Marion Davis

@marionsd.bsky.social

Writer, editor & comms strategist focused on climate, sustainable & inclusive development, livable cities. Costa Rican in New England. Hiker, nature lover, sci-fi fan, 🐈‍⬛ mom, gardener.

Big gray cat asleep with a mottled kitten using his back as a pillow.

Green-and-white table showing city, efficiency, capacity, benefit, and pop. density for 13 US cities and 3 Canadian cities.
Atlanta, GA -0.101 6.11 6.48 7.3
Boston, MA -0.112 7.01 5.99 11.7
Charlotte, NC -0.119 8.10 8.20 4.8
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX -0.101 4.47 4.37 9.5
Detroit, MI -0.069 3.19 3.86 7.3
Los Angeles, CA -0.152 3.87 3.49 16.4
Memphis, TN -0.122 6.90 7.85 7.7
Miami, FL -0.088 3.46 3.25 12.9
Minneapolis/St. Paul -0.104 6.37 6.64 6.3
New York/Newark -0.081 4.48 3.47 20.0
Portland, OR -0.121 6.29 5.62 9.7
San Francisco, CA -0.081 2.56 2.23 16.9
Seattle, WA -0.124 6.43 5.67 8.6
Montreal, QC -0.079 3.82 3.52 18.3
Toronto, ON -0.082 4.07 3.50 15.8
Vancouver, BC -0.094 4.43 3.63 16.1

Text underneath:
Source: Li, Y., J.-C. Svenning, W. Zhou, K. Zhu, J.F. Abrams, T.M. Lenton, W.J. Ripple, et al. 2024. “Green Spaces Provide Substantial but Unequal Urban Cooling Globally.” Nature Communications 15 (1): 7108. doi:10.1038/s41467-024-51355-0 (supplemental data table).
Note: Efficiency measures the extent to which increasing the green space would reduce temperatures. Capacity is the efficiency x actual green space, measured in °C. Benefit is the cooling benefit received by the average city resident, reflecting differences between the distribution of green space and population. Population density is per km2 and is for the metro area, not just city limits.

Table showing the overall evaluation of the two projects, with 45 possible points and 35 awarded to Wood Partners vs. 27 to North River.

Woman at podium, in black top, giving award acceptance speech as others stand behind her.

Tipped-over pedestrian sign at a HAWK light suggests a person falling on the ground.

Cover of "To be taught if fortunate," showing a woman floating in space looking back at Earth.

Table of Somerville Public Schools enrollment by race/ethnicity, 2025-26, showing 6.0% of kids are Asian, 8.4% are Black, 38.4% are Latino, 7.2% are multiracial, and 39.7% are white.

Photo of a young cat belly-up on a sunny rug. Her belly is white and the rest of her is a mess of black and brown spots. Her face is tucked partly behind a paw.

Picture of a black and white kitten with a gray tuxedo cat next to her who's pulling back a little and looking at her with disapproval.

HAWK signal button surrounded by a tall pile of snow

Cover of the book "Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng"

Save the Date flyer: Mark your calendar and get ready for 2026 MA State House Day of Action for Safety Cameras. Join T4MA, MA Vision Zero Coalition & Families for Safe Streets for a State House Day of Action. Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026 at 10am, State House Room 428

Picture of a black and white kitten who's climbed on top of her calico sister, covering her almost entirely. You can see the calico's front left paw and her scrunched-up face, her eyes closed.

Adorable kittens, one black and white and one a messy calico, together on a couch with a blanket.

Photo of a very mottled calico kitten sprawled on a blanket.

Map of the 100-mile border zone, which includes all the major cities of the Eastern Seaboard, the entire state of Florida, all major West Coast cities, and a big chunk of Minnesota (including Duluth, not shown), but not Minneapolis or Saint Paul.

Bar chart showing that small (1-2 person) households far outnumber studio/1-bedroom units, owned and rented, while 2- and 3-bedroom units far outnumber 3- and >4-person households, respectively.
The text below reads:
It shows that though Somerville has a higher share of smaller housing units compared to the county, the state, and surrounding communities as mentioned in the 2021 HNA, the city also has a larger number of small households (two or fewer persons) than small housing units (studios or one-bedroom units). In addition, household size has been decreasing in Somerville, following a statewide trend. There have been concerns raised during housing stakeholder interviews that the city may need additional smaller housing units such as one-bedroom units, as the lack of them can theoretically result in smaller households occupying larger housing units meant for families if they have no other options or push these smaller households out of the city. This is somewhat echoed by the 2021 HNA as well. However, data and stakeholder interviews suggest that the shortage of larger units, especially those subsidized and affordable to households earning at or below 50% of the AMI, is more significant compared to smaller units.
Large family households are more likely to experience more housing problems in Somerville, though a significant portion of households facing housing problems are nonfamily renter households

Portrait of key members of Trump's White House team, all with strange and creepy expressions, sitting at one end of a conference table.

Screenshot of article excerpt. It is going to take hard politics. The kind that shows up in communities between elections and solves problems that don’t sound glamorous on television talk shows. It looks like facing down the Klan in a trailer park, not complaining about racism while doing far too little to avert it. It means believing that racism is not a natural condition of poverty but a political weapon that rich men use to constrain poor people’s political power. And — most critically — it looks like not wanting, even for a second, to be confused with the people who would do that. You don’t wear a red hat as a joke. You don’t fly the ironic flag of historical hate to get a rise out of people. You don’t wear the cool tattoo for over a decade that maybe, kind of, possibly, probably looks like something horrible and hateful.

It is a remarkably low bar to clear. And a white working-class aesthetic is not nearly enough to clear it. Real working-class politics does not assume the worst of working-class people’s impulses. It does not launder their concerns for political points. It certainly does not argue, directly or indirectly, that a little racism is a good thing for reaching them.

Screenshot of article segment: It is an old argument. History will tell you that negotiating with racism or fascism or authoritarianism never ends well.

It is also a cop-out that can sound like political pragmatism: The idea that we simply must learn to overlook bad behavior as mere human foibles. Who among us, it is implied, has not said or done or etched a hateful symbol of exclusion and oppression into our minds or bodies? If Democrats are to win back the “working class” that they have lost to Trump, they have to look beyond silly things like Nazi iconography or a little casual racism or a soupçon of sexism and anything else that the “woke” left of the party cares about.

I find it hard to imagine that we would be having this conversation at all were Platner anything other than a fit middle-aged white guy who dresses like a stock photo of a “real man.” Our culture is built to eternally forgive men, generally, and white men of means, especially, for their mistakes. Every single time, they were young and immature and it would be a shame to hold them accountable for anything they did wrong. The rest of us just need to be strong-armed into the forgiving and forgetting portion of the program.

Screenshot of post by Marion Davis on LinkedIn. It says: Dear professionals with not-great writing skills: Please DO NOT get hooked on AI. I know what it looks like when you put your messy/clunky words through ChatGPT or other tools: It comes out neater, typo-free, organized nicely. Best of all, it's near-instant, such a time-saver and, unlike professional editors and writers, free! And the prompts to use AI are everywhere, including on LinkedIn.

But please, please trust me: To anyone who actually reads what you sent or posted, it's pretty obvious. AI writing has a plastic gloss. It lacks personality, is laden with clichés and empty phrases, and can't really handle complexity. Read an AI-processed text closely, and you'll often find that beneath the façade of structure and logic, it's not actually coherent. It reads like a student who didn't do the reading, but talks a good game, when called on in class.

"But writing is so hard for me, and I just don't have the time!" I get it, I really do. This is why people hire professional writers and editors to help them. A writer can take your rough notes and turn them into a polished product -- but will also alert you to gaps and inconsistencies you need to address, helping you clarify your thoughts and be more effective. An editor can show you, through tracked changes and margin comments, how to write things more clearly, how to avoid common mistakes, how to structure arguments better. Research on memory and cognition shows this is a highly effective way to learn.

Bright red and orange cover with a diverse assortment of Latin American people in a city under the shade of a big tree. The title says UNLIVABLE: Confronting Extreme Urban Heat in Latin America and the Caribbean. It has the logos of the World Bank Group and GFDRR.

Route map showing a bike loop around Somerville, Medford, Arlington and north Cambridge.

Image of two sides of a rectangular card. One side says How do you avoid hitting people with your car and shows a car hitting a person with a big red X on it. At the bottom is the URL www.howdoyou.guide. The other side says: Avoid driving into people. Watch the Road. * Watch the road with your EYES. * All the time. * YES REALLY all the time. * No games or movies. * No texting. * Sometimes it's boring, but you do need to watch the actual road with your eyes THE WHOLE ENTIRE TIME. Note: To play games or text or watch movies, take the bus. Bring headphones as courtesy. Slow Down. * Speed limit means the MAXIMUM. * DO NOT drive faster. * You can drive slower. Note: This means you.

A black, orange and yellow butterfly, a monarch, is perched among little pink flowers, New England asters.

Close-up of two very large bright pink-orange flowers with spiky petals.

A raccoon grazes on plants on the overgrown roof of an old fence company. The sun is shining and the sky is bright blue behind him.

Beautiful black cat stretched out on a porch railing, with bright green eyes.

$Screenshot of a list in the report: \ Social Security is a lifeline, with most relying on it as their primary or sole source of income. Most low-income older households rely primarily, and often entirely, on Social Security to cover their expenses. Yet benefits are hardly enough to make ends meet in a high-cost area like Massachusetts. \ Retirement savings and pensions are limited or depleted. Few low-income older adults had pensions or retirement savings to draw from, and many who once had 401(k)s had to spend them early due to emergencies, job loss, or family needs. \ Many older adults must adjust to a lower standard of living in retirement. Many seniors described living more modestly than they did during their working years, adjusting to lower incomes and reduced spending power. Even those meeting day-to-day needs often felt that one unexpected cost could jeopardize their sense of security. \ Subsidized housing is a lifeline for many seniors. One of the ways in which some low-income older adults make ends meet in a high-cost city like Boston is securing subsidized housing so that they don’t have to pay the full cost of market-rate housing. In fact, a strong majority of our interviewees lived in some form of subsidized housing. \ Other public benefits are essential. Programs like Supplemental Security Income, SNAP, housing subsidies, and MassHealth help many older households meet basic needs, but strict income and asset limits discourage emergency saving, and benefit levels often don’t reflect the true cost of living. \ Older adults are resourceful but constrained. Participants described budgeting carefully, leaning on debt and relying on informal networks. The views shared highlight the gap between basic needs and achieving true stability, with many still facing financial precariousness despite covering day-to-day expenses.$