Housing and real estate developers are beginning to feel the effects of President Trump’s taxes on imports – a move the administration claims will boost American-made products, but market experts say will hike already-elevated real estate production costs. Some are struggling to factor uncertain material costs into their current project plans.
Gateway Cities
Posted inHousing
‘Easier said than done’: Former mill cities struggle to rehab vacant, blighted properties in Western Mass.
In recent decades, historic mills and old industrial buildings in Gateway Cities across the state have been renovated and converted into much-needed housing. But while Eastern Massachusetts cities have had success, cities farther west with weaker housing markets still struggle with an array of blighted properties that have yet to be developed.
Posted inThe Download
The Download: ‘We are terrified’: Gateway City leaders prepare for federal cuts, changes to Medicaid
New from CommonWealth Beacon OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS?: Hidden among the cuts to social welfare programs in President Trump’s budget reconciliation bill was a provision that builds on “Opportunity Zones” — an […]
Posted inHealth
‘We are terrified’: Gateway City leaders prepare for federal cuts, changes to Medicaid
The Trump administration’s tax bill will likely hit hardest in the state’s Gateway Cities as work requirements and Medicaid eligibility checks ramp up.
Posted inOpinion
Renaissance taking place in downtown Brockton
Anyone who has been to the “City of Champions” recently has seen an incredible re-imagining of our downtown focused on long-term sustainability and economic growth.
Posted inBook Review
Questioning competitiveness
Through 200 years of manufacturing in the South Coast communities of Fall River and New Bedford, Shaun Nichols outlines cycles of growth and decline in multiple industries, raising compelling and uncomfortable questions about regional economic development.
Posted inEconomy
Lawmakers from Lowell, Springfield say cities would welcome economic jolt
Two Democrats who have a chance to stamp their mark on Gov. Maura Healey’s plan to reinvigorate the state’s business climate want the benefits to stretch beyond the Boston metropolitan area.
Posted inUncategorized
Biotech’s next destination: Why not Lynn?
AFFECTIONATELY KNOWN as an industrial hub hundreds of years ago, Lynn became known as the “shoe center of the new world” by the 1800s, thanks to the establishment and growth […]
Posted inOpinion
Lawrence no longer a ‘city of the damned’
TEN YEARS AGO, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston released “Lessons from Resurgent Cities,” in which they set out to discover the “secret sauce” that enabled some mid-sized industrial cities […]
Posted inOpinion
Is it the end or the beginning for cities?
WITH TIME ON OUR HANDS, we’re all contemplating how our lives will be different in the future, once the COVID-19 pandemic subsides. At this point, almost every news source has […]
Posted inEducation
In Gateway Cities, lots of hurdles to remote learning
SARINA ALVES DISPLAYS a short story on the screen in front of her virtual class of eighth grade English students at Morton Middle School in Fall River. As a boy […]
Posted inEducation
School committee OKs novel New Bedford charter deal
THE NEW BEDFORD SCHOOL COMMITTEE voted 5-2 on Thursday night in favor of a precedent-setting expansion deal with a local charter school operator, but even the five supporters insisted they […]
Posted inEducation
Local accountability in schools lacking, says report
MASSACHUSETTS HAS BUILT its school reform effort on a combination of new state funding and accountability measures that track student and district achievement, but that has largely let local districts […]
Posted inTransportation
Central Mass. lawmakers oppose commuter rail fare hike
FIFTEEN CENTRAL MASSACHUSETTS lawmakers are asking transportation officials to scrap a proposed increase in commuter rail fares, saying it will “result in a disparate financial burden” on people in their […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
The ‘other’ housing crisis
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE YOU’VE LIKELY HEARD about the housing crisis in eastern Massachusetts, with too few units available and prices always on the rise. But a second housing crisis, […]
Posted inPolitics
Correia arrested on federal fraud charges
FEDERAL AGENTS ARRESTED Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia early Thursday morning and charged him with defrauding investors in a company he started as a teenager, then using the money to “pay […]
Posted inEconomy
Civic grit
BOOK REVIEW — Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America, by James Fallows and Deborah Fallows (Pantheon Books, 413 pages) PEOPLE WHO LIVE in cosmopolitan Boston and […]
Posted inEconomy
A new Quincy
QUINCY MAYOR THOMAS KOCH calls the MBTA’s Red Line the “spine” of his aging city. With four stops in North Quincy, Wollaston, Quincy Center, and Quincy Adams, the T’s Red […]
Posted inGambling
MGM, preparing to open, has feisty words for CT rivals
LET THE CASINO wars begin. The MGM Springfield casino is about to open, and at a press conference on Thursday several officials made clear that the battle is on with […]
Posted inEconomy
Worcester lands the PawSox
IN A COUP THAT WAS three years in the making, Worcester officials were able to woo the owners of the AAA Pawtucket Red Sox to move the team into a […]
Posted inEconomy
Gateway Cities discover the power of food
PHOTOGRAPHS BY KEN RICHARDSON FOOD HAS ALWAYS LOOMED LARGE in the life of Dimple Rana. While growing up in Revere, she helped her parents, immigrants from India, work in Indian […]
Posted inTransportation
Aloisi wrong on South Coast Rail
NEARLY A DECADE AGO, former transportation secretary James Aloisi assured the residents of the South Coast region that South Coast Rail would become a reality. “This is not just a […]
Posted inEconomy
How does New Bedford compete against Boston?
What follows is an excerpt from New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell’s prepared remarks for his state of the city address on Thursday. OUR SUCCESS WILL DEPEND on our ability to think […]
Posted inEconomy
Economic development, co-op style
WELLSPRING COOPERATIVE IS PREPARING to launch its third business in Springfield, a greenhouse that will grow fresh greens and herbs and sell them to supermarkets and institutions in the area. […]