As World Cup excitement carries over to Fourth of July barbecues, a heat wave has made its home in Massachusetts. But as folks from Haverhill to Hyannis feel the summer swelter, CommonWealth Beacon reports that Chelsea faces “disproportionate exposure to extreme heat.”

Its residents — many of whom are immigrants and low-income — simply don’t have a way to cool down. Concrete-laden neighborhoods mean walking around outside is, on average, several degrees hotter than other nearby areas.

“43% of the primarily white neighborhoods have a good amount of shade coverage,” said Jennifer Smith, senior reporter and podcast host at CommonWealth Beacon. “Meanwhile, if you’re looking at the BIPOC neighborhoods and cities… 3% of those cities on average actually have foliage canopy coverage.”

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In 2024, a partial solution came in the form of the TreeKeeper program, which trained volunteer Chelsea residents to care for and expand the city’s tree canopy coverage. Shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the $500,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency that funded the initiative was terminated, along with what the agency called other “wasteful DEI programs and ‘environmental justice priorities.’”

Although Massachusetts awarded GreenRoots, the grassroots organization behind TreeKeeper, a supplemental $25,000 grant, Axios reporter Mike Deehan pointed out the long-term ramification of the EPA cuts: It could strand communities of color on “heat islands.” Part of that initiative helped identify where, precisely, needed the most relief from heat.

“Programs like TreeKeeper are a larger functioning thing,” Deehan said. “A lot of the data that they are coming up with when they are putting forward and surveying where these temperatures are rising, where trees should be... those are things that the municipalities are taking action on. So it’s not just this one federal grant that’s affecting things — it’s now a lack of research.”

Cities including Everett and Malden also faced grant termination that would have funded programs to make their communities more resilient to extreme heat.

Meanwhile, as communities near Blue Hill Avenue weigh how they want to ease traffic, another nearby transportation proposal is wreaking havoc. In order to “reduce vehicle congestion and emissions,” there won’t be any on-site parking near White Stadium in Franklin Park, the soon-to-be home of the Boston Legacy FC women’s soccer team. This means residents within walking distance will have to apply for special parking permits on game days, while guests within the area will need separate visitor placards.

Though the city plans on most spectators utilizing free shuttle buses, Seth Daniel, news editor at the Dorchester Reporter, said these restrictions, along with the “million problems that we’ve not thought of,” will be tough to balance.

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“I have a number of relatives — including my daughter, my brothers-in-law — they live in the [walking] zone,” Daniel said. “So if, on a game day, I want to go visit them, we have to make sure we only bring one car, and we’re going to have to have a visitor pass. And if my brothers-in-law want to have a gathering in the backyard for, say, a birthday or graduation, we have to get a permit from the city to do it. And that’s on private property.”

All of this, plus Chinatown’s bold “down-zoning” plan, on this week’s local news roundtable!

Guests

  • Seth Daniel, news editor at the Dorchester Reporter
  • Mike Deehan, reporter at Axios
  • Jennifer Smith, senior reporter at CommonWealth Beacon, co-host of “The Codcast”

Stories featured on this week’s roundtable