sponsored by The Boston Foundation
CommonWealth Voices aims to be a beacon of robust discourse, offering a platform for analysis and advocacy on the challenges and aspirations of political life in Massachusetts.
The Boston Foundation is deeply committed to civic leadership, and essential to our work is the exchange of informed opinions. We are proud to partner on a platform that engages such a broad range of demographic and ideological viewpoints.
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We welcome informed commentary about local, state and national public policy. Please include the author’s contact information when submitting.
John Adams warned us against oligarchs
“He who had the deepest purse, or the fewest scruples about using it will generally prevail.”
Lessons – and opportunities – from starter home ballot question loss
As Democrats across the country celebrated historic election victories as a mandate to tackle affordability, here in deep-blue Massachusetts voters rejected a tangible solution to one of the biggest drivers of our affordability crisis: housing costs.
While Democrats are celebrating, pollsters are breathing sighs of relief
The fact that the results broadly matched pre-election surveys has to be heartening for pollsters, an often-beleaguered and much-criticized cohort.
Massachusetts should not settle for half-measures on children’s online safety
Children deserve to get through their most sensitive years before encountering a product built to profit from vice and vulnerability.
Rural microtransit is a lifeline. Massachusetts should help it reach more people.
We need to change how we judge whether transportation is working. Ridership matters, but it cannot be the only measure.
Our polling shows strong support for statewide restrictions on cellphones in schools. Will the Legislature act?
Local school districts, including the state’s largest district, are increasingly moving forward on their own, creating a patchwork of local policies in the absence of statewide action.
Notwithstanding Mayor Wu’s claims, the ‘State of the Schools’ in Boston is not good
To continue to pretend like our schools are better than they really are is a disservice to students, teachers, families, and the city at large.
I studied smaller homes in Natick. Question 7 would make room for them.
Question 7 will not transform Massachusetts neighborhoods overnight. But it can give homeowners, builders, and communities more room to create the smaller homes that zoning has made difficult to build.
A developer’s warning: Question 7 is not an affordable housing plan
Smaller lots reduce land cost, so they should produce less expensive homes. Sometimes they do. But smaller lots do not require cheaper homes, and often that’s not what gets built.
It’s time to end Boston’s unique status of being exempt from the state zoning code
The case for maintaining the archaic status quo grows weaker with every statewide housing reform.
Question 7 is fair because it spreads the burden of building housing
Nobody wants denser housing built only near them, so no city or town wants to be the only one that builds.
We’re retired law enforcement officers. Don’t turn back the clock on cannabis reform.
There appears to be little appetite among many in law enforcement for returning to the enforcement practices of the past. Police already face considerable demands on their time and resources, and renewed cannabis enforcement would add to that burden.
Question 5 would lead to deep cuts in services that communities rely on
It would cause tremendous uncertainty in the economy, with experts predicting the necessary spending cuts to fund the question would vary wildly from year to year.
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