Its real impact will be far less than the rhetoric from both sides of the debate. Proponents tout it as a transformative effort to tackle racial segregation and build affordable housing in our region’s most exclusionary suburbs. There is truth in these claims. But now that we’re shifting to implementation, I worry that overstating the law’s magnitude has contributed to the blowback.
Luc Schuster
Posted inNews Analysis
We’re reporting Census data all wrong
This report was initially released by the Boston Foundation’s Boston Indicators project. CENSUS DATA on race and ethnicity are invaluable for understanding who we are as a region and how we’re changing over time. Invaluable, yes. But also imperfect. Headlines during the census count last year focused on challenges facing Census Bureau workers during a pandemic and […]
Posted inOpinion
Getting the details right on transit oriented development law
PASSING AMBITIOUS LEGISLATION matters for obvious reasons, but so too does the rule-making process that follows a law’s passage. Final language often leaves state agencies with tremendous leeway, and real-world impact can vary widely based on administrative decisions that often get far less public scrutiny. Political scientist Leah Stokes calls this the “fog of enactment,” […]
Posted inOpinion
Minimum guaranteed income = solution to poverty
IN THE WEEKS leading up to his assassination in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. launched a new chapter of his work, referred to as the “Poor People’s Campaign.” This campaign illuminated the relationship between racism and economic injustice and advanced a vision of eliminating poverty for Americans of all races. This work sought synergies […]
Posted inOpinion
Housing crisis 1 and 2
GREATER BOSTON’S affordable housing crisis is front-page news these days, and a frequent topic of conversation in housing circles. But the reference to a single housing crisis is off-base; we have two. The first crisis is a consequence of the fact that we don’t treat housing as a human right in this country. For low-income […]
Posted inEconomy, Education, Opinion
The income-growth challenge in Gateway Cities
IT’S POSSIBLE FOR an economy to grow in ways that expand opportunity and promote broadly shared prosperity. We know that’s possible because it’s exactly what happened in the United States in the three decades after World War II. Each year, the economy grew at a strong clip and incomes grew for low, middle, and high-income […]