The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce will honor 10 small and high-growth businesses for their achievements and contributions to the community during a “Small Business of the Year” awards luncheon today at the Sheraton Boston Hotel. Beverly-based Meridian Associates Inc., a consulting firm offering services for the civil engineering, 3-D laser scanning and survey, landscape architecture and renewable energy sectors, will be honored as the 2012 “Small Business of the Year.” Founded in 1990, Meridian also has offices in Westboro and four other states. Other businesses being recognized include Continue reading >>>

SUNDAY: Aine Greaney ("Dance Lessons") reads at 2 p.m. in the Orientation Room, Boston Public Library, Copley … Sharon Lovejoy (“My First Bird Book and Bird Feeder�) reads at 2 p.m. in the Rey Children's Room, Boston Public Library, Copley … David Ferry and George Kalogeris (“Dialogos: Paired Poems in Translation�) read at 2 p.m. in the Harvard-Yenching Common Room 136, 2 Divinity Ave, Cambridge … Melanie Braverman (“Red�) reads at 3 p.m. at the Concord Free Public Library, 129 Main St., Concord MONDAY: Chris Berdick (“Mind Over Continue reading >>>

Photo courtesy of WCCPThe WCCP delegation visiting Lisbon and Paredes, Portugal Living PlanIT, located in the town of Paredes about two hours north of Lisbon, Portugal just may be the city of the future. Living PlanIT is a project created and supported by Cisco, Microsoft and several other technology companies interested in innovation and creating a futuristic city. A real-life Epcot Center meets the Jetsons of sorts. These companies, in concert with the national government of Portugal, hope to create the world's "smartest city" and hope to do it by 2015. The World Class Cities Partnership Continue reading >>>

Police responded to Mt. Auburn Cemetery on Oct. 1 at 9:20 a.m. for a report of larceny of tree burls—the latest in a spate of tree burl thefts in the Greater Boston area.

A burl is a growth on a tree that artists and crafters often use to make bowls. A caretaker at the cemetery told police that a large burl had been stolen from a sugar maple tree on the Coolidge Avenue side of the cemetery, said Lt. Michael Lawn of the Watertown Police Department.

The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce will honor local small businesses at an awards lunch Thursday. The chamber’s Small Business of the Year is Meridian Associates Inc., a Beverly-based consulting firm offering civil engineering, 3D laser scanning and survey, landscape architecture, and renewable energy and sustainability consulting services. “Innovation is one of Meridian’s most critical attributes,” the chamber said. “The firm has more installed megawatts of projects in Massachusetts than any other large or small scale civil engineering firm and is one of the few firms to offer consulting Continue reading >>>

Charles Chieppo is a research fellow at the Ash Center of the Harvard Kennedy School.

E-mail: Charlie_Chieppo@hks.harvard.edu

A sex sting the city has nabbed about a “half dozen men from the Greater Boston area” who are accused of trolling for sex from girls under the age of 18, the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office has announced.

Those suspected Johns are set to be arraigned today in Boston Municipal Court. Authorities say they will release the names of the accused men later today.

Sarah Perrin recently learned she's going to spend the next several months learning the ins and outs of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and receive some personal instruction from a BSO mentor. Perrin, a junior at Peabody Veterans Memorial High School and a member of the high school concert band and chorale, applied to the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Teen Council and was accepted. It is a paid program for high school student-musicians in the Greater Boston area. "As a member of the BSO Teen Council, Sarah can look forward to becoming fully integrated into the Boston Symphony Orchestra family and Continue reading >>>

Of course, the way Trulia tracks the suburban/urban divide is rather nontraditional, by population density rather than location within a particular city limit. When the issue is looked at through this lens, it really becomes a referendum on density more than anything else. Here's what Jed Kolko, chief economist for Trulia, wrote in an email the other day: Are cities making a comeback? No. Even after the housing bust, Americans continue to move to the suburbs. This morning we posted a report based on Postal Service data - which are current, detailed, and actual counts rather than estimates -- Continue reading >>>