
Miles Howard
Cognoscenti contributor
Miles Howard is an author, journalist, and trail builder based in Boston. He has written multiple guidebooks on outdoor recreation and he publishes the weekly newsletter "Mind The Moss: a close look at unusual backcountry and urban hikes across New England."
Recently published

The way forward runs through the places we call home
It might seem counterintuitive, to devote more focus to our local leaders and surroundings as the horizon burns, writes Miles Howard. But localized political action yields the most visible changes...

What Mass. legislators can learn from Tim Walz
The Massachusetts Legislature is notoriously dysfunctional. Legislators, who just wrapped up another disappointing and demoralizing session, should take a lesson from Gov. Tim Walz, writes Miles Howard. Walz's said: “You...

Train dreams: A beach adventure
Maybe you've experienced the Massachusetts shoreline through the windshield of your car on a broiling summer day -- frantic that the parking lot at your desired beach destination is full....

The stuff of summer dreams: My 3-part adventure on the MBTA
When was the last time you looked at a map of the MBTA commuter rail network and thought: "I could take a train there and have a good time?" Miles...

Boston could lose 25% of its young people. I may join the exodus
Boston's young residents are wrestling with two massive elemental questions, writes Miles Howard. Can I commit to this place? Is it worth investing myself in this city? For far too...
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Montreal knows how to winter. Boston could learn
Bostonians talk about innovation a lot. And yet, writes Miles Howard, for all the local advances we’ve made in medicine and technology, we still haven’t been able to figure out...

It's time to audit the Mass. Legislature
Between soaring housing costs and a beleaguered public transportation system, there's no shortage of crises facing Massachusetts. But the commonwealth has one of the least efficient, least productive state governments...

A cop, a slide and a fleeting moment of viral joy
The Cop Slide might not have been what the city of Boston envisioned for its plaza, writes Miles Howard, but for a brief moment in time, it belonged to all...

What if we treated housing like a public utility instead of a private investment?
In the U.S., most public housing has been a planned concentration of poverty, writes Miles Howard. But in several other countries the idea at the heart of public housing has...

The T opened up the world to me. Now it's stuck
Miles Howard asks, what is the price of delayed trains and buses for service workers who can be fired from their jobs for being late to work? Or for students...