INTRO TEXT Growth & Development Extra 2006 What’s mass transit worth to you? It depends on how close you are to it. “Proximity matters,” says Matthew Kahn, a Tufts University […]
Academics measure the effects of the Red Line expansion
Posted inEconomy
Urban ReRenewal
Growth & Development Extra 2006 New and restored streets will reattach the landmark Union Station with downtown Worcester. At night, Worcester’s Shrewsbury Street is alive with restaurant-goers and revelers, […]
Posted inUncategorized
Second Act
Growth & Development Extra 2006 It took a year, back in the early part of the 20th century, to build the four-story, half-million-square-foot headquarters of the General Electric transformer division […]
Posted inState House News Service, Transportation
Mr Nice Guy
Growth & Development Extra 2006 If Grabauskas can turn around the RMV, perhaps he can revolutionize the MBTA. When Dan Grabauskas left the Registry of Motor Vehicles in 2002 to […]
Posted inEconomy
House Rules
Growth & Development Extra 2006 Talk long enough to anyone about the high cost of housing in Massachusetts and the conversation usually gets around to the same illustration of just […]
Posted inUncategorized
Growing together or apart
Growth & Develpment Extra 2006Today, Massachusetts is fast becoming not one state but two—and our sense of commonwealth is the worse for it. Some residents are enjoying the bounty provided […]
Posted inUncategorized
Is the home we long for within our reach or beyond it?
Growth & Development Extra 2006There is quite possibly no word in the English language more evocative than “home.” The very sound of it is rich, warm, comforting; the word lends […]
Posted inUncategorized
“Sprawl: A Compact History” explains man’s desire to spread out
Sprawl: A Compact HistoryBy Robert BruegmannChicago, University of Chicago Press, 301 pagesGrowth & Development Extra 2006 Robert Bruegmann’s Sprawl: A Compact History is a good and timely book, and I […]
Posted inUncategorized
Natick embraces condos at the mall while fighting 40B projects
Growth & Development Extra 2006NATICK — Where Wonder Bread was once baked, 220 luxury condominiums will soon rise, just steps from an expanded Natick Mall. Town meeting members approved the […]
Posted inUncategorized
Statistically Significant
Illustrations by Travis Foster BIGGER, TALLER, COOLERCalling them McMansions may be an exaggeration in most cases, but as a rule, single-family homes were indeed built on a larger scale in […]
Posted inUncategorized
Cellar dweller
Which comes first, people or houses? Massachusetts ranked a pitiful 48th in the increase of its housing supply from 2000 to 2004, but since the state ranked 44th in population […]
Posted inUncategorized
Flat growth
Whether because of “smart growth” policies or market forces, multifamily housing seems to be making a comeback in the Bay State. By 2004, Massachusetts had almost caught up to the […]
Posted inEconomy
Close quarters
Population density is a standard yardstick of development, but assessing it is trickier than it seems. According to the standard measure of density, communities in southeastern Massachusetts seem to have […]
Posted inUncategorized
The Bay State delegation gets creative in fighting energy costs
Growth & Development Extra 2006 The scene, which took place just before Thanksgiving, was hardly the picture of energy independence that US policymakers have long held as a goal. Standing […]
Posted inUncategorized
Letters
While your magazine is, of course, justified in providing wide latitude to Argument authors to spin numbers as they see fit (“How to reform the charter school program,” Argument & […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
Municipalities face a deadline in making polling sites accessible for all
INTRO TEXT Fall 2005 Everything these days is regulation, regulation, regulation, penalty, fine, threats.” That’s Medfield town administrator Mike Sullivan’s take on the Help America Vote Act, which is requiring […]
Posted inEconomy
Healey drops into a dispute over a homeless shelter in Worcester
Fall 2005 Lt. Gov.Healey at the controversial PIP Shelter in Worcester. The tour of the PIP Shelter on Main Street in Worcester on July 26 starts out as a routine, […]
Posted inPolitics
Academics propose carrots and sticks to increase turnout in local elections
WHEN THE SOCCERÂ moms showed up, James Glaser of Tufts University and his two colleagues knew their political science experiment was going to be a success. It was May 10, Election […]
Posted inUncategorized
Counting on new pilgrims
Fall 2005Of all the media coverage generated in the wake of MassINC’s recent research on immigration, The Changing Face of Massachusetts, none was more poignant than an editorial by the […]
Posted inUncategorized
Statistically Significant
Illustrations by Travis Foster CURBS ON TEEN DRIVING PAY OFFMore restrictions on driving by 15- to 17-year-olds have significantly reduced traffic deaths in that age group, according to a recent […]
Posted inEconomy
Falling fortunes
If the German company Adidas goes through with its buyout of Canton–based sneaker rival Reebok, the Bay State will be the home of just nine Fortune 500 companies, down from […]
Posted inEconomy
Bread winners
The business of making things is still strong in much of central Massachusetts, as well as parts of the Merrimack Valley and the southeastern region of the state. But curing […]
Posted inPolitics
Another push to give the governor a home of our own
Would the Hancock house have made the best governor’s mansion? What does Massachusetts have in common with Idaho? Hint: the same thing Arizona has with Vermont, and Rhode Island with […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion
Future teachers need more liberal arts fewer courses in education
Two different kinds of problems point to the urgent need to rethink our entire system of teacher education in Massachusetts, and in the country as a whole. On one hand, […]