Gabrielle Gurley’s article Municipal Meltdown, in the Fall issue of CommonWealth, is both fascinating and scary, and we’ve been getting a lot of reaction to the idea that cities and […]
Is your City Hall sinking?
Posted inEconomy, Education, The Download
The geography of job insecurity
The Boston Globe’s Adrian Walker writes today on the slow progress in creating pilot schools in Boston. Part of the resisistance comes from teachers’ union members: To their supporters, pilot […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The Snowmeister factor
Correspondent Chris V. asks: If you have not done an article yet on how the moving of the primaries to Super Tuesday in February could lead to weather deciding who […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Not all taxpayers are equal at town meeting
The US Court of Appeals has ruled that people who pay property taxes to a town but are not registered to vote there do not have a constitutional right to […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Hillary’s gay “plant”
There’s a kerfuffle over the fact that one of the just plain folks allowed to question the Republican candidates at last night’s debate was actually connected to the Hillary Clinton […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
If not for Michigan…
Massachusetts would be dead last in job creation from 2001 to 2006. In fact, the Bay State is still 100,000 jobs short of its 2001 level, which was the peak […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Jesse Jackson joins the (mapping) fun
More fun with past presidential primaries below. This map is a mash-up of the 1988 and 1992 Democratic primaries, showing the strongholds of Jesse Jackson in 1988 (where he won […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
The geography of cremation
This map is a little macabre, but the extent of the regional differences is surprising to me. In September, the Cremation Association of North America published a report in which […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Primary results for Clinton! (Bill, that is)
Expect a lot more data from past presidential primaries as we get closer to Iowa and New Hampshire, but here is a relatively simple map. It shows where Bill Clinton […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The electability illusion
In Iowa, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are claiming to be the more "electable" Democrat in a general election. But a mash-up of polls at RealClearPolitics suggests that it […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Lott skips out
Republican Trent Lott has announced plans to leave the US Senate by January, only a year into the six-year term he successfully sought from voters in 2006. Lott has no […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Bully for partisanship!
Matthew Yglesias summarizes the advantages of a highly partisan political atmosphere. Back in the days of Dixiecrats and Rockefeller Republicans, when many candidates completely disagreed with their own parties’ platforms, […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Smith isn’t finished yet
The New York Times has a searchable list of the 5000 most common surnames in the US, based on data from the 2000 US Census. Not surprisingly, the highest names […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Obama and the long haul
We’re not taking sides at Beyond Red & Blue, and I’m not cynical enough to hope for drawn-out presidential primary campaigns just to amuse us and give us data with […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Catholic cities aren’t liberal?
The New York Times’ City Room blog is inviting readers to "Name America’s Most Liberal City," in response to Rudy Giuliani’s campaign commerical giving the title to the Big Apple. […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The lay of the land in New Hampshire
For all the polling that’s being done in New Hampshire, we rarely get any sense of the geographical divisions in the state. A few polling organizations break the state into […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Congressional privilege: Hastert ignores election calendar
Yesterday we noted the large number of special elections in Massachusetts prompted by departing state legislators. But most of those legislators left for other jobs. US Rep. Dennis Hastert, who […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
If you ever think of a joke, don’t say it
Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is in trouble for dissing an industry she might not have known was in her state, as the AP reported:She was in Washington state Tuesday for […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
The auto industry goes flat
Things that transport other things still make up the biggest manufacturing sector in the US, but the number of people employed in the automotive, aerospace, and shipbuilding industries is on […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
More “special” legislators on the way?
As noted in a previous post, Massachusetts state Rep. James Marzilli seems poised to move up to the state Senate seat vacated by Robert Havern earlier this year, which means […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Former Speaker Keverian ousted in Everett
Boston.com is reporting that George Keverian, once the Speaker of the state House of Representatives and thus one of the most powerful politicians in the state, has been fired from […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
For Marzilli, up and out of the House would be especially sweet
For state Rep. Jim Marzilli, yesterday’s victory in the four-way special election Democratic primary for a vacant state Senate seat couldn’t come a moment too soon. Though he still must […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Where “Democrat” isn’t necessarily a dirty word
Last week the Democratic Party made gains in legislative races in Mississippi and Virginia, resulting in the map that you see above. (See the National Conference of State Legislatures for […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Massachusetts may, possibly, matter to some degree in 2008
The odds look good that Massachusetts will join the de facto national presidential primary on February 5. We were actually part of the biggest primary day in 2004, when we […]