boston’s recovery from the last recession has been slow and uneven. Some sectors of the region’s economy have crept back to pre-recession employment levels, while others—notably, information technology—remain below early […]
THE LONG VIEW
Posted inEducation, Politics
A tale of two valleys
The first signs of life downtown are at Open Square,a renovated mill complex.The pioneer valley of western Massachusetts is not one valley but two. To those who think of it […]
Posted inPolitics
If the Democrats regain control of the House the Massachusetts delegation will be big winners
Could 12 long years in exile finally be coming to an end for congressional Democrats? Some of the most respected prognosticators in Washington are saying this could be the year […]
Posted inPolitics
Statistically Significant
Illustrations by Travis Foster the graying of the do-gooders According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, volunteerism is on the decline in Massachusetts, while it’s flat in the […]
Posted inUncategorized
New neighbors
Cape cod apparently saw a lot of moving vans last year, but the South Coast was unusually quiet in home-buying activity. The larger map below shows the number of single-family […]
Posted inUncategorized
Letters
I really enjoyed Dave Denison’s “Tax Talk” (CW, Summer ’06). Just a few response items. Point 1: Dave asks if 10 percent of income is “too much for a middle-class […]
Posted inPolitics
Will fusion voting advance causes or clutter the ballot
INTRO TEXT Rand Wilson is running for state auditor—sort of. The longtime union organizer is hitting the campaign trail as the Working Families Party candidate for the post. But he […]
Posted inUncategorized
Sickleave banks for individual employees make a comback
déjà vu all over again. That’s how it is with the extended sick leave benefits the state provides to government employees. More than 10 years ago legislators passed a law […]
Posted inEconomy
Pleas for highspeed and wireless Internet await broadband chief
INTRO TEXT when teresa martin, head of the Cape Cod Technology Council, moved from Palo Alto, Calif., to become chief operating officer of a South Shore software company six years […]
Posted inEconomy, State House News Service
On the Cape new homes for workers go begging
INTRO TEXT sandwich attorney jonathan Fitch doesn’t like the term “workforce housing.” He thinks it’s “gimmicky.” All he and his wife Nancy, who have been active on land-use issues in […]
Posted inEconomy
Now Fenway neighbors love the Sox but chafe at Longwood expansion
INTRO TEXT not long ago, there seemed to be as many civic organizations in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood as there were game-day parking lots. And they had one enemy in common: […]
Posted inEconomy
Lots of targets for business tax breaks
INTRO TEXT Apparently, in legislators’ minds, when it comes to “economic target areas,” you just can’t have enough of a good thing. Adopted in the wake of the recession of […]
Posted inUncategorized
A fading Dream
All summer and fall, we at CommonWealth, in tandem with our MassINC colleagues, have been at work on a series of background papers on key issues and trends in Massachusetts, […]
Posted inPolitics
Treatment discontinued
medfield When it opened in 1897, the Medfield Insane Asylum represented the latest thinking in psychiatric care. Huge institutional buildings had been the norm for state psychiatric hospitals, but the […]
Posted inUncategorized
New states for newcomers
Massachusetts has long been losing native-born citizens to New Hampshire. Are we about to start losing immigrants to our northern neighbor too?To be sure, the immigrant population in the Bay […]
Posted inPolitics
New media guru Dan Gillmor wants to reinvent traditional journalism
BLOGGERS IN ONE corner, journalists in the other. Or is it bloggers versus journalists? Perhaps this is a false dichotomy, or an outdated one. After all, it was nearly two […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
Two startups try to make consultants affordable for nonprofits
most nonprofit organizations run lean, if not mean, operations, with only the largest able to afford luxuries like contracting out a new database design to private management consultants. But even […]
Posted inEducation
Advancing degrees
compared with k-12 education, which has been under the microscope since (at least) the publication of A Nation At Risk in 1983, higher education has had it easy. Here in […]
Posted inUncategorized
A downanddirty look at negative campaigning
Do democracy and mudslinging go together like ice cream and apple pie? this spring in California, a candidate for a legislative seat attacked his Republican-primary opponent for having had a […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion
Scams and job loss make reforming unemployment insurance an imperative
meet john doe.He earns about $70,000 a year running his own design firm. He’s also been collecting unemployment insurance for 24 years running-and it’s all legal. John Doe is a […]
Posted inUncategorized
Letters
I don’t know Christopher Lydon personally, though I know of him pretty well, I think, from my own experiences with editors who thought highly of him and his work and […]
Posted inEconomy
COUNTERPOINT
support for working families is a worthy cause-one that, as Senate President Travaglini notes, is important to employers. His specific proposals, however, are a mixed bag. Although Associated Industries of […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
Towns get steamed over water rules
INTRO TEXT the soggiest spring on record may have given Quabbin Reservoir a two-year supply of water, but the rushing rains did little to replenish the groundwater that towns outside […]