A reminder: In two weeks, CommonWealth magazine will launch a new website featuring original reporting, guest columns, and new opportunities for readers to discuss public policy and politics.At the same […]
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Do the people on Buzzards Bay swear like sailors?
People in one Iowa city seem to think so. The Bettendorf City Council has changed "Falmouth Court" to "Lilly Court" because too many people have trouble pronouncing the former. From […]
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Revving up for a new year and a new website
Posting at CW Unbound has been light for the past few weeks, not only because of the holiday season but also because we've been working on the Winter issue of […]
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Budgets slashed, but not corporate tax breaks
State officials are slashing budgets and eliminating programs, but they aren’t cutting back on corporate tax breaks, at least not yet. The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, as promised in the life science legislation […]
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Mass. beats Florida, 24 other states in population growth this year
The Census Bureau released its annual Christmas present to demographers this morning: state-by-state population estimates as of six months ago. The US as a whole went up by 2.6 million […]
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Be happy we’re not New York. But not too happy.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009 In a new study claiming to rank the level of happiness among Americans, New Yorkers finish dead last in 51st place (the study included Washington, DC […]
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Globe calls for NE Corridor funds
Today's Boston Globe editorializes against the "narrow rules" that resulted in Amtrak's Northeast Corridor being shut out of high-speed rail funds. MassINC's Daniel Grabauskas commented on the strangeness of the […]
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The measure of success for Scott Brown
I think the Globe's Joan Venocchi is correct that Scott Brown's chances of winning the special US Senate seat in January are poor: Brown, a Republican state senator, can’t beat […]
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“Fix it first!” New projects get the headlines, but we need to repair what we already have
In January 2003, just days after being sworn in as governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney stood alongside a structurally deficient bridge on Route 2 and said: "Fix it first!" That […]
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Northeast Corridor shut out of high speed rail funds
The news today that the Northeast Corridor (think your Amtrak trip from Boston to New York to Washington DC) would be shut out of the first round of high-speed rail […]
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Lawrence: The next Springfield?
Two years ago, CommonWealth found civic leaders in Lawrence "Thinking Big" about the city's future. Not anymore. On Wednesday, Gov. Deval Patrick travels north for a closed door meeting with […]
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Remembering the woman behind “Charlie on the MTA” — and the Charlie Card
Folklorist Bess Lomax Hawes passed away last week. I offer a personal remembrance. I never met Ms. Hawes, but I feel a connection to her. She co-authored the folk song, […]
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Harvard Square book-signing for “Harvard Square”
Monday, November 30, 2009 Mo Lotman will be signing copies of his book Harvard Square, which CW Unbound's Alison Lobron wrote about last month, on December 1 at 7:30 at […]
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Are hate crimes 10 times more likely in Massachusetts than in Mississippi?
That's what a superficial reading of the latest FBI statistics would indicate. Massachusetts law enforcement agencies reported 333 crimes "that manifest[ed] evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, […]
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Remembering Boston’s “clean highway in the sky”
The magazine ArchitectureBoston is now being posted online, and its Winter issue is all about infrastructure — "the one crucial point at which politics and architecture merge," according to roundtable […]
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“Too big to fail” strategy for Boston Convention Center?
The Globe's Casey Ross reports that the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, which has so far "failed to generate a building boom on the waterfront," wants to expand in order […]
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Warren Buffett’s shrewd recognition of a railroad revival
By Daniel Grabauskas Last week the Sage of Omaha, Warren Buffett, closed the biggest deal of his career. Value: $26.3 billion. It wasn’t about a high-tech company. It wasn’t about […]
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Towns complain that special US senate election is an unfunded mandate
Fall River's Herald News notes that some Bay State towns are grumbling about the costs of holding the special US senate elections in December and January. Jay Pateakos reports:“We’ve got […]
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Daniel Grabauskas
Daniel Grabauskas is the inaugural senior fellow for public policy at MassINC. Grabauskas brings two decades of public sector management experience spanning five administrations to this transitional appointment. Most recently […]
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An ethics dilemma: Do as I do or do as I say?
What would be the official reaction if someone had a court date for a speeding ticket but showed up a couple days later, maybe as much as three weeks after […]
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Harvard panel, Boston police chief Davis discuss the Gates controversy
That human beings profile one another isn’t surprising. But when certain social, class, and cultural norms and values collide during confrontations between police and civilians, those instincts sometimes take on […]
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What Gateway Cities need to do to attract biotech firms
Gateway Cities officials today got a roadmap for attracting biotech companies from an executive of a company that moved to Massachusetts from Connecticut two years ago. Robert Cunningham, vice president of […]
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Full disclosure
It’s a simple equation: Transparency is only as good as the access available to public documents. But simple doesn’t always mean easy. Despite living in an age when a click […]
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Pappas plans to build film studio in Southie
South Boston developer Tim Pappas says he wants to build a movie studio in South Boston that would cater to the production companies coming to Massachusetts to take advantage of the […]
