="http://charlestownbridge.com/2020/09/16/historic-houses-of-the-month-frederic-tudor-and-charlestowns-ice-trade/">Samuel Austin, a merchant of silks and spices</a>, to ship ice to Calcutta, modern-day Kolkata, 16,000 miles away, as ballast to add weight to his empty ships. Austin knew that the colonial British in India were frightened of the <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-did-people-get-ice">tropical heat</a>, believing it to be deadly, and they often escaped to the hills during the endless summer. </p>
<p>So on May 12, 1833, the ship <a href="https://scroll.in/article/720912/how-ice-shipped-all-the-way-from-america-became-a-luxury-item-in-colonial-india">Tuscany sailed from Boston for Calcutta</a>, its hold filled with 180 tons of ice cut during the previous winter. When it arrived <a href="http://failuremag.com/article/cool-customer">in Calcutta</a> four months later, the ship still held 100 tons of ice. It meant Tudor could sell his superior ice at just 3 pence for a pound, undercutting his rivals who sold dirtier ice for much higher.</p>
<p>When news of the ice in Calcutta circulated, British merchants in Bombay, modern-day Mumbai, excitedly raised money to build an ice house in the city’s docks. Initially, demand was limited to the British and Parsis – Persians settled in India – but Tudor’s low prices and superior commodity soon ensured that most elite Indians had access to cold beverages through their homes, clubs and restaurants. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376484/original/file-20201222-23-14u2wvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376484/original/file-20201222-23-14u2wvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376484/original/file-20201222-23-14u2wvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376484/original/file-20201222-23-14u2wvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376484/original/file-20201222-23-14u2wvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376484/original/file-20201222-23-14u2wvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376484/original/file-20201222-23-14u2wvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The dome of Mumbai’s Ice House can be seen nestled between a church and courthouse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bombay_courthouse1850.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bombay’s <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/an-interesting-tale-of-the-business-of-ice-and-its-history-in-india/articleshow/20252095.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst">ice trade with the U.S.</a> was robust and continued through much of the 19th century, when, during the American Civil War, Indian cotton was used to fill the empty ice ships returning home.</p>
<p>By 1853 India became Tudor’s most lucrative destination, with Calcutta alone <a href="https://pazhayathu.blogspot.com/2012/02/water-cooler-air-conditioning-before.html">yielding an estimated $220,000 in profits</a>.</p>
<p>A few of the structures built to accommodate the trade still exist today. A decade ago, I visited an ice house in Madras, modern-day Chennai – now known as Vivekananda House – an <a href="https://sriramv.wordpress.com/2017/05/03/lost-landmarks-of-chennai-the-syrian-roof-at-ice-house/">engineering marvel</a>. British military engineer Col. J.J. Collingwood borrowed a Syrian roofing technique for the ice tower – a domed structure built using clay cylinders. This roof kept the ice very cool, as it was doubly insulated.</p>
<h2>On Walden Pond</h2>
<p>The American naturalist Henry David Thoreau noted the trade in the winter of 1846. After observing a crew of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-02b44e78-2da1-4a27-bcc5-dd0de5f38b20">100 ice cutters</a> of the Tudor Ice Co. at work on Walden Pond, <a href="https://www.walden.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Walden16PondInWinter.pdf">he wrote</a>, “The sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376432/original/file-20201222-17-1mrgngn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376432/original/file-20201222-17-1mrgngn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376432/original/file-20201222-17-1mrgngn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376432/original/file-20201222-17-1mrgngn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376432/original/file-20201222-17-1mrgngn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376432/original/file-20201222-17-1mrgngn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/376432/original/file-20201222-17-1mrgngn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spy Pond, Massachusetts, Ice Harvesting from a print.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Ice_Harvesting%2C_Massachusetts%2C_early_1850s.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It wasn’t just India. Ice cut in New England was transported to Singapore, Jamaica, Havana, New Orleans and Hong Kong.</p>
<p>As well as being able to deliver in bulk, Tudor also marketed the quality of his ice. His claim that the ice of Wenham Lake – 10 miles North of Boston – was the “purest” in the world spawned many imitators. In 1844, a competitor, The Wenham Lake Ice Co., <a href="https://friendsofim.com/2020/07/23/icy-regents-canal/#:%7E:text=In%201844%2C%20the%20Wenham%20Lake%20Ice%20Company%20opened,from%20outside%20the%20store%20looking%20into%20the%20window.">opened an ice store </a> in <a href="https://www.victorianlondon.org/publications8/socialbees-00.htm">The Strand, London</a>, where it displayed a large block of ice with a newspaper placed behind it so that passersby could read the print through the frozen water.</p>
<h2>Ice King on the rocks</h2>
<p>The Tudor Ice Co. flourished despite competition. In December 1847, <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/frederic-tudor-1773831">The Sunbury American </a> newspaper reported that 22,591 tons of ice were shipped to foreign ports. </p>
<p>In the space of 40 years, Tudor had <a href="https://todayinsci.com/T/Tudor_Frederic/IceTradeAmericaToIndia.htm">built an ice empire</a>, block by block, earning him the moniker the “Ice King.” </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>But the icy winds of change were blowing. In 1844, the American inventor John Gorrie, a doctor who specialized in treating malaria – also related to the birth of the G&T – had <a href="http://www.phys.ufl.edu/%7Eihas/gorrie/fridge.htm">produced a prototype of the modern air conditioner</a>. </p>
<p>In 1851, <a href="https://www.wired.com/2008/07/dayintech-0714/">Gorrie received a U.S. patent </a>for one of the world’s first ice-making machines, and by 1860 he was successful in making ice through artificial refrigeration. Meantime, the New England lakes grew <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-did-people-get-ice">dirty with pollution</a> from coal-fired railroads.</p>
<p>The Tudor Ice Co.’s market declined precipitously; the <a href="https://historywithkev.com/2020/08/25/the-civil-war-the-ice-trade-and-the-rise-of-the-ice-machine/">company closed in 1887</a>. </p>
<p>Tudor had died earlier in Boston, in the middle of winter, 1864. By that time, he had created what the ice industry now defines as “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/dec/10/super-cubes-inside-the-surprisingly-big-business-of-packaged-ice#:%7E:text=Within%20The%20Ice%20Co%2C%20they,key%20component%20of%20their%20offering.">the clink effect</a>” – the ability of ice cubes to recall a host of positive associations – around the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150827/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tulasi Srinivas 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.</span></em></p>The history of ice in drinks goes back to antiquity. But it only really got going when a Bostonian started exporting ice to the British in colonial India.Tulasi Srinivas, Professor of Anthropology, Religion and Transnational Studies, Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies, Emerson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1302762020-02-04T13:31:59Z2020-02-04T13:31:59ZAt-risk colleges should do what’s best for students, alumni, donors, employees – and local communities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312630/original/file-20200129-92964-17j1juy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The College of New Rochelle closed in 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:College_of_New_Rochelle_Plaque_(Back).jpg">DanTD</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The College of New Rochelle <a href="http://www.cny.org/stories/college-of-new-rochelle-closing-this-year,18791">closed in 2019</a>, more than a century after its founding as New York’s first Catholic women’s college. The announcement left students <a href="https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2019/02/22/the-college-of-new-rochelle-closing/">scrambling to figure out what to do</a>. The college’s land and buildings <a href="https://dailyvoice.com/new-york/armonk/real-estate/college-of-new-rochelle-campus-sells-for-32m-at-auction/779767/">were sold for US$32 million</a>, most of which paid off debts. </p>
<p>All told, about 90 private and public colleges or <a href="https://www.educationdive.com/news/tracker-college-and-university-closings-and-consolidation/539961/">universities have closed</a> or merged with other schools since 2016. <a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-why-colleges-are-being-forced-to-close-their-doors-and-what-they-can-do-to-stay-open-126399">Reasons for this</a> include declining enrollment, budget shortfalls and growing competition. What’s more, the number of Americans <a href="https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk#">between the ages of 18 and 22</a> is falling, leading to <a href="https://www.educationdive.com/news/adult-learner-enrollment-continues-to-contract/569285/">expectations</a> that <a href="https://hechingerreport.org/college-students-predicted-to-fall-by-more-than-15-after-the-year-2025/">far more closures and mergers are quite likely to follow</a>. </p>
<p>Despite their dire straits, many of these troubled and doomed schools likely will possess significant sums of money and other assets when the end comes. This wealth can include real estate, artwork and philanthropic donations that are <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-tax-on-big-college-and-university-endowments-is-sending-higher-education-a-message-120063">invested in endowments</a>, or pools of assets that support these institutions. </p>
<p>When colleges get into financial trouble, they can’t always tap that money because of a legal requirement that endowments and donations given for a specific purpose be used in ways that honor what donors intended. This complication can stand in the way when school officials seek to use those assets to remain open or pay for an orderly transition.</p>
<p>Students, alumni, donors, faculty and staff are clearly affected when colleges close. In addition, the communities where these schools are located can lose jobs, tax revenue, population and cultural opportunities.</p>
<h2>More closures and worries are coming</h2>
<p>We are scholars who have long examined <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Genevieve_Shaker">higher education and philanthropy</a>. One of us – <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jRXwFcMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">William Plater</a> – is a trustee of <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/07/05/antioch-university-eliminates-jobs-five-presidents">Antioch University</a>, which has grappled with these challenges in recent years.</p>
<p>In 2019, the Department of Education put <a href="https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/about/data-center/school/hcm">nearly 500 colleges and universities on a list</a> of schools on a shaky financial footing. <a href="https://www.edmit.me/">Edmit</a>, a consulting firm, says that nearly <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/11/19/private-colleges-convinced-company-scuttle-release-list-projected-college-closures">twice as many</a> risk closure for financial reasons. The <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2020-01-29/education-department-looks-to-address-sudden-college-closures">federal government</a> is growing more concerned about this problem. </p>
<p>This wave of closures is affecting public colleges and universities, too. Government officials and college administrators in <a href="https://www.ktuu.com/content/news/Massive-budget-cuts-to-the-University-of-Alaska-system-could-have-tidal-wave-effects-according-to-the-university-president-512559381.html">Alaska</a>, <a href="https://consolidation.gsu.edu/">Georgia</a>, <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2018/09/13/uw-campus-mergers-5-things-you-need-know/1260813002/">Wisconsin</a>, <a href="https://ctmirror.org/2019/03/07/accreditation-years-away-but-cscu-presses-forward-with-college-consolidation/">Connecticut</a>, <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/education/2018/07/10/university-iowa-bruce-harreld-board-regents/772148002/">Iowa</a>, <a href="https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2019/dec/07/trustees-at-asu-sign-on-to-merger-20191/">Arkansas</a> and other states are either already consolidating some of their states’ campuses or considering whether to take that step.</p>
<h2>Aftershocks when schools close</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.marlboro.edu/">Marlboro College</a>, a small Vermont school with <a href="https://www.marlboro.edu/community/news/whats-next-for-marlboro/frequently-asked-questions/">enrollment that has dwindled to 150</a> students from 350 in 2012, will close at the end of the 2019-2020 school year. It has <a href="https://berkeleybeacon.com/new-financial-documents-detail-marlboro-college-operated-in-the-red-for-years/">lost nearly $20 million of its assets since 2015</a> by spending more than it’s taking in.</p>
<p>The college wants to combine with <a href="https://www.marlboro.edu/community/news/whats-next-for-marlboro/">Boston-based Emerson College</a>, located 120 miles away. This merger calls for transferring the estimated $30 million that would remain at that point in Marlboro’s <a href="https://www.educationdive.com/news/emerson-college-explores-absorbing-small-liberal-arts-school/566793/">endowment plus some $10 million</a> derived from shifting its real estate holdings to Emerson. Marlboro college would close its doors and students could transfer to Emerson, where tuition and <a href="https://berkeleybeacon.com/emerson-college-will-not-cover-housing-cost-difference-for-marlboro-students/">housing costs</a> are higher.</p>
<p>The 1,000 residents of Marlboro are pushing back. Town resident and former professor T. Hunter Wilson called the merger and loss of its largest employer “<a href="https://www.boston.com/news/education/2019/12/06/marlboro-college-emerson-merger">devastating</a>,” The Boston Globe reported. Another resident told the paper that he’s worried the closure could cost the town its post office or even its <a href="https://theconversation.com/school-closures-can-hit-rural-communities-hard-128837">elementary school</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312629/original/file-20200129-93023-1kfprdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312629/original/file-20200129-93023-1kfprdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312629/original/file-20200129-93023-1kfprdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312629/original/file-20200129-93023-1kfprdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312629/original/file-20200129-93023-1kfprdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312629/original/file-20200129-93023-1kfprdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312629/original/file-20200129-93023-1kfprdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312629/original/file-20200129-93023-1kfprdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marlboro College is poised to close soon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Marlboro_College_campus%2C_Marlboro%2C_Vermont._.jpg">Calebjc</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The fates of towns and gowns</h2>
<p>As colleges struggle to keep the doors open, in our view, they should do more to engage their local communities and funders in their planning processes. This can reduce the impact of <a href="https://hechingerreport.org/the-other-victims-when-colleges-decline-or-close-their-hometowns/">sudden disruption</a> that comes to a local community when it has not anticipated closure, as happened in <a href="https://www.educationdive.com/news/when-should-a-college-say-it-might-close/567864/">Newton, Massachusetts</a>, when <a href="https://www.wbur.org/edify/2018/05/16/mount-ida-senate-hearing">Mount Ida College</a> closed in 2018. </p>
<p>Engaging everyone who will be affected by a closure or merger may potentially ease the inevitable pains of transition all around and can result in new facilities and infrastructure that benefit local communities in new ways.</p>
<p>We consider what happened with Marygrove College, a small Catholic institution that first ended its undergraduate programs and then <a href="https://www.wxyz.com/news/marygrove-college-to-permanently-close-after-92-years-in-detroit">ceased operating its small graduate school in 2019</a>, a good example.</p>
<p>Aided by $50 million in funding from the <a href="http://www.ihep.org/about-ihep/partners/funding-partner/kresge-foundation">Kresge Foundation</a>, the school’s final leaders helped create the <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/education/2019/06/12/detroits-marygrove-college-closing/1429771001/">Marygrove Conservancy</a>. The college’s 53-acre Detroit campus was deeded to the new entity, which will house an <a href="https://detroit.curbed.com/2019/6/12/18663239/marygrove-college-close-campus-fitzgerald-kresge">educational program</a> including an early childhood center, a K-12 school operated by the local public school system and a teacher training program.</p>
<p>This arrangement aligns with the values of the Catholic sisters who founded Marygrove College in 1905. It was possible only because school leaders gave their students, alumni, communities and donors plenty of time to forge a plan for a different future than they expected.</p>
<p>We realize that this kind of transformation isn’t always possible. Regardless, what we consider to be Marygrove’s promising future shows why all colleges should be as open as they can when they get into financial trouble.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313078/original/file-20200131-41490-1o52ur2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313078/original/file-20200131-41490-1o52ur2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313078/original/file-20200131-41490-1o52ur2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313078/original/file-20200131-41490-1o52ur2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313078/original/file-20200131-41490-1o52ur2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313078/original/file-20200131-41490-1o52ur2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313078/original/file-20200131-41490-1o52ur2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313078/original/file-20200131-41490-1o52ur2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many of now-closed Marygrove College’s buildings will serve a new purpose.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marygrove_College_Liberal_Arts_Building_Detroit.JPG">Dwight Burdette</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Deciding what to do with the money</h2>
<p>In these circumstances, control of remaining assets is usually determined by the concept of “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/cy_pres_charitable_trusts">cy près</a>,” a British common law term drawn from the French for “as near as possible.” It means that a court can redirect property, including endowments and land, from colleges and other nonprofits to a charitable purpose that is similar to the original intent of the donors when they chose to support those institutions.</p>
<p>In real life, these things get pretty messy. Consider what happened when <a href="https://www.eagletribune.com/news/former-chester-college-students-flock-to-another-arts-school/article_fa2fbb4a-2ed7-57e1-9736-2386dcecaff0.html">Chester College of New England</a>, a now-defunct liberal arts college in New Hampshire, folded in 2012. It initially expected most of its remaining students to attend New England College, another school in the state. It promised that school its remaining assets as an effort to honor the intents of Chester’s donors.</p>
<p>When most of the displaced students enrolled instead at the New Hampshire Institute of Art, that school objected. Ultimately the <a href="https://nonprofitquarterly.org/nonprofit-college-endowments-school-closes/">court split the funds</a> between the two schools. But the <a href="https://www.mass.edu/forstufam/diplomas/closed/newenglandinstituteofart.html">Institute itself has since closed</a>. It will <a href="https://www.concordmonitor.com/NEC-New-England-College-Henniker-arts-22504707">become part of New England College</a>.</p>
<p>The legal principle of cy près can complicate matters for colleges that are struggling to keep their doors open. They are bound by law to try their best to honor the wishes of their current and past donors, limiting what they do in emergencies.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312626/original/file-20200129-92969-duhuhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312626/original/file-20200129-92969-duhuhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312626/original/file-20200129-92969-duhuhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312626/original/file-20200129-92969-duhuhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312626/original/file-20200129-92969-duhuhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312626/original/file-20200129-92969-duhuhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312626/original/file-20200129-92969-duhuhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312626/original/file-20200129-92969-duhuhr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sweet Briar is bouncing back from financial woes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161025221256/http://www.panoramio.com/photo/86762068">Annette Teng</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Sweet Briar</h2>
<p>This legal principle may have helped save <a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/article/Sweet-Briar-s-44-Million/242698">Sweet Briar</a>, a women’s college in the small town of Amherst, Virginia. In 2015, the college’s president and trustees were convinced at the time that the institution could not overcome its enrollment and financial management difficulties, despite its $65 million endowment. The <a href="https://www.americaninno.com/dc/amherst-virginia-mayor-requests-sweet-briar-to-reconsider-closure/">mayor of Amherst</a> urged the school’s leaders to reconsider in a letter that emphasized the damage that closure would cause the local community. </p>
<p>Many of its <a href="https://scholarship.richmond.edu/law-student-publications/132/">graduates sued</a> to prevent the closing, as did <a href="https://www.whsv.com/home/headlines/Third-Lawsuit-Filed-Challenging-Closure-of-Sweet-Briar-College-301319221.html">members of the faculty</a> and the <a href="https://wset.com/news/sweet-briar-closing/amherst-co-attorney-files-suit-to-block-closure-of-sweet-briar-college">local county government</a>. The alumni then went on to <a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/article/Sweet-Briar-s-44-Million/242698">raise enough money</a> to rescue the school. </p>
<p>But prior to that rescue, Sweet Briar College ran into a different kind of trouble. When it sought to sell some of its assets, <a href="https://www.richmond.com/news/local/education/sweet-briar-case-appealed-judge-blocks-asset-sale/article_e121073d-7796-5909-9645-ddbf6a67b642.html">a judge blocked the sale</a> for being at odds with the directions of <a href="https://sbc.edu/museum/founders/">Indiana Fletcher Williams</a>, whose bequest led to the institution’s founding in 1901. </p>
<p>Happily, the college has now <a href="https://www.newsadvance.com/new_era_progress/news/sweet-briar-announces-m-raised-in-fiscal-year/article_36657680-1641-5c57-b965-89066b068fb3.html">raised a total of $63.9 million</a>. By <a href="https://www.roanoke.com/news/sweet-briar-bond-ratings-continue-upward-trend/article_ad1d19c7-1e08-519a-9c40-57b88163f8c6.html">many accounts</a>, it’s on the road to what could prove a complete recovery.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Genevieve Shaker receives funding from the TIAA Institute to research higher education and philanthropy.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Plater is a governor of Antioch University</span></em></p>It helps when school leaders are open about their financial struggles before it’s too late to forge a good plan.Genevieve Shaker, Associate Professor of Philanthropic Studies, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, IUPUIWilliam Plater, Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus of Public Affairs, Philanthropy, and English; Executive Vice Chancellor and Dean of the Faculties Emeritus, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1200602019-08-04T21:47:05Z2019-08-04T21:47:05ZCould a national buyback program reduce gun violence in America?<p>Americans own nearly half of the <a href="http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SAS-BP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf">world’s guns</a>, with approximately 120 firearms for every 100 U.S. residents. </p>
<p>Gun control policies may someday restrict new gun sales. But what impact can they have when Americans already own millions of guns?</p>
<p><a href="https://reason.com/2019/06/27/on-gun-control-democratic-presidential-candidates-offer-nothing-but-empty-promises/">Some have pointed to gun buybacks</a> as a potential solution to this problem. </p>
<p>I have spent years studying American attitudes toward guns and gun policies, including <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211335516300353">smart guns</a> and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13669877.2017.1422781">open carry</a>. I know that gun owners <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/06/22/americas-complex-relationship-with-guns/">feel strongly</a> about their identities as gun owners, making it difficult to create a strategy for taking guns off the streets.</p>
<h2>US gun stock</h2>
<p>The sheer number of guns is part of the challenge. The United States has the largest <a href="http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SAS-BP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf">civilian-owned stock of guns</a> in the world. At the end of 2017, the Small Arms Survey reported that there were an estimated 393 million firearms in the United States – and that’s not even counting guns owned by the police and military. That represents <a href="http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SAS-BP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf">45.8%</a> of the world’s civilian-owned guns. </p>
<p>Yemen has the second-highest rate of gun ownership per person in the world, with just 52.8 firearms per 100 residents.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/06/22/americas-complex-relationship-with-guns/">More than 40%</a> of U.S. adults live in a household with at least one gun. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/19/us-gun-ownership-survey">About half</a> of all civilian-owned guns in the U.S. are owned by just 3% of U.S. adults. These gun owners have an average of 17 guns each. Most other gun owners average about three guns at home.</p>
<h2>Reducing numbers</h2>
<p>Gun buyback programs are designed to reduce the number of firearms by purchasing guns from private owners, and typically destroying them. </p>
<p>Gun buyback programs are not new. </p>
<p>Following a mass shooting in 1996, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9212725/australia-buyback">Australia banned automatic and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns</a> and instituted a national gun buyback program. </p>
<p>In a year, Australia purchased about 650,000 firearms from private residents, <a href="http://faculty.publicpolicy.umd.edu/sites/default/files/reuter/files/gun%20chapter.pdf">estimated</a> to represent about 20% of the country’s privately owned guns. <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9212725/australia-buyback">Research</a> evaluating the effects of the buyback found a 42% decrease in homicide rates and a 57% decrease in suicide rates in the seven years after the legislation passed. But <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1540791">some researchers</a> are still uncertain whether this decrease was due to the buyback, or whether it was simply part of an existing downward trend. </p>
<p>U.S. cities have experimented with buybacks on a much smaller scale, even though the <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/06/22/americas-complex-relationship-with-guns/">Pew Research Center</a> reports that more than 70% of gun owners say they could never imagine themselves not owning some sort of firearm.</p>
<p>One of the earliest examples occurred in <a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&dat=19741208&id=INFOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=KgIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6867,3250859">Baltimore</a>, Maryland. In 1974, Baltimore police paid residents US$50 per firearm, collecting roughly 13,500 over a two-month period. Rather than reduce crime, homicides and assaults spiked during the buyback. It is unclear why, but two months is a short time period for a clear pattern to emerge and crime rates in cities across the country were increasing through much of the 1970s.</p>
<p>Baltimore is not unique. A 2008 review of the existing research by Matthew Makarios and Travis Pratt in the journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128708321321">Crime & Delinquency</a> found that gun buyback programs have generally been ineffective in reducing crime in the U.S. Challenges include the types of guns purchased, the involvement of law enforcement, and the costs involved.</p>
<h2>Types of guns purchased</h2>
<p>Gun buyback programs often place no restrictions on the types of guns that can be purchased. Civilians frequently bring in old firearms, guns in disrepair, rifles, or shotguns. <a href="https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/4/3/206.short">Sacramento</a>, California, implemented a gun buyback program in 1993. Nearly a quarter of all guns submitted were not in working order.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(13)00452-2/pdf">Boston</a> Police Department also attempted a gun buyback program in 1993 without a restriction for weapon type. Only about half of submitted firearms were handguns. That’s significant because we know from existing <a href="https://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/gun-violence/pages/welcome.aspx#note3">crime data</a> that although <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/us/mass-shootings.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage">some mass shooters use more powerful weapons</a>, handguns are the type of firearm most often used in violent crime and in youth violence. If the goal is to reduce crime, getting shotguns or broken firearms off the street will likely have little effect. </p>
<p>Guns obtained through a 1994 to 1996 buyback in <a href="https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/8/2/143.short">Milwaukee</a> also differed from those typically used in suicide and homicide.</p>
<p>The Boston Police Department tried again in 2006. Learning from their past mistakes, the police offered a <a href="https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(13)00452-2/pdf">$200 gift card for each handgun</a> – but no cash or gift card for rifles or shotguns. At the conclusion of the program, the Boston Police Department reported that more than 85% of submitted firearms were handguns, closely matching the types of guns used in crime.</p>
<p>The number of shootings <a href="https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(13)00452-2/pdf">decreased</a> by 14% in Boston in the year after the buyback and continued to decrease through 2010.</p>
<p>Other jurisdictions followed Boston’s example. In 2015, 13 police departments in <a href="https://cdn.journals.lww.com/jtrauma/Abstract/2017/08000/Are__goods_for_guns__good_for_the_community__An.12.aspx">Massachusetts</a> instituted a buyback program with higher amounts paid for types of firearms more frequently used in crime. As a result, they were able to collect more handguns. But three out of five people who sold their guns said they still had one or more guns at home.</p>
<h2>Cost and profit</h2>
<p>Experience shows that some people will attempt to profit from gun buybacks by submitting inexpensive or broken firearms worth less than the cash incentive offered through the buyback. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://twitter.com/CairnsKcairns/status/1074759034513838081">Baltimore</a>, one buyback participant claimed she was going to use the buyback money to purchase a larger weapon. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/firearms-enthusiasts-crash-gun-buyback-to-hunt-bargains">Oregon</a>, private citizens waited outside the gun buyback locations to purchase firearms and ammunition from owners before they could go inside to submit them to law enforcement.</p>
<p>Gun buybacks are financed by taxpayer dollars and are generally <a href="https://www.thetrace.org/2015/07/gun-buyback-study-effectivness/">paid for</a> by local agencies rather than through state or federal funding. A local jurisdiction’s budget will limit the amount of firearms it can purchase and destroy, reducing the likelihood that a gun buyback will have an observable impact on local crime rates.</p>
<h2>Law enforcement involvement</h2>
<p>Typically, gun buyback programs are run by law enforcement. Understandably, criminal offenders may be hesitant to come to the local police station or interact with law enforcement – even if they are promised exemption from prosecution for weapon possession. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(13)00452-2/pdf">Boston</a> attempted to address this concern in 2006 by designating sites like churches as drop-off locations. <a href="https://abc7news.com/news/buyback-event-saturday-for-residents-to-turn-in-firearms-for-cash/434806/">Other jurisdictions</a> have held gun buybacks run by nonprofit groups, but law enforcement officials are frequently on-hand as security, or to help take the guns to be destroyed after the buyback.</p>
<h2>No sizeable US impact</h2>
<p>So far, gun buybacks in the United States have been a community-based, grassroots endeavor with limited impact. Their feasibility on a state or nationwide scale is unclear. </p>
<p>Cost alone may be a prohibiting factor. Assuming a $50 per firearm incentive, reducing the <a href="http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SAS-BP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf">U.S. gun stock</a> by 1% would cost $196.5 million. Inevitably, only some of the guns purchased would have been used in future crimes.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lacey Wallace 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.</span></em></p>More than 40 percent of U.S. adults have a gun in their household, making it hard to get guns off the streets – even if new gun restrictions are passed.Lacey Wallace, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1163242019-05-24T10:43:24Z2019-05-24T10:43:24ZAs Airbnb grows, this is exactly how much it’s bringing down hotel prices and occupancy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276198/original/file-20190523-187165-nvs9x7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Airbnb is a growing threat to the major hotel chains. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/indianapolis-circa-march-2018-indy-downtown-1052905802?src=sXQZjdKt6mHixDuufMBzBA-1-17">Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Airbnb has grown exponentially since its founding in 2008 and is expected to soon go public in an <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-airbnb-ipo/airbnb-ceo-says-co-will-be-ready-for-ipo-later-this-year-cnbc-idUSKCN1S51M9">initial public offering</a> that would rank it among the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/3/19/18272274/airbnb-valuation-common-stock-hoteltonight">world’s most valuable hotel companies</a>. </p>
<p>In fact, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/3/25/18276296/airbnb-hotels-hilton-marriott-us-spending">U.S. consumers spent more money on Airbnb</a> last year than they did on Hilton and its subsidiaries, the second-biggest hotel chain in the world, which was founded a century ago. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MXFcg7EAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">an expert in hospitality management</a>, I was curious to know precisely how all this growth has affected the hotel industry – and just how scared hotels should be.</p>
<p><iframe id="AR5CS" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/AR5CS/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Exponential growth</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2018.11.008">Research I recently conducted</a> with colleagues Makarand Mody and Courtney C. Suess studied Airbnb’s impact on hotels’ performance in 10 major U.S. cities to determine how the fast-growing company has influenced three key metrics: room prices, hotel revenues and occupancy rates. Our research included data from 2008 to 2017 in Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New York, San Francisco and Seattle.</p>
<p>In those cities, the number of properties on Airbnb – from room shares to entire houses – surged from just 51 in its first year of operation to more to 50,000 five years later and to over half a million in 2017.</p>
<p><iframe id="cvpQX" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/cvpQX/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Some of this growth can be attributed to consumers’ <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312046857_The_Role_of_Authenticity_in_Airbnb_Experiences">increasing demand</a> for authentic lodging experiences – in people’s real homes – at affordable prices. </p>
<p>But another important factor is the <a href="https://www.frmjournal.com/news/news_detail.airbnb-lets-may-be-unsafe-due-to-lack-of-regulation.html">lack of regulation</a> Airbnb faced during its first decades, which gave it more flexibility and made it easier to add new properties to its inventory. </p>
<p>While this is now changing as <a href="https://www.cntraveler.com/galleries/2016-06-22/places-with-strict-airbnb-laws">cities clamp down</a>, this provided Airbnb with a significant competitive advantage against the hotel industry. Indeed, the <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/112414/airbnb-brings-sharing-economy-hotels.asp">typical regulatory framework</a> in cities across America means it can take several years to add a new hotel to the market and requires permits, adherence to safety codes and more tax collection. </p>
<h2>A significant impact</h2>
<p>And our study showed that these advantages translated into a significant impact on the hotel industry in terms of revenues, prices and occupancy rates. </p>
<p>Specifically, we found that every 1% increase in the number of Airbnb properties decreased the average revenue per room by 0.02%. Although this impact seems small, consider Airbnb’s phenomenal year-over-year growth rate when measuring the company’s impact on hotel room revenues. Accordingly, every time Airbnb’s supply doubles – which is its average yearly pace since inception – hotel revenues fall 2%. </p>
<p>While it’s hard to convert this into dollar amounts given the statistical nature of our analysis, we crunched the data on New York City and found that total potential hotel revenue lost to Airbnb may have totaled US$365 million in 2016 alone. </p>
<p>The impact on average room prices and occupancy rates was similar but smaller. Room prices fell 0.003% to 0.03% for every 1% increase in Airbnb supply, while hotel occupancy declined by 0.008% to 0.1%. </p>
<h2>Bearing down on luxury</h2>
<p>Although Airbnb was initially perceived to be a potential threat to economy hotels – defined as the bottom 20% in terms of average price – we found that Airbnb also had a significant impact on the luxury segment – or the top 15%. </p>
<p>That suggests the company has successfully pushed to provide more unique experiences across the spectrum, and now there’s a large inventory of more <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-29/airbnb-to-offer-200-new-luxury-suites-at-rockefeller-plaza">“luxury” experiences on the platform</a> where one can rent designer homes and unique accommodations like cabins, boats and even treehouses – all of which tend to be in the higher price range. </p>
<p>Our findings also showed that midscale and independent hotels were the least hurt by Airbnb’s increasing supply, probably because both have very similar price points. Another possible reason is that people who chose independent hotels perceived those properties to be more authentic compared to chain hotels, and so those consumers were less motivated to switch from independent hotels to Airbnb.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276201/original/file-20190523-187172-16ktaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276201/original/file-20190523-187172-16ktaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276201/original/file-20190523-187172-16ktaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276201/original/file-20190523-187172-16ktaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276201/original/file-20190523-187172-16ktaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276201/original/file-20190523-187172-16ktaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276201/original/file-20190523-187172-16ktaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Airbnb’s luxury offerings – including treehouses – have manage to snag significant revenue from hotels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Airbnb-Renovations/93d0ba1b77cc4815a61446ffe5e595d2/7/0">AP Photo/Eric Risberg</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Airbnb’s continuing threat</h2>
<p>These results collectively suggest that Airbnb appears to have taken a slice of the pie from the hotel industry. </p>
<p>The question now is will that phenomenal growth continue? </p>
<p>Airbnb <a href="https://www.arabianbusiness.com/travel-hospitality/420624-airbnb-launches-arabic-website-amid-63-growth-in-uae-visitors">continues</a> to grow its <a href="https://www.travelpulse.com/news/hotels-and-resorts/airbnbs-growth-worries-mexico-hoteliers.html">supply of properties</a> <a href="https://www.eturbonews.com/251935/off-the-beaten-track-thai-destinations-experiencing-explosive-airbnb-growth/">around the world</a>, and it is clear to me that the company represents a permanent challenge to hotel chains. </p>
<p>While there are efforts to regulate the home rentals that makes up the Airbnb properties and other sharing platforms – which could curb its growth – decisions on how to regulate these platforms <a href="https://skift.com/2019/02/12/airbnb-isnt-going-anywhere-so-why-arent-cities-regulating-it-more/">have not been straightforward</a>.</p>
<p>In other words, hoteliers should continue to fear Airbnb.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116324/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tarik Dogru 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.</span></em></p>The number of Airbnb properties has exploded since its founding in 2008. A hospitality management expert looked at how this has hurt hotels.Tarik Dogru, Assistant Professor of Hospitality Management, Florida State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1092172019-01-10T11:49:51Z2019-01-10T11:49:51ZTumor-free flounder are just 1 dividend from the cleanup of Boston Harbor<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253075/original/file-20190109-32133-bc40uk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hull Peninsula and part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/21jVy7J">Eric Kilby/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Thirty years ago, during the 1988 presidential campaign, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush took a boat ride across Boston Harbor and derided the environmental record of his rival, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, calling the polluted waters a “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/02/us/bush-in-enemy-waters-says-rival-hindered-cleanup-of-boston-harbor.html">harbor of shame</a>.” Bush was right. For decades Boston had been dumping barely treated sewage into the harbor, although a court-ordered cleanup was just starting.</p>
<p>Since 1986 colleagues and I have studied tumors in Boston Harbor flounder, which were a major driver of public outcry over the state of the harbor. Flounder are tasty and easy to catch, and have long been <a href="http://www.eregulations.com/massachusetts/fishing/saltwater/commonly-caught-species/">a popular commercial and recreational species</a> in Massachusetts coastal waters. But a 1984 study showed that 8 percent of <a href="https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/winter-flounder">winter flounder</a> sampled from Boston Harbor had <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.228.4699.587">liver tumors</a>. Another study found tumors in <a href="https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/pdf/10.1289/ehp.90-1519495">15 percent of winter flounder</a> and suggested that they were caused by exposure to sewage-borne pollutants.</p>
<p>Today the picture is very different. In a <a href="https://doi.org/10.3354/dao03299">recent study</a>, we provided evidence that the goal of cleaning up toxic chemicals from Boston Harbor has been met. Boston Harbor flounder are dramatically healthier, even those caught near an <a href="http://www.mwra.state.ma.us/harbor/html/outfall_update.htm">offshore outfall</a> where treated sewage is now discharged into Massachusetts Bay. In fact, levels of disease associated with contaminant exposure are lower in flounder caught near the outfall than they were in the early 1990s. Boston Harbor’s turnaround shows that heavily damaged ecosystems can recover and provide benefits far larger than their cleanup costs.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253078/original/file-20190109-32133-1pq9asd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253078/original/file-20190109-32133-1pq9asd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253078/original/file-20190109-32133-1pq9asd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253078/original/file-20190109-32133-1pq9asd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253078/original/file-20190109-32133-1pq9asd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253078/original/file-20190109-32133-1pq9asd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253078/original/file-20190109-32133-1pq9asd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253078/original/file-20190109-32133-1pq9asd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vice President George H.W. Bush gestures from a boat in Boston Harbor during a campaign stop in Boston, Sept. 1, 1988.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Massachusetts-Un-/2fb3a8be5ce4da11af9f0014c2589dfb/1/0">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Impact of the Clean Water Act</h2>
<p>In 1972 Congress passed the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/history-clean-water-act">Clean Water Act</a>, which established the legal framework for regulating pollutant discharges into U.S. waters. At that time, Boston Harbor was severely polluted. </p>
<p>Raw sewage discharges had made local beaches risky for swimmers since the late 1800s. By the mid-20th century, heavy loads of pesticides, <a href="https://www.epa.gov/pcbs/learn-about-polychlorinated-biphenyls-pcbs">PCBs</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7643-8340-4_6">heavy metals</a> were also flowing into the harbor, contaminating sediments and marine organisms. Two overloaded treatment plants discharged largely untreated sewage and sludge into shallow harbor waters. </p>
<p>Finally, in 1982 the Boston suburb of Quincy, the nonprofit <a href="https://www.clf.org/">Conservation Law Foundation</a> and the federal government all sued Boston under the Clean Water Act for failing to update its sewage treatment systems. Evidence of tumors in flounder helped convince presiding Judge Paul Garrity that dramatic action was required. As Garrity <a href="http://bostonglobe.newspapers.com/image/436982881">asserted</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The current and potential impact of pollution upon the health, welfare and safety of persons who live and work nearby Boston Harbor and who use it for commercial, recreational, and other purposes is staggering. The damage to that environment and to the creatures who live in it may very well become irreversible unless measures are taken to control, and at some point preclude, the pollution and consequent destruction of that very valuable resource.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As a result, the <a href="http://www.mwra.com/">Massachusetts Water Resources Authority</a> was established in 1985, and a court-ordered cleanup began. The <a href="http://www.mwra.state.ma.us/harbor/html/soh_2.htm">timeline</a> called for ending sewage sludge discharges by December 1991, developing secondary sewage treatment by 1997, and building a 9.5-mile tunnel that would carry treated effluent offshore by 2000. The cost for constructing the new secondary treatment plant and discharge tunnel was US$3.8 billion.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253080/original/file-20190109-32142-1kk69ir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253080/original/file-20190109-32142-1kk69ir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253080/original/file-20190109-32142-1kk69ir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253080/original/file-20190109-32142-1kk69ir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253080/original/file-20190109-32142-1kk69ir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253080/original/file-20190109-32142-1kk69ir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253080/original/file-20190109-32142-1kk69ir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253080/original/file-20190109-32142-1kk69ir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Metals in MWRA treatment plant discharges to Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay have declined by more than 80 percent as a result of the harbor cleanup.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.mwra.state.ma.us/01news/2008/bhpenvironentalsuccess/figure4.htm">MWRA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The changing flounder fishery</h2>
<p>Even at its dirtiest in the 1970s and 1980s, Boston Harbor was a mecca for recreational flounder fishing. At one time, six businesses rented fishing skiffs out of Hough’s Neck in Quincy Bay, the southern arm of Boston Harbor, to anglers pursuing flounder that spent cold-weather months in Boston Harbor. This peninsula was referred to as the “flounder capital of the world.”</p>
<p>I began studying the genetics of flounder tumors as a doctoral student working with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution biologist <a href="http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?id=jstegeman&pid=82520&tid=4462">John Stegeman</a> in the mid-1980s. When I presented data from this work in 1987 at the New England Aquarium, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority officials were interested in our findings. The MWRA started funding our work in 1988, and continues to support it today. In my view, it is a good example of fundamental research that has produced a very long-term applied benefit. </p>
<p>We researched the underlying disease process in flounder, and showed that some tumor-associated cells were excellent predictors of tumor risk. We also found that winter flounder around the pre-cleanup sewage discharge points fed significantly on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0025-326X(96)84962-9">organic matter derived from sewage sludge</a> – mainly worms feasting on nutrients in the sludge – before sludge discharges ended in 1991. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mq6f1gDU1lo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Landing winter flounder in Boston Harbor, 2017.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By annually examining flounder from four different sites in and beyond the harbor, we were able to show that the prevalence of tumors in the fish declined with time after the cleanup began, to the point where <a href="https://doi.org/10.3354/dao03299">we did not detect tumors after 2004</a>. Tumor precursor cells in the fish also decreased remarkably. The decreasing prevalence of liver tumors was a good indicator that the harbor cleanup also reduced human health risk, especially for seafood consumers.</p>
<p>Interestingly, winter flounder thrived on the abundant food in sewage sludge, even though it caused liver tumors. In the 1990s, once sludge was no longer discharged on outgoing tides, the flounder lost this food source. In response they shifted their movements so that they did not arrive in the harbor from deeper waters in Massachusetts Bay until they were ready to spawn in late April, and appeared in fewer numbers. This trend was also partly driven by region-wide reductions in the flounder population. </p>
<p>Today flounder are less notable in Boston Harbor than striped bass and seals, but are <a href="http://www.patriotledger.com/article/20150808/NEWS/150807286">making a slow comeback</a>. In another sign of how much cleaner the harbor is, humpback whales were recently filmed breaching in front of the upgraded sewage treatment plant on Deer Island. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p1apg8AbuY8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A juvenile humpback whale breaches in front of the Deer Island sewage treatment plant, August 28, 2018.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A substantial payoff</h2>
<p>A staggering amount of human effort and resources went into the Boston Harbor cleanup, but the results demonstrate that long-term investments to improve regional environmental quality can pay off. A recent study led by my colleague Di Jin estimates that Boston Harbor now provides a capital value of <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2018.00478">$30 billion to $100 billion in ecosystem services</a>, such as recreation opportunities and habitat for fish and shellfish, thanks to a cleanup with a total price tag of $4.7 billion (for the measures discussed above plus sewer system improvements). I would not have eaten fish from Boston Harbor 30 years ago, but I would eat them today.</p>
<p>However, environmental conservation is never finished. New water quality challenges are emerging – notably, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2018/12/07/boston-harbor-clean-but-could-face-new-threats-marine-life-plastics-and-drugs/pRw2DPI8KXDVgpz3iIq4JP/story.html#comments">microplastics and pharmaceuticals in wastewater</a>, which are not currently regulated. As the Trump administration pushes to <a href="https://theconversation.com/epa-staff-say-the-trump-administration-is-changing-their-mission-from-protecting-human-health-and-the-environment-to-protecting-industry-96256">reduce environmental regulation</a>, it bears emphasizing that without federal legislation and legal action, Boston might still have the nation’s dirtiest harbor today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109217/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The research described in this article was funded by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, a state agency that provides wholesale water and sewer services across greater Boston, though a contract with Normandeau Associates, Inc. </span></em></p>A few decades ago Boston Harbor was one of the nation’s dirtiest water bodies. Now, healthier fish in the harbor underscore that a multibillion-dollar cleanup has succeeded.Michael Moore, Senior Scientist, Woods Hole Oceanographic InstitutionLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1081432018-12-06T11:42:41Z2018-12-06T11:42:41ZClimate change resilience could save trillions in the long run – but finding billions now to pay for it is the hard part<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249119/original/file-20181205-186076-19qkuvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Waves from a 2012 superstorm crash into a seawall and buildings along the coast near Boston Harbor. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Superstorm-Noreaster/48a2a24584f3419abc6481f10f2c0edb/2/0">AP Photo/Steven Senne</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Is your city prepared for climate change? </p>
<p>The latest <a href="https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/">National Climate Assessment</a> <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23112018/infographic-national-climate-assessment-us-economy-extreme-weather-global-warming-cost-lives-wildfires-agriculture-federal-report?">paints a grim future</a> if U.S. cities and states don’t take serious action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that the costs of climate change could reach 10 percent of the entire U.S. economy by the end of the century – or more than US$2 trillion a year – much of it in damage to infrastructure and private property from more intense storms and flooding.</p>
<p>Cities can greatly reduce the damage and costs through adaptation measures such as building seawalls and reinforcing infrastructure. The problem is such projects are expensive, and finding ways to fund the cost of protecting cities against future and uncertain threats is a major financial and political challenge - especially in places where taxpayers have not yet experienced a disaster. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-i46z-kAAAAJ&hl=en">I’ve been</a> part of a team that has been evaluating options for protecting <a href="https://www.boston.gov/departments/environment/climate-ready-boston">Boston</a>, one of America’s most vulnerable coastal cities. Our analysis offers a few lessons for other cities as they begin planning for tomorrow’s climate. </p>
<h2>Investing in adaptation</h2>
<p>A team of scientists from 13 federal agencies contributed to the fourth U.S. National Climate Assessment, which recently laid out the stark threats Americans face from sea level rise, more frequent and intense storms, extreme precipitation, and droughts and wildfires. </p>
<p>For example, the report notes that coastal zone counties account for nearly half of the nation’s population and economic activity, and that cumulative damage to property in those areas could reach $3.5 trillion by 2060. </p>
<p>The good news is that investing in adaptation can be highly cost effective. The National Climate Assessment estimates that such measures could significantly reduce the cumulative damage to coastal property to about $800 billion instead of $3.5 trillion. </p>
<p>The report does not, however, examine the complex problems of implementing these adaptation solutions. </p>
<h2>The adaptation devil is in the details</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.umb.edu/ssl">Sustainable Solutions Lab</a> at the University of Massachusetts Boston has been closely involved with its host city and local business and civic leaders in devising such climate adaptation strategies and figuring out how best to implement them, including a study I led on <a href="https://www.umb.edu/news/detail/sustainable_solutions_lab_recommendations_on_financing_climate_resilience">financing investments in climate resilience</a>. Our work identified a series of hurdles that make financing such projects difficult. </p>
<p>One key problem is that while public authorities – and taxpayers – will ultimately bear the cost burden of coastal protection, the benefits mostly accrue to private property owners. Higher property taxes or new “resilience fees” will be on the table – and unlikely to be politically popular. </p>
<p>Another problem is that <a href="https://theconversation.com/building-climate-resilience-in-cities-lessons-from-new-york-52363">resilience investments</a> primarily prevent or reduce future damages and costs but don’t create much new value, unlike other public investments such as toll roads and bridges. For example, an investment in a sea wall might prevent property prices for coastal homes from falling or insurance premiums from rising, but it won’t generate any new cash flows to defray the costs for the city or homeowner.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249120/original/file-20181205-186073-7snp08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249120/original/file-20181205-186073-7snp08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249120/original/file-20181205-186073-7snp08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249120/original/file-20181205-186073-7snp08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249120/original/file-20181205-186073-7snp08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249120/original/file-20181205-186073-7snp08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249120/original/file-20181205-186073-7snp08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">City officials are working on ways to protect Boston Harbor from the effects of climate change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aerial-view-boston-ma-usa-109687331?src=lKIUXKeQZRs_k49oT2ah6g-1-27">Richard Cavalleri/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Beware the big fix</h2>
<p>In a separate study, we examined the feasibility of building a <a href="https://www.umb.edu/news/detail/umass_boston_report_boston_harbor_barrier_costs_would_outweigh_benefits">four-mile barrier across Boston Harbor</a> with massive gates that would close if major storms threatened to flood the city. </p>
<p>We estimated that the project would cost at least $12 billion and could take 30 years to plan, design, finance and build. Ultimately we concluded it was unlikely to be cost effective and urged city officials to abandon the idea. </p>
<p>One key problem is the uncertainty regarding the extent and pace of sea-level rise, which <a href="https://www.upi.com/Sea-levels-will-rise-but-scientists-not-sure-how-high/3341513191562/">is forecast to reach</a> anywhere from 2 to 8 feet by the end of the century. But we really don’t know. By the time the barrier would become operational mid-century, we might realize that we didn’t need it – or worse, that it is woefully inadequate. </p>
<p>As sea levels rise, the gates, which would be the largest of their kind in the world and take many hours to open or close, would need to be activated more frequently and could potentially fail. In addition, the cost of such a barrier would be difficult to finance in an era of growing federal deficits and would choke off capital required for other more urgent adaptation projects. </p>
<p>In other words, it’s risky to put all our adaptation eggs in one very expensive basket.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249124/original/file-20181205-186073-oxw51u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249124/original/file-20181205-186073-oxw51u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249124/original/file-20181205-186073-oxw51u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249124/original/file-20181205-186073-oxw51u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249124/original/file-20181205-186073-oxw51u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249124/original/file-20181205-186073-oxw51u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249124/original/file-20181205-186073-oxw51u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Constructing seawalls can be a modest and cost-effective way to shore up a city’s defenses against climate change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dramatic-stormy-sea-breaking-against-brighton-1122488816?src=J-_O8F0SJ8m6rNSTDW22BQ-1-3">Gill Copeland/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The incremental solution</h2>
<p>Instead, our group recommends that Boston and other cities pursue more incremental shoreline protection projects focused on the most vulnerable areas. </p>
<p>Examples include constructing seawalls and berms, elevating some roads and parks and creating incentives for property owners to protect their buildings. The key attraction of such an approach is that capital can be targeted in highly cost-effective ways to the most vulnerable areas that need protection in the short term. It also allows for more flexible planning as the science improves and climate impacts come into sharper focus. </p>
<p>Boston is already <a href="https://www.boston.gov/departments/environment/climate-ready-east-boston">considering</a> some <a href="https://www.boston.gov/departments/environment/climate-ready-south-boston">projects</a> like this that would cost around $2 billion to $2.5 billion over a decade or two. Coming up with that much money is still a big challenge, but it’s far more cost effective than the harbor barrier. </p>
<p>Another benefit is that this neighborhood-level approach would facilitate more local economic development and community participation. While making these areas more resilient, such investments would also involve upgrades in housing, transportation and other infrastructure. </p>
<p>This would go a long way toward ensuring that the community and taxpayers are on board when the discussion turns to costs. </p>
<h2>Fair and equitable</h2>
<p>Adapting to climate change will be a mammoth challenge for cities and citizens across the country – and world. Finding ways to finance adaptation in a fair and equitable way will be paramount to success. </p>
<p>Miami, for example, last year issued a voter-approved <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/">$400 million bond</a> to pay for about half its planned resilience projects. In August – exactly a year after their region was <a href="http://harriscountycommunitycorner.org">devastated</a> by Hurricane Harvey – most voters in Harris County, Texas, <a href="https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Harris-County-voters-pass-2-5-billion-flood-bond-13182853.php">approved a $2.5 billion bond</a> to pay for flood protection. And just last month, citizens in San Francisco <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/SF-s-Embarcadero-seawall-measure-on-track-to-13369575.php">approved</a> a $425 million bond to pay a quarter of the costs of fortifying a sea wall. </p>
<p>One problem with these projects is the heavy reliance on bonds. We found that it would be better to spread the costs of protecting cities and towns across multiple levels of government and private sources of capital, and utilize a range of funding mechanisms, including property taxes, carbon-based fees, and district-level charges.</p>
<p>The hope is that voters and cities will approve such projects before disaster strikes – not after.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108143/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David L Levy is affiliated with the Sustainable Solutions Lab at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, which has received funding from the Barr Foundation. </span></em></p>As the expected costs of climate change grow, cities are on the frontlines of adapting to sea level rise and more intense storms – and finding ways to pay for it.David L Levy, Professor of Management, Director of the Center for Sustainable Enterprise and Regional Competitiveness, UMass BostonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/736112017-02-27T14:46:47Z2017-02-27T14:46:47ZPatriot’s Day: a bizarre and suspect portrayal of the Boston bombings<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158292/original/image-20170224-22981-1rg9y3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lionsgate</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The actor Mark Wahlberg was supposed to be aboard one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11, but a scheduling change meant that he fortuitously ended up missing the doomed flight. Some years later, in an interview with <a href="http://www.mensjournal.com/in-the-february-issue-mark-wahlberg">Men’s Journal</a>, he mused on what might have transpired, had he actually taken the flight:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn’t have went down like it did. There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, ‘OK, we’re going to land somewhere safely, don’t worry.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The quote goes some way towards explaining Wahlberg’s strangely self-aggrandising role in his new movie, Patriot’s Day. The film is based on the events of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, in which the Tsarnaev brothers detonated pressure cooker bombs close to the finish line, killing three, and injuring hundreds more.</p>
<p>The film, directed by long-time Wahlberg collaborator, Peter Berg, professes to be a painstaking reconstruction of the fateful day’s events and the city-wide manhunt that followed in the four days afterwards. Berg is clearly intimately familiar with the documentary evidence and source material, and is keen to impart his diligent research to the audience. Characters, locations, and events, for the most part, are depicted with impeccable detail. Perhaps most memorably, the film eerily intersperses actual CCTV footage of the bombers into key scenes, blurring the lines with reality.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158294/original/image-20170224-23000-11u2bqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158294/original/image-20170224-23000-11u2bqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158294/original/image-20170224-23000-11u2bqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158294/original/image-20170224-23000-11u2bqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158294/original/image-20170224-23000-11u2bqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158294/original/image-20170224-23000-11u2bqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158294/original/image-20170224-23000-11u2bqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peter Berg on set.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lionsgate</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Who’s Wahlberg?</h2>
<p>But for a movie that has taken such great pains to be authentic, and exhaustively consulted victims, law enforcement professionals, witnesses and investigators, Wahlberg’s casting defies reason. Sgt Tommy Saunders, played by Walhberg, does not exist. Nevertheless, Wahlberg’s fictional composite character becomes the lynch-pin for the entire film. He is everywhere.</p>
<p>At every key juncture of the film, Saunders miraculously appears. He’s at the finishing line when the bombs go off. He helps the victims and directs the first responders. He maps out Boston for the FBI. He instigates the witness interviews. He responds to the Tsarnaev brothers’ carjacking victim at the gas station. He’s involved in the Watertown gun battle. And, finally, he has his gun squarely aimed at the younger Tsarnaev, as he emerges from hiding under the boat.</p>
<p>If this film is a testament to the bravery of Bostonians, as it claims to be, then why the need for a make-believe hero to take so much of the credit? It is difficult not to see this as a vanity project for Wahlberg.</p>
<p>This is particularly troubling when key heroic figures from the actual events have been completely neglected, such as <a href="http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2016/12/19/state-rep-patriots-day/">Officer Dennis “DJ” Simmonds</a>. Injured by a hand grenade during the waterfront shootout, he eventually succumbed to his injuries almost a year later. He is neither portrayed, nor even mentioned in the film.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158295/original/image-20170224-22994-1s6dr0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158295/original/image-20170224-22994-1s6dr0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158295/original/image-20170224-22994-1s6dr0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158295/original/image-20170224-22994-1s6dr0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158295/original/image-20170224-22994-1s6dr0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158295/original/image-20170224-22994-1s6dr0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158295/original/image-20170224-22994-1s6dr0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ever-present Mark Wahlberg.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lionsgate</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The milk incident</h2>
<p>This is not the only creative license taken. For a film that claims to rely so heavily on the documentary evidence, the narrative is riddled with inaccuracies.</p>
<p>For example, in a scene shortly after the bombings, the two brothers are seen watching news coverage of the event from their apartment. Tamerlan’s wife, Katherine Russell, carrying their infant, interrupts them to complain that Dzhokhar has bought the wrong milk from the convenience store. After a brief argument between the brothers, Tamerlan sends his brother out to exchange the milk. The film then cuts to actual CCTV footage of Dzhokhar rushing into the Whole Foods store to swap over the milk.</p>
<p>In reality, Tamerlan actually drove his younger brother to the store and waited in the car outside while Dzhokhar bought the milk, realised he had made a mistake and promptly returned inside to exchange it. Russell was not present – and neither did she interrupt the brothers’ viewing of the news coverage to complain about the milk. I’m not sure why Berg chose to alter this episode. It might seem fairly inconsequential – but may have something to do with the desire to show Tamerlan’s wife as having prior knowledge of the bombings. And her depiction is certainly the most problematic in the film.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AyI_ZEP3rsg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>A later interrogation scene shows Russell as aloof and intransigent, refusing to answer questions from an unspecified government agency. Instead, Russell demands a lawyer, stating she has rights, to which the interrogator replies: “You ain’t got shit, sweetheart.”</p>
<p>In reality, Russell’s real lawyer insisted that his client was <a href="http://www.koco.com/article/lawyer-patriots-day-unfair-to-boston-marathon-bombers-widow/8527916">very cordial and cooperative with investigators</a>, speaking openly with them on more than eight occasions. To date, Russell has not been charged with any crime. But Berg seems to have made up his mind about her guilt.</p>
<p>Making a film about a recent well-known tragedy cannot be an easy undertaking. There will always be questions around timing and decorum, or the tension between remaining respectful to the memory of victims and survivors, and the commercial exploitation of tragedy. On balance, Patriot’s Day negotiates these challenges fairly successfully. Berg has crafted a tense thriller that manages to brilliantly document <em>what</em> happened, capturing the horror of the bombings, as well as the forensic investigation and manhunt in its aftermath. </p>
<p>But crucially, there is almost no introspection on the how or why. Instead, in the end, the audience is only left with Wahlberg’s cheesy jingoistic epilogue, to provide a soothing panacea to their ruptured worldview, and desperately restore some sort of moral clarity in the wake of what they have just witnessed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What I saw today? Good versus evil, love versus hate. There’s only one weapon you have to fight back with, it’s love. You wrap your arms around each other, I don’t think there’s a way they could ever win.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Perhaps I am being too harsh. Perhaps that is the point of making these sorts of films.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73611/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Akil N Awan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It is difficult not to see the film as a vanity project for Wahlberg.Akil N Awan, Associate Professor in Modern History, Political Violence and Terrorism, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/539552016-02-02T19:05:37Z2016-02-02T19:05:37ZReview: Spotlight’s revealing story of child abuse in my home town – and maybe yours<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109916/original/image-20160202-32218-e64k9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nominated for six Oscars including Best Picture, Spotlight has won over critics with its compelling story and strong cast featuring Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Entertainment One Films Australia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Updated February 29, 2016:</em> It won <a href="http://oscar.go.com/">Best Picture</a> at this year’s Oscars – but I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t seen the critically acclaimed film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1895587/?ref_=ttrel_rel_tt">Spotlight</a> yet. In a summer dominated by the return of Star Wars, who wants to watch a movie about <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/spotlight-movie">Boston journalists</a> exposing the Catholic Church for decades of child abuse and cover ups?</p>
<p>After its Oscars success, I hope many more people will see it – because as the film’s final moments make clear, Spotlight is not just about historic wrongs in one US city. It’s based on the true stories of too many people, in too many countries, including my home town of Newcastle, north of Sydney, Australia.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yXymzwz0V2g?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Australia’s current <a href="http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/">Royal Commission</a> into institutional child abuse was <a href="http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1775058/pms-letter-to-herald-journalist-joanne-mccarthy/">set up</a> after years of <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/dogged-journalist-would-not-walk-away-from-abuse-victims-20140825-1082mu.html">dogged work</a> by survivors, supporters and journalists to uncover abuse across many institutions but particularly the Catholic Church. Like Boston, Australian towns where the Catholic church is dominant, such as Newcastle, Wollongong and Ballarat, have been badly affected.</p>
<p>When I went to see Spotlight in a Newcastle cinema on a Saturday afternoon, I wasn’t surprised by who else was in the audience: I recognised survivors, families and supporters of victims, and Catholic community members, including a number of priests. </p>
<p>But even as a researcher who’s attended and written about the Catholic Church at the Royal Commission and the NSW Special Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Spotlight’s finale came as a shock.</p>
<p>Just before the final credits roll, the filmmakers list dozens of other American cities affected by clerical abuse, which have all been tracked by the website <a href="http://www.bishop-accountability.org/">Bishop Accountability</a>. That US list is followed by towns and cities worldwide. The names go on and on, over several screens: from Auckland, Beunos Aires and Cape Town, to Manchester to Manila and beyond. </p>
<p>Australia features prominently: Adelaide, Ballarat, Canberra – and then people around me gasped, as we saw Newcastle on the list. Somehow seeing our small city on the big screen bought home the reality of this crisis. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110059/original/image-20160202-6933-aar5ew.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110059/original/image-20160202-6933-aar5ew.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110059/original/image-20160202-6933-aar5ew.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110059/original/image-20160202-6933-aar5ew.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110059/original/image-20160202-6933-aar5ew.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110059/original/image-20160202-6933-aar5ew.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110059/original/image-20160202-6933-aar5ew.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110059/original/image-20160202-6933-aar5ew.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spotlight ends with lists showing where major abuse scandals have been uncovered, both in the US and worldwide, including these.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BishopAccountability.org</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110061/original/image-20160202-6929-9nm9ql.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110061/original/image-20160202-6929-9nm9ql.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110061/original/image-20160202-6929-9nm9ql.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110061/original/image-20160202-6929-9nm9ql.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110061/original/image-20160202-6929-9nm9ql.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110061/original/image-20160202-6929-9nm9ql.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110061/original/image-20160202-6929-9nm9ql.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110061/original/image-20160202-6929-9nm9ql.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BishopAccountability.org</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Clerical sexual abuse is not a minor issue on the periphery of social maladjustment. It’s a major crisis of institutional abuse of power that has affected millions of people across the globe. </p>
<h2>The story behind the film (warning: spoilers ahead)</h2>
<p>Spotlight shows how, <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/special-reports/2002/01/06/church-allowed-abuse-priest-for-years/cSHfGkTIrAT25qKGvBuDNM/story.html">in 2002</a>, a group of <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/spotlight-movie">journalists at The Boston Globe</a> revealed how hundreds of children had been abused by Catholic priests in the Boston area. It was the first major newspaper reporting on clerical abuse in the US. It shocked the nation, indeed the world, and bought to public attention the protection of abusers by senior clerics and the silencing of victims and their families by the church and its lawyers. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109911/original/image-20160202-32222-t0qo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109911/original/image-20160202-32222-t0qo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109911/original/image-20160202-32222-t0qo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109911/original/image-20160202-32222-t0qo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109911/original/image-20160202-32222-t0qo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109911/original/image-20160202-32222-t0qo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109911/original/image-20160202-32222-t0qo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109911/original/image-20160202-32222-t0qo1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A snapshot of the 2002 Boston Globe story that broke open a global story of abuse and cover ups involving Catholic clerics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/special-reports/2002/01/06/church-allowed-abuse-priest-for-years/cSHfGkTIrAT25qKGvBuDNM/story.html">The Boston Globe</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But all that may not have happened at all without the arrival of a new editor from out of town, <a href="https://twitter.com/PostBaron?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Marty Baron</a> (played by Liev Schreiber).</p>
<p>Baron read a small article on a Catholic priest who had been abusing children but allowed by Boston’s Catholic <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/06/cardinal-bernard-law-disgraced-boston-child-abuse-scandal-vatican-haven-spotlight">Cardinal Bernard Law</a> to keep working with children in parishes and schools.</p>
<p>Baron directed the Spotlight team to investigate what Cardinal Law knew, and how many priests and victims were involved. Despite missing documents, recalcitrant church lawyers and a deafening silence from the staunchly Catholic Boston community, the Spotlight team eventually found about 200 priests had abused children in the Boston Archdiocese alone. (For more, read the reporters’ <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2014/11/29/spotlightfilm-intro/d8Tp3MQ4Y0OQA3JZgABkeO/story.html">story behind their investigation</a>.)</p>
<p>Even worse, they found evidence of a church hierarchy systematically moving pedophile priests between parishes and schools, setting up undisclosed “treatment centres” for them in suburban streets, and paying victims paltry amounts of compensation and binding them to silence. </p>
<h2>The true heroes</h2>
<p>While many critics have hailed Spotlight as a great journalism movie, in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/movies/spotlight-joins-all-the-presidents-men-in-the-pantheon-of-great-journalism-movies/2015/11/12/a4e9e7a6-86ed-11e5-be39-0034bb576eee_story.html">pantheon of All the President’s Men</a>, the journalists are not the real heroes of this story.</p>
<p>As the film reveals, The Boston Globe and another local newspaper both ran stories back in 1993 about a lawyer saying he had found 20 priests in the archdiocese who had been accused of misconduct. But as the <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2015/10/the_boston_globe_s_walter_robinson_discusses_the_story_behind_tom_mccarthy.html">Globe’s reporters have conceded</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We published this story and we buried it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Other people’s attempts to get the church investigated – led by abuse survivor Phil Saviano (played by Neal Huff), representing the <a href="http://www.snapnetwork.org/">Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests</a>, and a lawyer for victims <a href="http://www.garabedianlaw.com/attorneys">Mitchell Garabedian</a> (Stanley Tucci) – were ignored for years.</p>
<p>Why did this happen? The answer to that lies in the dominance of the Catholic Church in the Boston area and the ways in which institutions create forms of social reality. Most of the city’s journalists were raised as Catholic; that made them insiders who were too close to see the story all around them. </p>
<p>It took two outsiders – new editor Baron, who was from out of town and Jewish, and Garabedian, an Armenian – to see the seriousness of the issue. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109917/original/image-20160202-32244-tyig8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109917/original/image-20160202-32244-tyig8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109917/original/image-20160202-32244-tyig8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109917/original/image-20160202-32244-tyig8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109917/original/image-20160202-32244-tyig8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109917/original/image-20160202-32244-tyig8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109917/original/image-20160202-32244-tyig8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109917/original/image-20160202-32244-tyig8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Newcastle Herald’s front page after an Australian Royal Commission into institutional child abuse was announced.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://cdn.fairfaxregional.com.au/storypad-32BMdhde3WuQNVaNVAFXm76/nheraldfp.jpg">The Newcastle Herald/Fairfax Media</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Compare that with our own journalists, particularly the award-winning <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/austory/specials/beforethestorm/">Joanne McCarthy</a>, who spent years uncovering Catholic clerical sexual abuse in the Newcastle-Maitland diocese and who was raised Catholic but has become <a href="http://www.theherald.com.au/story/2895407/joanne-mccarthy-ethics-and-religious-bias/">an atheist</a>. Her outsider status allowed her to be uncompromising in what she was uncovering.</p>
<p>We can also see this in operation in Australia’s Royal Commission, which is completely independent of any of the offending institutions. It is probably very important that the Chair of the Royal Commission, Justice Peter McClellan, was not raised in a religious family and attended a public school.</p>
<p>The true heroes in Boston, Newcastle and beyond are the victims and survivors, their families and supporters. They are the ones who suffered the abuse and its aftermath, whose stories were disbelieved and discredited.</p>
<p>They were often treated abysmally by the church, and stigmatised as troublemakers. They are the ones who have borne the psychological, social and financial consequences of major trauma, yet who have continued to raise this issue until it is heard. The Royal Commission is Australia’s chance to right this terrible wrong. </p>
<h2>‘It takes a village to abuse a child’</h2>
<p>Within the first two months after the original Spotlight investigation was published in 2002, <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/10/29/452805058/film-shines-a-spotlight-on-bostons-clergy-sex-abuse-scandal">another 300 victims from Boston</a> came forward. Since the film’s release, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priest and others have <a href="http://www.insidesources.com/victims-of-catholic-sex-abuse-cite-impact-of-spotlight/">reported more calls for help</a>, with some people mentioning the film in their call.</p>
<p>The same thing is happening in Australia right now. So many people have come forward that the Royal Commission has nearly exhausted the time it set aside for private hearings. New cases continue to be reported, where principals, teachers and others haven’t followed the procedures that could have stopped an abuser.</p>
<p>But we also know that institutions are <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/who-abuses-children">not where the majority of child abuse occurs</a>. To quote a line from Spotlight: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Protecting children from sexual abuse by adults involves the whole community. Evidence from many inquiries shows that – as happened in Boston – many people have been bystanders to these crimes and remained silent.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109912/original/image-20160202-32222-17s1jz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109912/original/image-20160202-32222-17s1jz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109912/original/image-20160202-32222-17s1jz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=669&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109912/original/image-20160202-32222-17s1jz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=669&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109912/original/image-20160202-32222-17s1jz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=669&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109912/original/image-20160202-32222-17s1jz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109912/original/image-20160202-32222-17s1jz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109912/original/image-20160202-32222-17s1jz3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Official advice on what to do if a child or young person tells you about abuse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/sites/default/files/disclosure-infographic.pdf">Australian Institute of Family Studies</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This raises challenging moral issues for us as we come to terms with how so many societies across the globe have failed to protect children from harm. How have so many people known but done nothing? What does this say about the ways in which we treat those who are situated as different and other?</p>
<p>If you can, see Spotlight, as it shows how one community came to be outraged and act on what happened to their children.</p>
<p><em>* If you or a child are in immediate danger, contact the police now. If you’re in Australia, you can tell your story and find many support services at <a href="http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/">the Royal Commission</a> website, including <a href="https://www.lifeline.org.au">Lifeline</a>, which is free to call on 13 11 14.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53955/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathleen McPhillips does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If you haven’t seen Oscar winner Spotlight yet, go. It tells the true story of how decades of abuse in one city was finally uncovered - followed by revelations worldwide, including in my home town.Kathleen McPhillips, Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/524802016-01-26T10:43:24Z2016-01-26T10:43:24ZPoor and homeless face discrimination under America’s flawed housing voucher system<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109181/original/image-20160125-19649-15o8q4c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Boston has some of the highest rents – and lowest vacancy rates – in the country.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-138401321/stock-photo-rows-of-houses-in-back-bay-boston-high-view-from-prudential-tower-boston-usa.html?src=QcEWQqqVxsGT-NpPPClEdw-1-65">'Boston' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From the time she left foster care at age 18 until her late 20’s, <a href="http://susan.sered.name/cant-catch-a-break/">Carly</a> was homeless, staying at shelters or couch-surfing with acquaintances in the Boston area. </p>
<p>In August 2014 she finally got an apartment with the help of a housing voucher from an agency called <a href="http://homestart.org/">Home Start</a>. The one-bedroom apartment, located in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, rented at US$1,150 per month. The location wasn’t ideal – the area is where she’d spent time, over a decade earlier, in a gang and dealing drugs. But it was the only apartment she could find with a landlord who was willing to rent to her. </p>
<p>From the outside, the building appears to be quite nice. Inside, it’s a different story: the stairwell is collapsing, and even daily sweeping doesn’t eradicate the fresh mice droppings that dot the floor. Disparate piles of sawdust (likely leftover from some sort of wood-munching insect) appear near the floorboards. The walls are soaked with mold.</p>
<p>“The landlord – he’s a slumlord,” Carly explains. “He will not fix anything.” </p>
<p>Now pregnant, she’s received a $1,500 voucher for a two-bedroom apartment. But after weeks and weeks of searching, she hasn’t been able to find one. </p>
<p>We’ve spent months researching how poor and homeless people struggle to find permanent housing. It’s become clear that Carly – and thousands of others like her – are trapped in a system that fails to acknowledge the realities of the housing market, requires navigating a maze of bureaucratic hurdles and allows landlords to easily discriminate against voucher holders. </p>
<h2>New strategy doesn’t negate systemic flaws</h2>
<p>Throughout the United States, communities have come a long way from the <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448313/">“housing ready” approach</a>. According to this policy, homeless people needed to complete treatment programs before they were deemed “ready” to receive stable housing. Without housing, however, many found it immensely difficult to undergo successful treatment and become eligible.</p>
<p>Today, most public housing agencies use the <a href="https://pathwaystohousing.org/">“Housing First”</a> approach, which has been shown to be more <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/casp.723/abstract">successful at achieving stable housing</a> for people who have psychiatric disabilities, substance abuse problems or are underemployed. Even if chronically homeless clients have <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10597-009-9283-7">addictions</a>, they’ll be offered supportive housing and <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10464-005-8617-z">the opportunity to choose where they live</a>. </p>
<p>But as Carly’s experiences demonstrate, the actual available choices may be limited – or altogether nonexistent.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/topics/housing_choice_voucher_program_section_8">U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development</a> (HUD) allocates funding to states through the <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/research/housing/policy-basics-the-housing-choice-voucher-program">Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program</a>, which provides government and social service agencies with funds to help pay the monthly rents of low-income people.</p>
<p>The agencies that distribute housing choice vouchers pay the housing subsidy directly to the landlord, but most of the housing search is left to voucher holders, many of whom lack the skills and perseverance of savvy apartment hunters. </p>
<p>For example, in Massachusetts in 2014, <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/research/housing/national-and-state-housing-data-fact-sheets?fa=view&id=3586#map">4,000 people who received vouchers</a> didn’t end up using them, typically because they couldn’t locate an affordable, acceptable apartment.</p>
<h2>Booming housing costs render vouchers useless</h2>
<p>With cities across the nation becoming gentrified and more desirable to high-income tenants, poorer populations have been priced out. </p>
<p>America’s 2007 <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/the-great-american-foreclosure-story-the-struggle-for-justice-and-a-place-t/single">foreclosure crisis</a> pushed large numbers of people into the rental market, increasing the competition for available rental housing. </p>
<p>Gentrification is not just an American problem. The British government is having difficulty <a href="http://theconversation.com/labours-rent-control-plans-may-have-unintended-consequences-40877">controlling rental costs</a>, and there’s an <a href="http://theconversation.com/renting-for-life-housing-shift-requires-rethink-of-renters-rights-20538">affordable rental housing</a> crisis in Australia.</p>
<p>Challenges to the U.S. housing voucher program extend across the nation. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cico.12087/abstract;jsessionid=5E72E010DEEAECF65B678E642C917F7A.f01t03?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=">A Baltimore study</a> found that landlords can manipulate the rules to their favor by selecting tenants they prefer and segregating voucher holders to undesirable neighborhoods. <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/section-8-is-failing/396650/">In New York</a>, voucher holders can afford rental housing only in the most dangerous neighborhoods.</p>
<p>And in Boston, high housing costs mean stable housing is hard to find. Paula Saba, chief of leased housing programs at the <a href="http://www.bostonhousing.org/en/Home.aspx">Boston Housing Authority</a>, notes that Massachusetts has the highest rent prices in the U.S., with a vacancy rate of less than one percent.</p>
<p>In the Boston metro area, the permitted monthly rent for voucher holders ranges from $1,056 for an efficiency apartment to $1,567 for a two-bedroom apartment. Compare that to the <a href="https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-boston-rent-trends/">average apartment rent</a> within 10 miles of downtown Boston: $2,283 a month and $2,758 a month for a one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartment, respectively. </p>
<p>As Joe Finn, president and executive director of the <a href="http://www.mhsa.net/">Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance</a>, explains, “Cost is the single biggest factor in people not being able to find apartments when paying with vouchers… The voucher values are behind market value.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.gosection8.com">GoSection8</a>, an online rental resource for voucher holders, listed only <em>nine</em> apartments in Boston within the “fair market” rent ranges.</p>
<h2>The barrier of brokers</h2>
<p>Carla’s been desperate to move. The adverse living conditions of her apartment set off her asthma, and over the past year, she’s had half a dozen stints in the hospital in order to get her breathing under control. </p>
<p>Asked to estimate how many phone calls she’s made since October (when she began her most concerted effort to move), she looked over her papers and replied, “About a hundred.”</p>
<p>The problem, she explained, is that even apartments listed on <a href="https://boston.craigslist.org/">Craigslist</a> are handled by real estate agents and brokers. </p>
<p>These people “screen you. They ask where you work and other questions and then when you say you have a voucher they say that the landlord will only take cash.” </p>
<p>After scouring the Boston area, she expanded her search to other parts of the region – and still hasn’t gotten to the step of viewing an apartment. </p>
<p>Even though Massachusetts, like a number of other states, has <a href="http://www.mass.gov/ago/consumer-resources/your-rights/civil-rights/housing/housing-discrimination.html">broadened Fair Housing Act protections</a> to cover housing voucher discrimination, landlords and realtors can find ways to skirt the law. </p>
<p>For example, some landlords require letters from previous landlords and proof of employment – documentation that people who have been living in shelters or unemployed for years cannot provide. </p>
<p>Real estate brokers admit the existence of rampant discrimination. One broker in the Boston area (who asked to remain anonymous) told us, “When the market is tight [landlords] discriminate against vouchers, and vouchers don’t keep pace with market values.” </p>
<p>In these transactions, there’s an element of race involved. Some have argued that “Section 8” has become <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/15/how-section-8-became-a-racial-slur/">a racial slur</a>. The broker we interviewed uses an application form that asks if an applicant is a “convicted felon,” which is often used as a subtle indicator for race (<a href="https://www.libertariannews.org/2014/06/05/what-percentage-of-us-adult-population-that-has-a-felony-conviction/">25 percent</a> of the adult black population in the U.S. has a felony conviction, compared to 6.5 percent of nonblacks). </p>
<p>In the end, this broker highlighted the primary way landlords weed out undesirable tenants without breaking anti-discrimination laws: real estate agents. Most rentals in the Boston area are handled by agents who are typically paid by tenants, not by landlords. </p>
<p>“The biggest issue is that Section 8 people can’t afford realtors,” he said. “In this market, that’s a problem. It’s an owner’s market.” </p>
<p>The realtor fee is usually one month’s rent, which the homeless often can’t afford. </p>
<p>According to Gabrielle Vacheresse, housing search program manager for <a href="http://homestart.org/">HomeStart, Inc.</a>, most agencies – including her own – “typically do not have the funding to pay for broker’s fees. Some landlords have caught onto this and are able to weed out folks with vouchers by charging a fee, knowing that most will not be able to pay.” </p>
<h2>Simple fixes</h2>
<p>When people receive vouchers, they have only a certain window of time to find an apartment. “People typically need all of that time,” one housing search coordinator told us. </p>
<p>Depending on the agency, that window could be 60 days or 120 days. Afterwards, clients will need to ask for extensions. Some housing authorities provide these; some don’t. </p>
<p>Carly, like other voucher holders, is expected to navigate all of these challenges. While she’s in the somewhat enviable position of doing so from her own (albeit dilapidated) apartment, other homeless people are forced to carry out their searches from park benches. They need to hold onto phone numbers and forms, shuttling them to and from the streets and the shelters. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109180/original/image-20160125-19669-1g1bt9y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109180/original/image-20160125-19669-1g1bt9y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109180/original/image-20160125-19669-1g1bt9y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109180/original/image-20160125-19669-1g1bt9y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109180/original/image-20160125-19669-1g1bt9y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109180/original/image-20160125-19669-1g1bt9y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109180/original/image-20160125-19669-1g1bt9y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109180/original/image-20160125-19669-1g1bt9y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">With no permanent home base, the homeless are forced to constantly keep track of all their paperwork.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-208150729/stock-photo-man-reading.html?src=XfZzG_DG8rV_r1ADfdLxrg-3-54">'Bench' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Complicating matters, each municipality and agency has a different list of available apartments, many of which aren’t up-to-date. For someone making calls from a borrowed phone or a prepaid phone with limited minutes, fruitless calls can be a real hurdle. </p>
<p>There are a number of reforms that could improve the process. Shouldn’t it be relatively simple to develop a single, streamlined, up-to-date list of open apartments in a metro area? What if vouchers also covered broker fees? And if the vouchers were increased to be more in line with market rates? </p>
<p>Of course, it’s unrealistic to expect bureaucratic fixes to eliminate the hardships caused by centuries of racial discrimination, historically unequal opportunities to acquire property, a growing class of people stuck in low-wage and insecure jobs, and the pressures of gentrification of America’s cities. </p>
<p>But until these changes are made, voucher holders like Carly will continue to operate under a system that doesn’t acknowledge the realities of their desperate situations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52480/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Miriam Boeri received funding for previous studies from the National Institutes of Health. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Sered 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.</span></em></p>In a competitive rental market, landlords can easily skirt anti-discrimination laws.Susan Sered, Professor of Sociology, Suffolk UniversityMiriam Boeri, Associate Professor of Sociology, Bentley UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/503432015-11-06T20:43:20Z2015-11-06T20:43:20ZHollywood shines a spotlight on real journalism<p><em>Note: this article may contain spoilers for those unfamiliar with the story.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>In the new movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1895587/">Spotlight</a>, there’s a wonderful scene where a reporter is seeking documents in a courthouse. The building is a dreary linoleum monument to The Way Things Are. In the scene, a recalcitrant clerk treats the reporter as if he were a nuisance and declines to lift a finger.</p>
<p>The moment perfectly captures an ethos that I remember well from my own adventures as a reporter covering Massachusetts government, courts and politics. In that world, the idea that knowledge is power is intuitively understood by all parties, like an article of faith or an early item in the Catechism. </p>
<p>The feeling is this: <em>If I know something that you don’t know, why should I tell you? If I do, then you’ll know as much as I do. So screw off.</em></p>
<p>Freedom of information? <em>Ha! Information’s free only if someone is stupid enough to give it away!</em></p>
<p>That belief pervades much of the world that the movie Spotlight tries to illuminate. The film takes its title from the special investigative unit at the Boston Globe that cracked open the scandal inside the clergy and hierarchy of the Catholic Church. The Globe team documented the pervasive, long-running practice of high-ranking Church officials covering up for priests who sexually molested, abused and raped children. (During this period, I covered the trials of two of the Church’s “bad apples” – Father Porter and Father Geoghan. But like everyone else, I failed to connect the dots of the larger cover-up.) </p>
<p>The film pits two powerful Boston institutions against each other: the Catholic Church and the city’s big newspaper. Worthy adversaries, the two sides battled for years in the early 2000s. The paper was trying to pry evidence of the scandal out of court records (which were sealed, naturally, under terms of the many settlements the Church reached with its victims), out of victims, out of lawyers and out of anyone who would talk. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Church officials – starting with the disgraced former cardinal, Bernard Law – used a variety of classic techniques: stonewalling, threatening, denying and appealing to old friendships. According to the filmmakers, some Church leaders and some lay defenders of the Church tried to demonize the Globe’s then-new top editor, Marty Baron, by raising insidious questions about him: <em>isn’t he Jewish? Why isn’t he married? He’s not from here, is he?</em></p>
<p>Ultimately, of course, the journalists triumph in the film – just as they did in real life. In doing so, Spotlight sends out a strong and welcome message: journalism ain’t dead. For a field that has had more than its share of bad news for more than a decade now, it’s nice to be reminded that journalism matters. </p>
<p>Writer-director Tom McCarthy clearly holds journalism in high regard, and gives viewers an inside look at the reporting process. We watch the team of reporters made up of Matt Carroll (played by Brian d'Arcy James), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Mike Rezendes (a twitchy Mark Ruffalo) as they are led by “Robby” Robinson (played with eerie intensity by Michael Keaton) and his boss, Ben Bradlee Jr (John Slattery).</p>
<p>One of the best things about Spotlight is the way it portrays the thrill of the chase that fuels reporters when they’re trying to pin down an important story. We see the Globe reporters toiling into the night, wrecking their weekends and actually enjoying their work. We root for them as they match wits with surly clerks, the oily fixers protecting the Church and the dead weight of centuries of Catholic indoctrination and obedience. (“Yes, Father.” “Of course, Father.” “Yes, Your Eminence.”) </p>
<p>In my opinion, the film makes one major misstep: it is unnecessarily harsh in its portrayal of <a href="https://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/04/18/the_hole_in_the_heart_of_a_star/">Eric MacLeish</a>, grandson of poet Archibald MacLeish and a Boston attorney who represented many of the Church’s victims. I spoke to MacLeish many times during those years, and he was always straight with me and as forthcoming as his legal duties would allow. In the film, he is depicted as the jerk lawyer who could help the Globe, but won’t. Instead, attorney Mitchell Garabedian (played marvelously by Stanley Tucci) gets to play the only decent lawyer in sight. </p>
<p>I saw Spotlight recently at a special screening for Journalism Department faculty and students of Boston University (the alma mater of two real-life Spotlight reporters, Sacha Pfeiffer and Mike Rezendes). All the key figures from the Globe investigation were there, except for Baron, who has moved on to be the top editor of The Washington Post. Robby acknowledged a point made in the film that I hadn’t been aware of: sources had sent the Globe much of the evidence needed to break the story years earlier, but no one paid much attention the first time. </p>
<p>The film ends just as the Globe <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/specials/clergy">breaks the big story</a>, in January 2002. The story rocked the Church, all the way to Rome, by dragging all the foul deeds of priests out of the darkness and into the light (the spotlight, if you will). It won the paper a Pulitzer Prize.</p>
<p>The folks at the Globe (at least, <a href="http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2015/10/15/boston-globe-cuts-dozens-of-staffers/">those who still have jobs</a>) <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/spotlight-movie">are rightly proud</a> of their newspaper. The depiction of reporting that we see in “Spotlight” gives all of us who work in journalism a reason to feel proud too, by reminding us that the world would be a pretty crummy place without those driven, impertinent, nosy people who won’t take no for answer. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Zg5zSVxx9JM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for Spotlight, which opens in theaters on November 6.</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50343/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher B Daly is a former journalist (The AP, 1980s; Washington Post, 1990s) who sometimes cooperated with and sometimes competed against reporters working for The Boston Globe. </span></em></p>For a former Boston reporter, Spotlight evokes the thrill of hard-hitting, influential reporting.Christopher B. Daly, Professor of Journalism, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/489362015-11-06T11:02:45Z2015-11-06T11:02:45Z‘Powerpoint was not his thing’: a poem on teaching and technology<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/100435/original/image-20151101-16550-2vn4om.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Parana River in moonlight. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gi/5210825434/in/photolist-8WsQRQ">Gisela Giardino</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I am a scholar and teacher of Spanish and Portuguese. I am also a poet. </p>
<p>The several books of poetry I have published in English, Spanish and <a href="http://linguistics.byu.edu/classes/ling450ch/reports/Guarani1.html">Guarani</a> (an indigenous South American language and one of the official languages of Paraguay), plus numerous readings of my work, both in Paraguay and at home in New York, have taught me the artistic joys of the poetic word and its efficacy in public discourse. </p>
<p>The poem, obviously, is a work of imagination, but it is my contention that such a work can be an alternative way of understanding and therefore an alternative form of editorial journalism. </p>
<p>The most fundamental source of the educational vision portrayed in the poem I have written for The Conversation is the many thousands of hours I have spent with students over a long teaching career. </p>
<p>Having said that, I hasten to add that no resemblance is intended, even remotely, between the narrative situation presented and any of the educational institutions with which I have been associated, including my long-time much-beloved employer, SUNY-Oswego. </p>
<p>The forces to which the poem alludes are much broader. </p>
<p>The rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and the inroads technology can make in the basic human relationship between teacher and learner – these and similar developments are at work in our society as a whole, and the debate surrounding them is global in scope. </p>
<p>Using the elevated tone and deliberately archaic language of epic verse, the poem’s intent is to write those forces larger in the imagination than they are in present reality, to exaggerate their current profile in order to dramatize what they could become. </p>
<p>As to its style and tone, the poem’s roots are in various epic traditions but readers will also find echoes of the tech writer Nicholas Carr; of movies like Dead Poets’ Society and Good Will Hunting; of Paraguayan literary masters like <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Augusto-Roa-Bastos">Augusto Roa Bastos</a> and <a href="http://www.portalguarani.com/472_juan_manuel_marcos.html">Juan Manuel Marcos</a> (novel and poetry) and, in its playful parts, even a hint of Dr Seuss. (A full list of my literary “credits” follows the poem.) </p>
<p><em>(Note on pronunciation: In observance of the poem’s rhythm, the protagonist’s middle names “Ignatius Gene” may be pronounced as normal in English, ig-NAY-shus jeen, but the Paraguayan name from which this derives, Ignacio Genes, should be said as in Spanish, eeg-NAHS-yo HAY-nays.)</em></p>
<pre class="highlight plaintext"><code> Channeling Homer, Among Others…
I
Not the song of siren-seekers
washed in gore upon a reef,
or Hector on the Trojan plain,
or Cid who risking body
in the horse-loud crowd
of battle-drum and scimitar
made victory out of blood,
no epic song is this
of these, but rather epic
of the mind, no less dangerous
than all their battlefields,
but fought upon the blood-
drenched plains and trenches
of book and classroom,
where courage of the intellect
meets scimitar of budget
cut and mindless fiat
of endless plutocrats intoning
measurement of that which
has no measure.
II
His name,
Juan Emmanuel Ignatius Gene
O'Higgins, PhD in code of résumé
and memo, expert in forgotten holocausts
and vast interstices unseen
between the lines upon the map,
Paraguay, in other words,
Paraguay his theme, his passion,
mission, demise, redemption.
Son he was of Irish guy
from Southie and mom from
shantytown hard by the Paraná
who met and loved in the father’s
Fulbright-funded bed beneath
the fullness of a fattening
moon. Jasy henyhe she said
in Guarani and coitus wrote
the words in English on his
brain, the moon is full,
and Juan Emmanuel began in semen
spilled upon her river, hard
upon the Paraná. Thus was made
and grew the boy, precursor
of the man, in summers
by the Paraná and winters
in the gritty Boston snow
piled against the chain-link
playground fence, his fists
hard as curbstones fending tires
from the ragged Southie sidewalks
and the green-beer-sucking
drunks in foreplay of St Patty’s Day,
grew he here, and there,
and came to know man’s state
is not the metropole, the evanescing
center swelled in fad soon gone
and power soon dispersed,
but one of Paraguays, of Southies,
of margins where persists
the warmth of human flesh,
fencerows where persist the weeds
of truths the tractor long
despised, each of us a Paraguay,
a body among bodies, a voice
not of device disembodied
but of palpitations of the living
throat, came he to know
this, swore he to make it
known and chose the teacher’s
way.
III
Jasy henyhe she’d said,
and his moon waxed full
in love of students, each
a Paraguay hard by the Paraná
descending to whatever
sea, each a voice he sang
in chorus with, farm kids
avid for the world beyond
manure pond and feedlot,
grocer’s children wanting
other than a daily ledger
of hams and lettuces, would-be
gangbangers saved by book and dream
of something more from stink
of prison john and sameness
of the pavements. Told he them
in class about his namesake
of the Paraguayan War Ignacio
Genes, hero who in combat
lost an eye and used his other
one to shield his brothers,
his single Cyclops eye a waxing
moon for them and us; told
he also them of Barrett, Roa Bastos,
Emiliano, Chaco thirst, Cerro Korá,
Ramona Martínez, residentas,
Ortiz Guerrero, de la Mora, Jesuit
and Guarani, and thousand million
un-named feet of un-named walkers
stumbling in dark of exile, greed, depravity
and grief to greet again the dawn
upon a shoeless blister. You,
he said, are these if you
but knew. Rise he said
to stoop to drink the water
that I lead you to. The
stinking mud is yours no matter
what, be hero in it, let your
single eye be waxing moon for northern
farm and pavement, grocer’s shelf
and banker’s vault. That distant
Paraguay be metaphor for here,
for now, for you.
IV
Powerpoint
was not his thing, nor leaned he
overly on Wiki-factoids gleaned
from Google’s vast and churning
cloud upon a screen for user-
friendly access antiquating
memory; no enemy was he of such,
but rather foe of opiated overuse
in detriment of man. Thus read he
them from books and spun
his magic out of alchemy
of word and print and mind, and bid
he them put on persona of the Other
and leave their desks and move
as actors in the theater of learning,
and laughter and movement
were their language. And made
he them traverse the dog-piss
snow of January in the parking
lots to fetch the printed word
of libraries, bodily traverse
the campus air that they might
know that body and mind are
lovers, nor holds the mind
to anything not sifted through
the efforts of the flesh; it was
his body’s eye that Genes gave
to spur the waxing moon of freedom
in the mind of many. Nor resented
they his call to book and library,
but loved him for it more, nor called they
more for apps and Wiki-screens
and disembodied ease, but reveled
rather in respect he gave
to wholeness of their thinking
body-minded selves, they who
sported on the green and flaunted
skin in spring to drink
the frisbee-joyous air en route
to class, loved they him for this,
and loved he them.
V
But came one day
a lie that slunk in frowsy crannies
of curricula and syllabi, and hung
upon the winter-weary campus breeze,
and bided time in e-mails
and the minutes of perfunctory
ennui-laden polyester meetings, a multi-
visaged lie with roots enough
in truth of need to sway
the well-intentioned gullible
and stroke the greed of cynics,
a glib shape-shifting hydra-
headed lie part fiat of the bottom
line, part flim-flam sales
pitch of purveyors, demagogic
populism, or wish indeed sincere
for good, yet nonetheless,
a lie. It said, efficiency
is all. It said, make straight
the way to drone-dom
in diminishment of cost. It
said the ancient bargain
trading effort of the body-mind
for betterment of life, our
ancient soaring chant of sacrifice
and sweat, is moot,
is mothballed in the new
millennium of ever-easier machines
un-making man. No need,
it said, to stir from seat or bed
in quest of knowing, nor even
need to know, it is known
for you. No need to drive
a car, it is driven, nor need
to flush the toilet, it is flushed,
nor need to walk the woods,
nor need to read a map,
nor need to pit the body-mind
against the wanton wind in lofty
affirmation of the self. No need,
it said, for Paraguay as metaphor
for man. No need for man, indeed.
Irrelevant, it said, and set the moon
to waning on the Paraná.
VI
Came
minions of the lie, came memos,
e-mails, texts, reports ad hoc,
inquiring why the love of books
when all is stocked within
the cyber-cloud, inquiring
why the gathering of bodies
in a class when synchronicity
of keyboards and facsimile
of voice and face upon a screen
will do the job, and the moon
waned more while waxed a logic
that portrayed itself inevitable. Ad
hoc became ad hominem, came
minions to his class in guise
of friendly observation. And taught he
as he always taught, and the class
they saw was light, was art,
was theater, was Socrates,
was dream of every learner
keening for the graceful
stretch of mind and body
into space unknown, was reason
why we gather sons and daughters
into schools and spur them
into plenitude of man and not
to lassitude of larva, metal,
stone. No drone, said he, was Genes
in the groaning eyeball-costing
fight, but man, as man aspires
to become. Rose the students
to ovate, embraced they him,
loved they him as loved he
them. Rose the minions too
in momentary lapse infused
by distant memory of dream
to teach, reached out also
to embrace…, then dropped
their arms in tendering
instead a squalid shake
of hands, their logic of the lie
resurgent from its wistful
lapse. Your future is assured,
they said, tenure and respect
are yours they said, if you but…
and placed they in contingent
clauses all a world of strings
attached: if you but… forsake
the luddite past of book
and pen, your sentimental
fondness for the family
of class, your notion of the learner
as a greater whole than all
the petty bell-curve of his
résumé and GPA and bank
accounts. Access, cost, utility,
and ease, be these your shibboleths
in this new singularity where man’s
machines suck share of his humanity
and his blood is but the driver
of the bloodless goosestep
of electrons, and Paraguay
and all the Paraguays and all
the Southies and all your
farmer’s sons and grocer’s
daughters are merely asterisks
within the Internet now
upper-cased as if a God. They
spoke the lie, and waited
for his yes, and all he said
was no.
VII
And with that no
the eye he lost in battle was
his job, his mortgage, colleagues,
place within the circle of his
students’ arms. Yet also was
that no a moon sudden waxing
like a fist upon the face
of facelessness, his fist
as once he used it in the Southie
schoolyard slush upon the quisling
jaws of thugs.
VIII
Read I of him
one red-eye sweltering night
upon my Fulbright-funded bed
beneath a moon so white
upon the Paraná it spoke
to me of snow, and cooled
me as I read. And saw I then
the moon is more than mere
reflector of another’s light
as science holds, but marks
of its own right, the tides
of human blood and tribulations
of the human soul. A blurb
is all I read, filler in the local
rag, page forty-three between
an ad for condoms and someone’s
invocation of the Virgin, a line or two
about a Paraguayan-Yankee
hybrid guy who erstwhile
taught in university up north
and now was eighth-grade teacher
here in Paraguay. Odd, said I,
and made the obligatory Google
search, and found the case
of Juan Emmanuel Ignatius
Gene O’Higgins, Ph.D., stripped
of job for saying no. And
the moon that made me
think of snow upon the Paraná
also gave my mind to know
that North and South are two
but Man is one, and Juan
Emmanuel is Man. And went I
when the sun arose, to find,
perchance to interview, the man.
And as I rode my bike
upon the red dirt road beside
the crones preparing tereré
and lorries painting smoke
across an asthma-colored sky,
my eyes embraced the toddlers
squalid in the clawing dust,
the children manning carts
en route to chicken-peck the dumps
for scraps of bread or metal,
the prematurely nubile
waiting for a pimp or john,
and wondered I what was
the measure of our teaching
if not for these, and what
the way of schooling man
if not as man engaging man
within that self-same dust,
as Genes risking eye
against the poison mist
of war. No shortcut of machine
or screen exists for school,
nor found I shortcut
on the red dirt road to reach
the schoolyard where he was,
but came I by my bike
upon the gnarled clay and saw
his class at recess play
and him among them, and watched
them at a distance, and saw
his easy hand upon their backs
was challenge to their better selves,
his easy Guarani upon their ears
was balm upon their body-mind
to be their best in spite of dust,
to walk as Man upon the wizened
crust of earth, and knew
that he was right. And turned
I from their schoolyard
play, and upward looked, and saw
upon the blazoned sky, though
it was day, the waxing moon
of Paraguay.
</code></pre>
<hr>
<p>This poem draws inspiration from a number of sources including Paraguayan literary masters like <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Augusto-Roa-Bastos">Augusto Roa Bastos</a> (fiction and poetry), <a href="http://www.portalguarani.com/472_juan_manuel_marcos.html">Juan Manuel Marcos</a> (novel and poetry), <a href="http://www.portalguarani.com/415_renee_ferrer.html">Renée Ferrer</a> (poetry) and <a href="http://www.portalguarani.com/394_susy_delgado.html">Susy Delgado</a>(poetry); the Chilean poetic genius Pablo Neruda; the Argentine poet and journalist
<a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Jose-Hernandez">José Hernández</a>; former professors of mine like <a href="http://rassias.dartmouth.edu/john/">John Rassias</a> and Robert Russell; my emeritus Oswego colleague Ivan Brady; and, in the playful tone of parts of the poem, even a hint of Dr Seuss.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48936/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tracy K Lewis 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.</span></em></p>A professor of literature who is also a poet tackles the issue of the inroads technology has made in the relationship between teacher and learner.Tracy K Lewis, Distinguished Teaching Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, State University of New York OswegoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/498702015-10-30T10:06:41Z2015-10-30T10:06:41ZWhy mayors are looking for ideas outside the city limits<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/100233/original/image-20151029-15334-13jrc3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Los Angeles looks abroad. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Los_Angeles_City_Hall_and_sister_cities.jpg">Cesarexpo</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When our dear colleague and cofounder of the Initiative on Cities program at Boston University, former Boston Mayor <a href="http://www.bu.edu/ioc/who-we-are/thomas-menino/">Tom Menino</a>, passed away one year ago, letters poured in to our offices at Boston University. </p>
<p>The intimate condolences from Boston’s many neighborhoods – Hyde Park, Roslindale, Dorchester – were to be expected. But the letters and fond remembrances from heads of state, governors, ambassadors, and countless domestic and foreign mayors took us by surprise. They were both a testament to the man and the leader he’d become, and a reminder that modern mayors are more than hometown heroes. </p>
<p>Mayors today are goodwill ambassadors, economic arbiters and agents of global change. </p>
<h2>Champion networkers at home and abroad</h2>
<p>Mayors are more closely connected to one another than their constituents may realize. </p>
<p>Here in the US, national member organizations for local elected officials include both the <a href="http://usmayors.org/">United States Conference of Mayors</a> (USCM) and the <a href="http://www.nlc.org/">National League of Cities</a> (NLC). Founded in 1933 and 1926, respectively, both serve as federal lobbyists, conveners and clearinghouses for best practices, although they differ in their member structures. </p>
<p>The remarkable camaraderie and kinship that exists among mayors is on display at these national conferences, where informal <em>tete-a-tetes,</em> networking and peer mentoring are as much a part of the agenda as formal presentations. </p>
<p>Global city-to-city collaboration is also not new. There are hundreds of global networks linking cities to those sharing common interests and common goals. </p>
<p><a href="http://sister-cities.org/">Sister Cities</a>, for example, founded by US President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956, was predicated on the notion that formal bonds between cities could promote cross-continental cultural understanding. City-to-city exchanges have continued throughout the decades. <a href="http://www.uclg.org/en">United Cities and Local Governments</a> (UCLG) now estimates that 70% of cities and their associations participate in international city-to-city programs. </p>
<p>Issue-driven networks are a more contemporary frontier, from anti-nukes and anti-guns to the promotion of culture and trade. </p>
<p>As University College London’s Michele Acuto notes in his 2013 paper <a href="http://www.academia.edu/3126775/City_Leadership_in_Global_Governance">City Leadership in Local Governance</a>, it was opposition to nuclear weapon proliferation that led to the formation of the global network <a href="http://www.mayorsforpeace.org/english/index.html">Mayors for Peace</a> in 1982. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/100235/original/image-20151029-15318-toy09d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/100235/original/image-20151029-15318-toy09d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100235/original/image-20151029-15318-toy09d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100235/original/image-20151029-15318-toy09d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100235/original/image-20151029-15318-toy09d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100235/original/image-20151029-15318-toy09d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100235/original/image-20151029-15318-toy09d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Boston Mayor Menino (second from right) at conference of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Here in the US, Mayors Menino and Bloomberg and hundreds of their peers found common cause in the fight to reduce gun violence, forming <a href="http://everytown.org/mayors/">Mayors Against Illegal Guns</a> in 2006. </p>
<p>But it is the environment that has been a consistent catalyzing issue. </p>
<p>As Acuto highlights, the UN has been a key proponent of the urbanization and localization of environmental issues. Today there are an abundance of municipal networks devoted to climate change and sustainability, from the global <a href="http://www.iclei.org/">International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives</a> (ICLEI) to the EU-focused <a href="http://www.covenantofmayors.eu/index_en.html">Covenant of Mayors</a>. </p>
<p>A high-profile example is the <a href="http://www.c40.org/">C40</a>, a global network of cities specifically committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which was created by London Mayor Ken Livingston in 2005. Initially a convening of “mega-cities” – those with populations of over 10 million residents – the C40 has expanded its tent to now encompass eighty cities, including 12 in the US.</p>
<p>The most recent mayoral network to emerge is the <a href="http://www.globalparliamentofmayors.org/">Global Parliament of Mayors</a>, the brainchild of Ben Barber, a political theorist at the City University of New York. A global self-governing organization comparable to (and in fact linked to) the US Conference of Mayors, it is issue-agnostic, welcoming all mayors regardless of their policy priorities. </p>
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<p>But a critical, and understudied, question remains: when do these efforts succeed and why? Our research examines a closely related question: what are the relationships that exist among mayors themselves? </p>
<h2>A mutual admiration society</h2>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.bu.edu/ioc/initiative-on-cities-releases-first-national-survey-of-mayoral-priorities/">survey of US mayors</a> conducted last year with my Boston University colleagues <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/katherine-levine-einstein-162507">Katherine Levine Einstein</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/david-glick-162508">David Glick</a>, we asked mayors about their key sources of policy information, cities they looked to for ideas, specific ideas they borrowed and their working relationships. </p>
<p>If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then mayors are beaming in mutual admiration. </p>
<p>Unlike CEOs, mayors are enthusiastic imitators and intimate allies, rather than fierce competitors. </p>
<p>Second only to their staff, mayors rely on one another for policy information. Second only to their business community, their strongest working relationships are with neighboring cities. And when asked to name specific cities they looked to for ideas and the types of policies they’ve brought from another city to their own, every mayor cited a list with ease. </p>
<p>The willingness of mayors to forge bonds that stretch beyond city limits and often beyond immediate constituent concerns is striking. </p>
<p>What’s their motivation for regional, national and even global networking? We would argue that exposure to good ideas that may resonate at home helps motivate mayoral collaboration.</p>
<p>To the best of our knowledge, our study with American mayors, recently rededicated as the Menino Survey of Mayors, is the only systematic effort to survey a representative sample of mayors on their sources of inspiration and specific ideas they’ve borrowed from peers.</p>
<p>In fact, mayors we spoke to were so eager to learn the results of this line of inquiry that these were the only questions we repeated in both the 2014 and 2015 Menino Surveys. (The results of the 2015 survey will be released in January 2016 at the US Conference of Mayors Winter meeting.)</p>
<h2>What ideas are crossing borders?</h2>
<p>Borrowed ideas range from large-scale investments like bus rapid transit (where buses run in exclusively dedicated lanes) and elevated parks to more modest efforts like regional mayors meetings and youth summer jobs programs.</p>
<p>Perhaps more significantly, we discovered that the cities American mayors look to for ideas vary enormously by city size, mayoral partisanship and city wealth, and include both domestic and foreign cities from Boston to Dublin to Hyderabad. </p>
<p>Interestingly, our survey revealed that there are no single cities that are broadly and disproportionately influential on mayors’ policy ideas. </p>
<p>Another question remains: will cities and mayors accomplish what nation states cannot? </p>
<p>City climate change pledges, including the relatively new <a href="http://www.compactofmayors.org/">Compact of Mayors</a>, hold tremendous promise, given the role cities play in emissions. But the impact of these commitments may be difficult to gauge without better tools to measure emissions reductions. </p>
<p>As another of my Boston University colleagues, Lucy Hutyra, and her peers point out in a <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-track-urban-emissions-on-a-human-scale-1.18311">recent commentary</a> in Nature, setting emissions targets is just the first step. She and her coauthors argue that cities need local emission data that are comprehensive and comparable, and tools that enable the mapping of emissions on “finer scales of space and time that reflect human dimensions at which carbon is emitted.” Think streets, parks and individual buildings. Only then can cities gauge the impact of specific policies, promote targeted interventions and track progress. Only then will they know if the ideas they exchanged and commitments they made really mattered. </p>
<p>Mayors may have grand ambitions and be part of global agendas. But in the end they’re judged by what they accomplish at home. </p>
<p>Mayor Menino was famously dubbed the “urban mechanic.” He judged himself by the ways in which he improved people’s lives, by the cleanliness of the streets and waterways, and the quality of the schools. He, like so many of his peers, knew that it’s the human dimension that matters most.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49870/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katharine Lusk is working in collaboration with the U.S. Conference of Mayors for the 2015 Menino Survey of Mayors. Funding for that project was provided by Citi. </span></em></p>Unlike CEOs, mayors are enthusiastic imitators and intimate allies, rather than fierce competitors. On World Cities Day, how US mayors are looking abroad for inspiration to solve problemsKatharine Lusk, Executive Director, Initiative on Cities , Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/455202015-07-31T19:24:56Z2015-07-31T19:24:56ZYou don’t need a dictator to host a successful Olympics, just a strong leader<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90464/original/image-20150731-17164-9hup4b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What does it take to lift the Olympic rings?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bolt rings via www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) <a href="https://theconversation.com/bostons-games-bid-will-need-publics-heart-to-win-iocs-nod-36396">selected</a> Boston to represent its bid for the 2024 Summer Games, it was a <a href="http://skift.com/2015/01/10/critics-doubt-bostons-chances-in-2024-olympics-bid/">surprise</a> to most experts – especially since it was the only city with a formalized opposition movement. </p>
<p>From day one, the bid <a href="http://time.com/money/3917161/boston-olympics-host-2024/">was plagued</a> with controversy and was dealt a <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/boston/story/_/id/13326675/boston-us-candidate-host-2024-olympics-usoc-severs-ties">final blow</a> on Monday when the mayor refused to sign the Olympic contract. </p>
<p>Media hype about previous host cities <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/did-the-winter-olympics-in-sochi-really-cost-50-billion-a-closer-look-at-that-figure/2014/02/10/a29e37b4-9260-11e3-b46a-5a3d0d2130da_story.html">spending</a> up to US$50 billion and fears of being inconvenienced (as well as another <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2015/06/25/when-boston-was-big-dig-mess/BLl1XcJmeufszORLWqpeII/story.html">Big Dig fiasco</a>) added fuel to the fire. The fact that previous US Olympic host cities <a href="http://www.olympic.org/Documents/Reference_documents_Factsheets/Legacy.pdf">benefited</a> and did not overspend fell on deaf ears. Distrust was rampant and ultimately shattered Boston’s Olympic dreams. </p>
<p>I have attended every one of the past 17 Olympics (winter and summer), often as a volunteer or consultant, and have taught and studied sports management since 1991. In January, shortly after Boston was selected to bid for the 2024 Games, I <a href="https://theconversation.com/bostons-games-bid-will-need-publics-heart-to-win-iocs-nod-36396">wrote</a> that it would be successful only if the organizers won the public’s heart. </p>
<p>Boston’s leaders clearly failed to do so, but it doesn’t mean the Olympics can never be hosted in the US (or another democracy) ever again. That was a prospect raised after the 2022 Winter Games became a choice between cities in <a href="https://theconversation.com/between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place-2022-winter-olympics-decision-45219">two authoritarian countries</a>: Almaty, Kazahkstan, or Beijing, which was the ultimate <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-2022-beijing-winter-olympics-fall-victim-to-mega-event-syndrome-42227">winner</a>.</p>
<p>It all comes down to leadership and having advocates able to convince citizens that they can organize a successful on-budget Olympic Games that will boost their city’s prestige, provide opportunities for progress and inspire a new generation of athletes. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90483/original/image-20150731-17146-1jajrvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90483/original/image-20150731-17146-1jajrvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90483/original/image-20150731-17146-1jajrvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90483/original/image-20150731-17146-1jajrvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90483/original/image-20150731-17146-1jajrvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90483/original/image-20150731-17146-1jajrvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90483/original/image-20150731-17146-1jajrvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Los Angeles hosted a successful Summer Games in 1984 and is still reaping the benefits.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">LA Games via www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>It begins with a vision</h2>
<p>Any city that bids to host the Olympic Games needs to have a vision of how the global event can play a role in its long-term development, both physically, through new and improved infrastructure, and socially. Strong leaders like <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jul/18/sports/sp-dwyre-ueberroth18">Peter Ueberroth</a> (who organized the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984), <a href="http://www.georgiatrend.com/August-2006/The-Olympic-Legacy/">Billy Payne</a> (Atlanta in 1996) and <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/27/nation/la-na-romney-olympics-20120727-1">Mitt Romney</a> (Salt Lake City in 2002) prove the games can be a positive experience and net benefit for cities. </p>
<p>Despite <a href="http://www.citylab.com/work/2015/03/will-an-american-city-ever-host-another-olympics/388673/">exaggerated claims</a>, the Olympic Games can be held in a democratic society without causing bankruptcy as long as strong leaders with a clear vision are at the helm. </p>
<p>The money received from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) through sponsorship and broadcast rights and domestically through sponsors, tickets and merchandise should be enough to cover the cost of organizing the games plus some infrastructure. It does not make sense for the Olympic movement to bear the cost of paying for all the infrastructure that is needed in a city and will remain in place for 50 or more years.</p>
<p>The USOC, as it returns to the drawing board and selects a new city to make its bid for 2024, needs to select a host with a vision and look for how the Olympic Games will not only be great for athletes and spectators but citizens long after the 16 days of glory are over. </p>
<p>Both Washington, DC, the nation’s capital, and Los Angeles are viable choices for 2024 now that Boston has bowed out. Even if the US stumbled at the starting blocks, it can regain speed with a new candidate. The Olympic movement wants to return to the United States, and we should be happy to seize the opportunity to host the world. </p>
<h2>The onus of a financial guarantee</h2>
<p>It is understandable that citizens and political leaders are concerned about the “<a href="http://library.la84.org/9arr/ResearchReports/USOA_Proceedings_2015.pdf">financial guarantee</a>” terminology of the contract, as it puts full economic burden on the city. </p>
<p>No one likes entering a contract with unlimited risk. Unfortunately, that’s the rules of hosting the Olympic Games. And if a city wants to play, it needs to make sure that tight fiscal controls are in place and reputable partners and contractors are selected that assume risk and share in this burden. The critics are full of “what ifs” and paralysis by analysis, but the Olympic bid process must continue. </p>
<p>The risks can be further mitigated through insurance, security bonds, strong commercial support from sponsors and fans (ticket and merchandise purchases) and by predetermining and preselling post-Olympic usage of venues. </p>
<p>Unlike leaders in other host cities (such as Beijing and Sochi) who may not have to worry as much about the financial guarantee due to an open government checkbook, officials in the US need to be more clever and willing to say “No” to budget creep. It takes a special leader, not a dictator, who can steward an Olympic Games to success, and Americans <a href="http://library.la84.org/9arr/ResearchReports/USOA_Proceedings_2015.pdf">have proven</a> to be the best at this.</p>
<h2>Short-term ‘pains,’ long-term gains</h2>
<p>Public concerns <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/07/03/statewide-boston-bid-would-broaden-network-special-olympic-lanes/dcnYx8bpAeQ6wzFYHCSB6K/story.html">voiced</a> over the creation of dedicated Olympic lanes on highways seemed very selfish. Could the locals not be inconvenienced for two short weeks so that athletes who have trained for years could reach their venues in a timely fashion and the rest of the world could experience the wonders of Boston? </p>
<p>While some Boston drivers may be pleased now that they won’t have to give up a lane for a couple weeks in 2024, they lose the urgency and subsidies to improve public transportation – which would have ultimately reduced the city’s terminal gridlock. </p>
<p>Are some of the Olympic Games requirements <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/10/02/ioc_demands_oslo_drops_bid_after_over_the_top_list_of_requirements.html">antiquated</a> or elitist? Absolutely, but the IOC is a well-established brand and institution (121 years old) with extensive protocols. Reform takes time, and actions <a href="http://www.olympic.org/olympic-agenda-2020">outlined</a> in Olympic Agenda 2020 indicate an awareness and willingness to work with host cities so that the end result is a win/win proposition. </p>
<h2>Keeping spending in check</h2>
<p>Tokyo’s <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/02/28/national/tokyo-2020-olympics-to-save-1-billion-with-three-venue-changes/">bold move</a> to cut venues promised in its original bid, for example, demonstrates strong leadership and a fiscally conscious organizing committee. Unfortunately most host cities continue with or exceed existing plans even if the financials put them over budget. </p>
<p>Is it the IOC’s problem that host cities continue to spend and try to outperform previous hosts? </p>
<p>Similarly, was it FIFA’s problem that Brazil <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/jun/17/brazil-world-cup-people-amazon-fifa-manaus">decided</a> to build 12 stadiums when only eight were required and recommended by soccer’s governing body for the 2014 World Cup? </p>
<p>As was proven in 1984, 1996 and 2002, the United States knows how to utilize existing venues, build temporary sites and invest in infrastructure that will benefit communities for years to come. </p>
<h2>US and the Olympic Games</h2>
<p>Boston will now go down in Olympic history along with Denver as the only two US cities to back out of a bid. Denver was selected by the IOC to host the 1976 Winter Olympic Games but <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/apr/07/when-denver-rejected-the-olympics-in-favour-of-the-environment-and-economics">pulled out</a> four years before the event because of a lack of available funding, moving the games to Innsbruck, Austria. </p>
<p>At least Boston backed out only after winning the domestic bid to host. Internationally, Oslo, Stockholm, Rome and others have also declined prior to officially entering the race. </p>
<p>Looking forward, the Olympic Games will surely return to the United States in the next two decades, and I am sure whatever city receives this honor will not only make the country and its citizens proud but will figure out a way to make the games financially successful. It is the American way.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Delpy Neirotti teaches for the MEMOS program (Executive Masters in Management of Olympic Sports).
</span></em></p>Boston’s bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games failed due to a lack of leadership, not the price tag.Lisa Delpy Neirotti, Associate Professor of Sport Management, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/453472015-07-28T18:06:55Z2015-07-28T18:06:55ZHow Boston 2024’s Olympics bid could have been saved<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89970/original/image-20150728-7653-1if2r2c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Boston 2024 offered a historic opportunity for redevelopment in Boston.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Boston 2024</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Boston’s pursuit of Olympic gold has been dying a slow death over the past seven months. </p>
<p>The final nail in the coffin came Monday, when Mayor Marty Walsh <a href="http://espn.go.com/boston/story/_/id/13325501/boston-mayor-marty-walsh-refuses-sign-host-contract-2024-olympics">refused</a> to sign a taxpayer guarantee as requested by the Unites States Olympic Committee (USOC), which would have taken effect in the event of cost overruns and revenue shortfalls. </p>
<p>As the city’s chief public official, Walsh was right to hold the line, to protect taxpayers and safeguard the future fiscal health and economic growth of the city and region.</p>
<p>But before the Walsh rebuff, <a href="https://2024boston.org">Boston 2024</a> had other big hurdles to overcome. From the beginning, the bid played as a struggle between Boston’s business elite and commoners – the powerful versus powerless, the haves versus have-nots. </p>
<p>The Boston 2024 Olympic committee read as a <a href="https://2024boston.org/about-us/organization/board-of-directors/">who’s who</a> of Boston corporate giants and sports celebrities. Those opposed included a collection of concerned residents, city councilors, local politicians and academics. </p>
<p>Boston 2024 and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) saw it necessary to alter and access neighborhoods, institutions and roads to accommodate Olympics venues, athletes and media. Those opposed said not so fast – we live and work here, want to know the true costs and would like to be included in the planning. </p>
<p>And tidbits such as assuring exclusive travel lanes on highways for IOC VIPs, athletes and corporate sponsors, and the high salaries and compensation for Boston 2024 staff and consultants, only added fuel to the haves versus have-nots narrative. </p>
<p>In the end, this narrative and, ultimately, the failed Olympic bid is unfortunate. As executive director of Wheelock College’s Aspire Institute, a social and education innovation center, I’ve seen and studied firsthand the many problems that plague Boston, from crumbling schools to endemic homelessness. </p>
<p>While the Boston 2024 bid raised many questions about the priorities of its backers, it also offered a historic opportunity to catalyze new development and transform the city in key ways. Boston 2024 could have been saved with only a bit more vision and a bold statement of commitment to the city – not the Olympics – by backers. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89992/original/image-20150728-3945-1339fy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89992/original/image-20150728-3945-1339fy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89992/original/image-20150728-3945-1339fy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89992/original/image-20150728-3945-1339fy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89992/original/image-20150728-3945-1339fy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89992/original/image-20150728-3945-1339fy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89992/original/image-20150728-3945-1339fy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Critics said Boston’s bid prioritized volleyball stadiums and other projects over the city’s desperate need for affordable housing and school renovations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Boston 2024</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The wrong priorities</h2>
<p>The prevailing narrative stems from the perceived sharp contrast between the priorities of the bidding committee and those of Bostonians. </p>
<p>At the same time as Boston 2024 <a href="https://2024boston.org/our-story/bid-plan/">proposed</a> spending billions to construct new venues, the Boston Public Schools (BPS) announced its own <a href="http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/Page/4278">10-year Educational and Facility Master Plan</a>. </p>
<p>While the former involved building an Olympic stadium, aquatics center, velodrome and an US$800 million deck over Widett Circle, the latter aimed to improve the physical condition of BPS’s 133 aging school facilities, expand early childhood programs, support dual language learners and children with special needs and promote STEM learning and technology-enhanced education. </p>
<p>Boston 2024 revealed slick plans for an Athletes’ Village that would be converted, post-Olympics, to 2,700 dorm beds for the University of Massachusetts’ Boston campus and 8,000 housing units nine years from now. </p>
<p>Yet this wouldn’t address the current housing crisis. Boston <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/02/25/walsh-leads-boston-annual-homeless-census/KcUQYPnGRPMfsN5owUUSLI/story.html">leads</a> all of the 25 major US cities in the number of residents living in emergency shelters. Massachusetts also has one of the highest rates of <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/12/11/boston-has-highest-homeless-population-among-cities-surveyed-nationwide/MFMhhCbZZFKtQezR7xAVJL/story.html">family homelessness</a> of any state in the country. </p>
<p>Further, <a href="http://dailyfreepress.com/2015/02/17/transportation-for-massachusetts-releases-mbta-funding-report/">Transportation for Massachusetts</a> (a local coalition of organizations advocating for new transportation policy and initiatives) and TRIP (a national nonpartisan transportation research group) warned of the state’s huge need to invest in its system of roads, highways, bridges and public transportation in order to support economic growth, ensure safety, protect the environment and enhance residents’ quality of life. </p>
<p>Boston 2024 agreed that transportation enhancements were needed and critical to hosting a successful Olympics. Yet they had no plans to contribute funding to these enhancements.</p>
<h2>Could Boston 2024 have been saved?</h2>
<p>Whether the critiques of Boston 2024 are fair or not, the casualty of Boston’s derailed bid is the loss of a truly historic opportunity for long-term, large-scale economic and community development. </p>
<p>Plans included development of two new neighborhoods in currently underdeveloped, underinvested areas, as well as the creation of new public spaces and commercial areas. Lost too is the $4 billion in private investment, creation of thousands of jobs and intensified scrutiny of and urgency to improve our outdated transportation infrastructure. I concur with Boston 2024 Chairman Steve Pagliuca that this <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/06/29/boston-unveils-ambitious-new-olympics-plan/jfVx6cejFvsKS2ccqbcQ0K/story.html">could have been</a> “the biggest economic development opportunity of our lifetimes.”</p>
<p>What would have saved Boston 2024? What could have countered the anti-bid arguments and sentiments? </p>
<p>One bold move: Boston 2024 and the business leaders behind it should have pledged planning, support and private funding for economic community development in the city, regardless of whether Boston won the bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics.</p>
<p>Such a pledge would have instantly and powerfully communicated the goodwill, commitment and intent of Boston 2024 leaders to all of Boston and Massachusetts. And this pledge could have had important, reasonable caveats. </p>
<p>For example, in the case of a failed bid, the pledge might be downsized to $2 billion in private investment (half of the current goal), a focus on just residential and commercial development projects and the already committed public capital funding. </p>
<p>Tax breaks and other incentives to developers – as proposed in the Olympic plan – would still lure private investors, and the city would still benefit from the projected tax revenue from new residential and commercial areas. Gone would be the billions in projected Olympic revenues. But the important community development would have gone forward.</p>
<p>Would such a pledge have been a long shot? A huge risk for business leaders? Of course, but so was Boston 2024 all along. Perhaps the risk was not having gone this far, in making this “no matter what” pledge. </p>
<p>As Chairman Pagliuca <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/06/29/boston-chairman-steve-pagliuca-olympic-bid-winning-plan-for-city/jJQEAZTpeg9EFfv0PJSo0I/story.html">put</a> it: “the riskiest move of all can be watching an opportunity slip away.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45347/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jake Murray 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.</span></em></p>Boston’s bid to host the Olympics in 2024 suffered from misplaced priorities, yet it offered a rare opportunity for large-scale community development.Jake Murray, Executive Director of the Aspire Institute, Wheelock CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/419432015-05-18T16:24:49Z2015-05-18T16:24:49ZCould the Boston Marathon bomber receive a fair trial in Boston?<p>Last week, defense attorney Judy Clarke stood before the jury in the case of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and urged that mercy be bestowed.</p>
<p>The question of Tsarnaev’s guilt had already been settled: The 21-year-old was convicted on April 8 in federal court for his part in the deadly 2013 attack. But now the jury would decide whether he would live out his days in the Colorado supermax prison, often called the Alcatraz of the Rockies, or whether he would be executed instead.</p>
<p>Citing mitigating factors – his youth, the overwhelming influence of his controlling radicalized brother, and his disturbing family life – attorney Clarke reminded the jurors that they had the alternative to spare Tsarnaev’s life.</p>
<p>But did they really? Looking on as a Bostonian, I am left wondering whether the outcome was predetermined even before this trial began.</p>
<p>Even before any jury was impaneled, the defense may have fought and lost a definitive battle when the judge refused motions to move the case outside the jurisdiction. This issue will be at the center of Tsarneav’s appellate battle which will begin at the First Circuit and may continue to the US Supreme Court, while a separate <em>habeas corpus</em> process will commence and likewise travel up the hierarchy of federal courts after all direct appeals are exhausted. </p>
<h2>The push to move the trial out of Boston</h2>
<p>Early in the proceedings, Tsarnaev’s lawyers urged that justice demanded this trial proceed outside Boston to ensure an impartial jury be selected. Many have drawn comparisons between this case and the Oklahoma City bombing, but in the latter case the <a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mcveigh/mcveightrial.html">trials</a> for the accused were conducted in Colorado. On Tsarnaev’s behalf, the defense team filed four different motions for change of venue and appealed twice for <a href="http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/mandamus">mandamus</a> relief to the First Circuit, arguing that it was impossible for Dzhokar Tsarnaev to receive a fair trial in this jurisdiction.</p>
<p>The trial judge denied each motion, as did the First Circuit. The lone dissenter was First Circuit Judge Juan Torruella whose single vote was insufficient to turn the tide. Torruella warned that the refusal of the First Circuit to grant relief in the form of a change of venue would “<a href="http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/15-1170P-01A.pdf">pave the way</a> for a trial that is fair neither in fact nor in appearance.” </p>
<p>And so, the trial proceeded in the Boston Federal Courthouse.</p>
<h2>All Bostonians were affected by the attack</h2>
<p>The Courthouse stands about five miles from the Boston Marathon finish line where the bombings occurred and three people were heinously killed and several maimed that Patriot’s Day of 2013.</p>
<p>But the events of two years ago extended beyond the horror at the finish line and swept over the city and surrounding areas as the search for the bombing suspects extended for several days. </p>
<p>In the four days after the April 15 attack, for us Bostonians, the marathon bombings crawled out of the safe distance created by our televisions or computer screens into our homes as an unprecedented manhunt for the bombers began. </p>
<p>The public transit system was shut down to prevent an escape. The tragedy traveled across towns from Boston to Cambridge as an MIT police office was fatally shot on the third night. While one suspect was killed on April 19, a second one remained at at large. </p>
<p>On the fourth day of the manhunt, Friday morning, the governor commanded residents of Boston and its suburbs – Watertown, Cambridge, Newton, Belmont, Waltham – to stay inside and lock their doors, pull their shades. It was not safe to go outside. In Watertown, families were awakened that same morning as SWAT teams banged at their doors, urgently told them to exit, and entered to search for the second suspect.</p>
<p>Police officers lined the Watertown streets, with their assault rifles exposed. Emergency vehicles and armored trucks traveled the thoroughfare. Helicopters hung in the sky. All of Boston watched -– we were glued to our televisions because we were afraid for ourselves and for our loved ones. This tragedy happened to all of Boston. </p>
<h2>What happened to Bostonians also happened to the jurors</h2>
<p>And so this tragedy happened to each of those Boston jurors. They were likely angry and afraid on the days of the manhunt, locked in their homes just like the rest of us. </p>
<p>In its final plea for a change of venue while in the midst of jury selection, the defense <a href="http://thebostonmarathonbombings.weebly.com/uploads/2/4/2/6/24264849/fourth_change_of_venue_motion.pdf">recounted</a> that 76% of the seventy-five individuals who had been qualified by the trial court to serve as Tsarnaev’s jurors “had connections or allegiances to events, people and/or places” in the case. The <a href="http://www.wbur.org/2015/03/03/tsarnaev-boston-marathon-bombing-jury-profiles">twelve jurors</a> who eventually decided for the death penalty were chosen from these <a href="http://www.wbur.org/2015/03/03/tsarnaev-jury-boston-judge-otoole">entangled</a> seventy-five.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the trial began in early April 2015 at Courthouse Way in Boston. Jurors were instructed to avert their eyes and cover their ears to any trial coverage in the media. But still they walked in and out of that courthouse every day – five miles from the finish line. They walked past the media frenzy, past banners reminding them to be “Boston Strong” and that “This is Our ****ing City.” </p>
<p>And between the guilt phase and the penalty phase of the case, another finish line was painted on Boylston Street, another Boston marathon passed, another anniversary of the tragedy was memorialized.</p>
<p>And at the end if it all, when attorney Judy Clarke asked the Boston jury to be merciful and spare Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s life, the jury responded, echoing Bostonian’s resounding “No.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41943/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Pita Loor 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.</span></em></p>All of Boston was traumatized by the attacks on the Boston Marathon in 2013. A legal scholar suggests that this meant the man accused of the bombing could not receive a fair trial here.Karen Pita Loor, Clinical Associate Professor of Law, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/374502015-02-19T10:54:44Z2015-02-19T10:54:44ZOnly the puck was black: a story of race and the NHL<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72290/original/image-20150217-19478-s2aoxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Willie O'Ree, the first black NHL player, debuted for the Boston Bruins in 1958. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.theroot.com/content/dam/theroot/slideshows/2010/06/04/willie20o27ree2020boston.jpg">The Root</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last week’s release of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Black-Ice-The-James-Story/dp/1770412018">Black Ice</a> – the memoir of Val James, the first African American to play in the NHL – brought me back to when I was a teenager living in Boston. It was the winter of 1978 – the year of the infamous blizzard – when I had my first encounter with a sport that, until then, had only existed as something on TV that would compel me to change stations.</p>
<p>I had an after-school job at a McDonald’s just across the street from the Boston Garden. The location I worked at offered an incentive to employees: if you weren’t scheduled to work, and there was a game going on at the Garden, you could work the before-and-after game rush and receive a free ticket to whatever event was being held. </p>
<p>We never liked the Celtics because of the city and team’s history of discrimination. (Celtics legend Bill Russell would later <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Second-Wind-Bill-Russell/dp/0345288971">write</a> that Boston was a “flea market of racism.”) So whomever the Celtics were playing, I invariably cheered for the other team – especially if it had a black star. I recall seeing the silver and black uniform of San Antonio’s #44 George “The Iceman” Gervin and marveling at how he made the finger roll look like ballet. </p>
<p>On one of these game days, I had learned there were a couple of tickets up for grabs. My interest piqued when I heard that Julius “Dr. J” Erving and the 76ers were scheduled to play the home team, so I finished my shift, snagged the tickets and hustled across the street to the Garden. </p>
<p>But I soon noticed that a lot of folks weren’t attired in the usual Celtic green. In fact, no one was. Instead, I witnessed a sea of yellow and black – the colors of Boston’s hockey team, the Bruins. (Apparently, I hadn’t looked at the schedule closely enough.) Before I knew it, I was attending my first NHL game. The only reason I stayed was because I had to work the post-game shift at McDonald’s. </p>
<p>I felt like I’d landed in a different country. It was strange, cold and the fans appeared more belligerent (either due to their drinking or the frigid temperature). I remember glancing around and not seeing another black face, which heightened my nerves; recently I’d been trounced by four, angry white male teenagers – for having done nothing more than waiting at a school bus stop and being black. Still reeling from <a href="http://www.wbur.org/2014/09/05/boston-busing-anniversary">court-ordered busing</a> to desegregate the city’s schools, Boston was hot with racial animus – and here I was at a “white Boston” pastime. Outnumbered. Again.</p>
<p>Yet I found myself drawn to the game. It was fast. Its qualities seemed at odds with one another, but attractive nonetheless: agility and grace, paired with blistering hits and violent brawls. Soon, I found myself cheering for a Boston team, and I later discovered that the 1977-78 Bruins squad was one of the best in the NHL. Coached by Don Cherry and nicknamed the “lunch-pail gang” for their scrappy style of play, they were the team of Boston’s working people. </p>
<p>While my father worked, he was decidedly not of the working class. A professor and a dean at a local Boston college, he was of the civil rights era and attuned to the racial problems that plagued the city. We never discussed hockey. In fact, none of my friends watched or discussed the sport. For young black males, the stereotype associated with hockey was that it was a game for poor white kids. </p>
<p>In reality, like most “white-dominated” sports (swimming, tennis, baseball, crew, golf, etc.) even though “integration” had happened, we were still denied equal access and acceptance. So as a form of resilience we focused on what we had access to: track and field, basketball and football. </p>
<p>As a young teen, I wondered what the game and fan dynamics would have been like had the Bruins had a black professional hockey player. It wasn’t until I created a university course in 2004 – Race, Sports, and American Culture – that I learned that Boston did have a black player, the first ever, in 1958. He was from Canada and his name was <a href="http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blackhistory2008/news/story?id=3231276">Willie O’Ree</a>. It had been 11 years since Jackie Robinson broke the racial barrier in professional baseball amid a whirlwind of controversy and media attention; but no fanfare accompanied the future Hall of Famer O'Ree – the “Jackie Robinson of Hockey.” </p>
<p>There are at least two reasons for O'Ree’s integration of the NHL going virtually unnoticed. First, O'Ree was Canadian, where racial tension was far less palpable. Second, blacks were in no position to threaten white dominance of hockey. While in baseball there was a cadre of Negro Leaguers waiting in the wings to potentially take power from white ballplayers – Larry Doby, Hank Thompson and Willard “Home Run” Brown, to name a few – in hockey, there simply wasn’t. </p>
<p>For nearly twenty years, O'Ree had no successor. Cracks in the ice, however, appeared again in the late 1970s with Valmore “Val” Edwin Curtis James. Born in Ocala, Florida, James didn’t take up skating until he was a teenager in Long Island, New York. He began his career in Quebec, Canada with the Junior Hockey League, and he would go on to become the first African American player in the National Hockey League when he signed with Buffalo Sabres in 1981; in 1986, he became the first black player of any nationality to skate for the Toronto Maple Leafs. As with many “first and only” individuals breaking barriers, <a href="http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/page/blackhistoryNHL1/nhl-pioneer-val-james-not-bitter-tortured-playing-days">James endured his share of racist jeers and taunting</a>.</p>
<p>Blacks on skates are still a rare sight: in the NHL’s nearly 100-year history, there have been just over 70 black players. In 2003, Black Canadian Grant Fuhr was the first black hockey player to win the coveted Stanley Cup and to be inducted to the Hockey Hall of Fame. As of September 2014, there are about 30 players of African-descent either playing in the National Hockey League, or for an NHL affiliate. Among them are perennial fan favorites PK Subban, Jarome Iginla, Kyle Okposo, Wayne Simmonds and Evander Kane. </p>
<p>However despite these minor gains, the dearth of black players continues. For the past ten years I’ve posed the question to my students: “Why are there so few black hockey players?” Over 100 students from all races, socio-economic backgrounds and geographic regions largely conclude that it is due two reasons: low interest (possibly due to stereotypes of hockey as a “white sport”), and little access to opportunity and training. Both remain formidable barriers to black participation in hockey, making the probability of seeing more Val James’s as low as finding a four-leaf clover in Boston.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37450/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gilman W. Whiting 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.</span></em></p>Last week’s release of Black Ice – the memoir of Val James, the first African American to play in the NHL – brought me back to when I was a teenager living in Boston. It was the winter of 1978 – the year…Gilman W. Whiting, Associate Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies, Director of the Scholar Identity Institute, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/363952015-02-02T07:01:26Z2015-02-02T07:01:26ZBoston 2024: city eyes many challenges and opportunities in bid to host Summer Games<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69786/original/image-20150122-12091-vqq8qs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hosting the Olympics offers a chance to remake Boston. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Boston 2024</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s Note: Last month the United States Olympics Committee picked Boston to lead the US bid to host the Summer Games in 2024. Mayor Martin Walsh recently began a series of community meetings intended to answer questions citizens have about the city’s bid and what hosting would mean for them. We asked two civil engineers and two architects at Wentworth Institute of Technology to assess the opportunities created and challenges posed if the International Olympics Committee were to choose Boston when it makes its selection in 2017.</em> </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70017/original/image-20150126-24549-baxi8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70017/original/image-20150126-24549-baxi8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70017/original/image-20150126-24549-baxi8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70017/original/image-20150126-24549-baxi8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70017/original/image-20150126-24549-baxi8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70017/original/image-20150126-24549-baxi8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70017/original/image-20150126-24549-baxi8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70017/original/image-20150126-24549-baxi8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Boston can put on quite a show if needs be.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Boston boasts many assets, but aging infrastructure is a problem</h2>
<p><strong>Ilyas Bhatti, Associate Professor of Construction Management</strong></p>
<p>Boston is a great city to host the Olympics. It is among the most walkable in the world. You can easily stroll to the Boston waterfront and enjoy all the amenities – museums, restaurants and shops. The city is accessible by three major airports: Boston’s Logan, TF Green in Rhode Island and Manchester in New Hampshire.</p>
<p>Metropolitan Boston also has a wide variety of recreational facilities, with three major rivers and a magnificent esplanade on the banks of the Charles River, where the renowned Hatch Shell hosts the annual 4th of July concert and fireworks extravaganza.</p>
<p>In spite of all these assets, hosting the Games would pose major challenges for Boston’s planners, mostly due to the aging transportation infrastructure. </p>
<p>The transit system is in a state of disrepair. The trains and trolleys <a href="http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/highway/Main.aspx">often break down</a>. Although the state has made significant progress in repairing bridges, it still has 416 that are classified as structurally deficient. </p>
<p>People mobility and safety would be the top priority. As commissioner of the city’s Metropolitan District Commission from 1989 to 1995, I had to undertake road closures during major events such as the 4th of July celebrations, major concerts at the Shell and the historic visit by Nelson Mandela. Mobilizing resources of police, public works and of private enterprises takes a huge effort in planning.</p>
<p>The city and state would have to greatly accelerate plans to repair and upgrade Boston’s infrastructure to be ready for the Olympics in 2024. That also includes the so-called invisible infrastructure of water, sewer and power grids. The last major improvements to the wastewater systems were made in the 1980s and 1990s in conformance and with federal and state financial support under the federal Clean Water Act. Such systems are getting old and would require system upgrades by the time the Olympics take place. </p>
<p>Boston’s history of repairing and upgrading major bridges is not very promising because of financial woes. A case in point is the <a href="https://secure.pqarchiver.com/boston/doc/734619943.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Aug+1%2C+2010&author=M+Ilyas+Bhatti&pub=Boston+Globe&edition=&startpage=&desc=LONGFELLOW+BRIDGE+OVERHAUL">rehabilitation project on the Longfellow Bridge</a>, which was begun in the late 1980s and is only now being completed. Also, scheduling construction projects would have to be done carefully in order to avoid major gridlock in the city. </p>
<p>The biggest question that must be addressed is how to finance all of this. Planning must start now to pull it off in time. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70010/original/image-20150126-24552-189j3xb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70010/original/image-20150126-24552-189j3xb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70010/original/image-20150126-24552-189j3xb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70010/original/image-20150126-24552-189j3xb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70010/original/image-20150126-24552-189j3xb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70010/original/image-20150126-24552-189j3xb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70010/original/image-20150126-24552-189j3xb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70010/original/image-20150126-24552-189j3xb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Back in 1967, the city envisioned a sports stadium (bottom right corner), just one block north of where the current Olympic stadium complex has been proposed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Boston Redevelopment Authority, 1967</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Opportunity for a revitalized vision</h2>
<p><strong>Mark Pasnik, Associate Professor of Architecture</strong> </p>
<p>Shortly after Mayor Walsh’s election last year, my colleagues and I <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/11/10/fresh-master-plan/C7RSHe8j1zJQ09z21RsuYJ/story.html">suggested in an editorial in the Boston Globe</a> that one of the most important initiatives he could pursue is to prepare a comprehensive vision for the city. It’s something that’s urgently needed and hasn’t been undertaken since the <a href="https://archive.org/details/19651967generalp00bost">general plan of 1965/1975</a>. That’s forty years of piecemeal planning rather than a bigger vision to address the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. </p>
<p>Enter the Olympics. The Games provide an exciting catalyst that will prompt Bostonians to have open discussions about what type of city we would like to become. Bidding for such a major event on the world stage will require Boston to be more innovative in its design aspirations and undergo careful, city-wide planning exercises about infrastructure, transportation, communities, housing and environmental issues. </p>
<p>The city should use this as a chance to respond to large-scale challenges, such as the need for broader access to housing, the prospects of sea-level rise and the urgency of improving our schools, parks and institutions. The question is, how to develop into a denser urban center, fully linked to the surrounding region and supported by increased services and expanded economic opportunity for all of Boston’s citizens. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the effort isn’t off to a good start. The Olympics proposal was initiated privately and, by USOC standards, without public input. Its planning has been headed by leaders with deep ties to developers and the construction industry. As a result, <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/01/22/john-fish-carries-olympic-torch-sets-boston-agenda/p310ByCtJJ2pDFELlSrukL/story.html?event=event12">questions have already arisen broadly</a> as to whose interests the bid will serve. </p>
<p>If there isn’t a change of course, Boston might end up with the <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2014/11/15/innovation/qhy7BbQiICARapsRJGsjaL/story.html">same lack of civic vision</a> seen in the recently developed Innovation District, an area adjacent to downtown Boston that has been heavily criticized for its mediocre buildings and lack of neighborhood vitality. “Merely functional” buildings, as the <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/12/10/marty-walsh-boring-architecture/aI86hSWSR5FmV9XrePhadI/story.html">mayor himself termed them</a>, have served their developers’ bottom lines but do little to create vibrant interconnected communities, livable streets and ennobling public spaces. </p>
<p>If your conclusion is simply to oppose the Olympics in Boston, however, you should hold your fire. </p>
<p>The discussion surrounding the bid could lead to long-term thinking and significant initiatives that will help Boston, one of the oldest urban centers in the US, become a better and renewed city. But that will only occur if this process is used to shape Boston in innovative ways that benefit the larger public – with or without the Olympics. </p>
<p>Then you can cross your fingers and hope that Rome beats Boston, knowing full well that second-place wouldn’t be such a bad thing. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70027/original/image-20150126-24510-ktomal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70027/original/image-20150126-24510-ktomal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70027/original/image-20150126-24510-ktomal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70027/original/image-20150126-24510-ktomal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70027/original/image-20150126-24510-ktomal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70027/original/image-20150126-24510-ktomal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70027/original/image-20150126-24510-ktomal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70027/original/image-20150126-24510-ktomal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Getting kind of creaky.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Upgrading Boston’s creaking rapid-transit system</h2>
<p><strong>James Lambrechts, P.E., Associate Professor of Civil Engineering</strong> </p>
<p>Boston’s rapid-transit system is nearly at its saturation point. It requires significant new construction to aid circulation, bring social equity to disenfranchised neighborhoods and encourage thousands of auto commuters to avoid driving into the city, improving air quality. </p>
<p>Such an investment needs to be made regardless of the Games but will be essential if Boston hopes to accommodate the flood of sports fans that would descend on the city in 2024. </p>
<p>Over the past 20 years, the commuter rail system has expanded to bring thousands more riders into city center rail hubs. An upcoming extension of the Green Line to the suburbs of Somerville and Medford is projected to add 30,000 to 50,000 more riders each day. </p>
<p>However, the rapid transit system is currently under great pressure. The <a href="http://uli.org/infrastructure-initiative/uli-boston-releases-hub-and-spoke-report/">2012 report “Hub and Spoke”</a> by the Urban Land Institute noted that a big chunk of the Green Line is severely over-crowded, and that parts of several other lines are nearing peak capacity. </p>
<p>Much of this pressure can be relieved by extending the Blue Line west past Fenway and into the western suburbs. It would provide critical relief to the Green Line that would last for the next century and would also improve access to the airport and make it very attractive for suburban commuters to take rapid transit. Re-establishing rail transit to Dudley Square, south of downtown, via a new Green Line tunnel is another project that would spark intensive revitalization of the area. However, Dudley Square rail transit would be dependent on Green Line congestion relief. </p>
<p>These two projects have tremendous potential for alleviating inner-city rapid transit congestion and delivering real social-equity to many diverse segments of the greater Boston community. </p>
<p>Yes, there is still a mindset of <a href="http://www.boston.com/cars/news-and-reviews/2015/01/05/can-talk-rationally-about-the-big-dig-yet/0BPodDnlbNtsTEPFFc4i1O/story.html">“No more Big Digs,”</a> a massive road and tunnel project plagued by escalating costs and delays, but such thinking will only stagnate the full potential of the core area of the city. These two projects have so many potential benefits that neither should be cast aside. My student group has evaluated the feasibility of each tunnel and made a reasonable estimate of US$3.5 billion to $5 billion. If construction were to begin by 2019, both would be ready in time for 2024 Olympic Games.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70014/original/image-20150126-24552-128ozy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70014/original/image-20150126-24552-128ozy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70014/original/image-20150126-24552-128ozy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70014/original/image-20150126-24552-128ozy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70014/original/image-20150126-24552-128ozy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70014/original/image-20150126-24552-128ozy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70014/original/image-20150126-24552-128ozy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70014/original/image-20150126-24552-128ozy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Boston Harbor at its best.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Restoring water’s role in Boston’s development</h2>
<p><strong>Mark Klopfer, Professor of Architecture</strong></p>
<p>In recent decades, Olympic venues have brought some positive changes to their host cities despite the costs. </p>
<p>For the <a href="http://www.sydneyolympicpark.com.au">2000 Olympics in Sydney</a>, for example, cleaning up old brownfield sites and water quality improvements drove much of the re-creation of Homebush Bay, which was the primary venue for those games. Sydney was the first Olympic games that undertook a focused mission of sustainability as one of the core objectives guiding its development. </p>
<p>Similarly, the 2012 games in London sought to remake disused and industrial land in East London into new sports venues and housing. </p>
<p>The legacy of Vancouver’s games in 2010 was a large supply of new housing and a <a href="http://www.granvilleislandferries.bc.ca/our_story.htm">water-based transportation system of small ferries</a> connecting a constellation of points across the city that lacked such direct connection before the games. Today they still serve this role even as the number of stops was decreased after the games.</p>
<p>Boston’s Olympic bid offers <a href="http://env.state.ma.us/mepa/mepadocs/2014/110514em/nps/enf/15278.pdf">similar opportunities</a> for brownfield remediation and the creation of alternative transportation in the often traffic-choked city. It’s a <a href="http://www.somervillema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Assembly%20Square%20Revit%20Plan.pdf">chance to remedy</a> some of the environmental ills caused over the past two centuries by industrial use at some of the proposed venue sites. Water quality in the Charles and Mystic Rivers and the channel also could be improved. </p>
<p>Boston’s original settlement <a href="http://www.walktothesea.com/pdf/NBL_WTTS_customhouse.pdf">owes its early success</a> to its storm-protected harbor and the marine-based industries it supported, yet the 20th century witnessed a decline in their importance. The Olympics could re-invigorate the use of this precious and bountiful asset. </p>
<p>Water shuttle services could connect the various venues to hotel and housing sites across Boston and Cambridge to take advantage of the water infrastructure without the need to build more roads or rails. </p>
<p>With nearly every proposed sporting venue within a few hundred yards of Boston Harbor, the Mystic or the Charles, the Games provides an opportunity for the city to fully realize the potential of water-based transportation through investment in land/water transportation hubs. These would easily and inexpensively connect and involve previously marginalized neighborhoods of East Boston, East Somerville, and Quincy as participants providing accommodations and easy access to the games. </p>
<p>And after the Games have come and gone, it will be at least one legacy that will provide benefits for many years to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36395/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ilyas Bhatti is a member of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), American Water Works Association (AWWA) and American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Lambrechts is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Boston Society of Civil Engineers.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Klopfer and Mark Pasnik do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Editor’s Note: Last month the United States Olympics Committee picked Boston to lead the US bid to host the Summer Games in 2024. Mayor Martin Walsh recently began a series of community meetings intended…Ilyas Bhatti, Associate Professor of Construction Management, Wentworth Institute of TechnologyJames Lambrechts, Associate Professor in Civil Engineering, Wentworth Institute of TechnologyMark Klopfer, Professor , Wentworth Institute of TechnologyMark Pasnik, Associate Professor, Wentworth Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.