Loved Mark Murphy’s article (“Rooting for the Home Team,” CW, Fall ’05) about minor-league and indy-league ballclubs in Massachusetts. I’m a fan of the North Shore Spirit, who play at […]
Letters
Posted inEconomy
“Strapped” author Tamara Draut explains why young adults arent getting ahead
In her new book, Strapped: Why America’s 20- and 30-Somethings Can’t Get Ahead, Tamara Draut crunches numbers and interviews young adults across the country to show how, for the generations […]
Posted inEconomy
As jobs go off the books immigrants edge out some nativeborn workers
The economic recovery from the recession of 2001, both nationally and in Massachusetts, has been not only mixed, but also puzzling in a number of key respects. Nationally, growth has […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
Counterpoint
Michael Widmer and Cameron Huff accurately document the damaging cuts that have been inflicted on cities and towns over the past five years. When we reduce spending on education, public […]
Posted inEconomy
The Good News Garage gives a lift to people who need cars in order to get jobs
INTRO TEXT After many years and many miles of steady service, the trusty old station wagon still starts up every morning, but the body is dinged up, repair bills loom […]
Posted inEnvironment
Environmentalists see a bad precedent in the MWRAs plan to absorb wetlands
INTRO TEXT The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority calls its Blue Hills storage tank project crucial to protecting the water supply of thousands of residents in Quincy, Milton, and Brookline, as […]
Posted inEducation, State House News Service
Education officials grow impatient with perenially failing public schools
INTRO TEXT ‘F’ is for failing, and some Massachusetts public schools have the dubious distinction of doing just that. But school turnarounds have not taken place as fast as education […]
Posted inEducation
Sink or Swim
English immersion students in Brockton:Seyla Nou and Elisia HeakEunji Gloria Cho Mantzouranis—Ms. Cho to her students —uses a green marker to put on the whiteboard what should be a simple […]
Posted inEconomy
Power Failure
If sometime this winter you flip a light switch and nothing happens, think back to where you were on May 8, 2000—the day the electricity industry in Massachusetts started down […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Crime and Puzzlement
Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen O’Toole wantsto use proven programs “but apply them tothe current situation.”Essdras M. Suarez, The Boston GlobeWhen four young men were killed, execution-style, in mid-December in the […]
Posted inArts and Culture, Politics
Good Courts The Case for Problem Solving Justice proves that specialized courts can pay off
Good Courts: The case for Problem Solving Justice By Greg Berman and John Feinblatt, with Sarah Glazer New York, The New Press, 237 pages Winter 2006 During their required course […]
Posted inArts and Culture, Uncategorized
Bread and Roses revisits a pivotal labor strike in Lawrence
Bread and Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American DreamBy Bruce WatsonNew York, Viking, 352 pages Winter 2006 Bruce Watson, a journalist and author of The Man Who […]
Posted inUncategorized
Statistically Significant
Illustrations By Travis Foster WHERE ARE WE LOSING?Massachusetts made headlines in late December as the only state in the US to lose population two years in a row, according to […]
Posted inHealth Care
Off-peak condition
Increases in the infectious disease rate and the percentage of people without health insurance, along with a drop in per-capita public health spending, caused Massachusetts to slip three notches, to […]
Posted inPolitics
Watertown provides a case study of citizen journalism on the web
Citizen journalist Lisa Williams wants to add to,not replace, the media mainstream.On an early-October evening at Watertown High School, Lisa Williams is in full schmooze mode. Williams, a 35-year-old mother […]
Posted inEconomy
Growth spurts
The 21st century has brought more choices to people looking for apartments and condos just outside Boston or spacious homes in the Berkshires, but the construction spurt hasn’t been so […]
Posted inPolitics
Turning 10
In 1996, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at about 4,000 and just beginning its dizzying five-year runup to more than 11,000. The United States was in the midst of […]
Posted inEconomy
Federal tax reform could be a mixed bag for Massachusetts
Winter 2006 When President Bush’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform issued its report in November after 10 months of study and debate, US Sen. John Kerry wasn’t impressed. A […]
Posted inPolitics
Local officials warned against chatting about town business online
Winter 2006ROWLEY—The Internet has made shopping, paying bills, reading the newspaper, and, it turns out, breaking the state’s Open Meeting Law more convenient than ever. Fifteen years ago, if town […]
Posted inUncategorized
Revolting development
Popular culture is filled with sympathetic characters who provide food for our tables, from Ernest Borgnine’s lonely butcher in the 1955 film Marty and the sweet-tempered grocer Mr. Hooper on […]
Posted inOpinion, Uncategorized
Business leaders take the lead on growth issues — but not here
Growth & Development Extra 2006 From the outside, Greater Boston’s economic prospects look bright. Living up to its reputation as a scrappy, live-by-your-wits metropolitan area, the region survived globalization and […]
Posted inUncategorized
Letters
The issue of immigration is one of complicated policies and high-strung emotions. Ian Bowles’s Publisher’s Note (“Counting on new pilgrims,” CW, Fall ’05) brought to light the complicated and emotional […]
Posted inUncategorized
Development expert Joel Kotkin on suburban life: Mend it, don’t try to end it
Growth & Development Extra 2006 His latest book is The City: A Global History, but it is as America’s leading defender of suburbia that Joel Kotkin has made a mark. […]