The Bay State Banner, July 2025
“Green” is not the word that comes to mind when walking down the Blue Hill Avenue corridor in lower Roxbury. Children play in parks with patchy grass and bathe in pools of rain and groundwater on a flooded street on a hot day in summer. This sea of tar and bare concrete isn’t a consequence of weather; it is a testament to the chronic lack of greenery in traditionally low-income and minority neighborhoods throughout Boston.
The area around Blue Hill Avenue, the main artery spanning Roxbury and Dorchester — what the City of Boston describes as “Boston’s central spine” — is an urban heat island, where a high concentration of concrete and a lack of green spaces can lead to local temperatures up to 7 F higher than surrounding areas. The area is historically home to Boston’s Black and immigrant communities.
