The number of Gateway Cities would increase by 33 percent if two separate amendments tweaking the qualifications become law, the Patrick administration says. Gateway Cities are currently defined as cities […]
Gateway Cities
Posted inEconomy, Politics
The latest trend: Being a Gateway City
Just as wearing a bright day dress is the latest fashion statement, being called a Gateway City is apparently the latest hot trend among the state’s cities. State legislators were […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion
A Gateway to unintended consequences
what’s in a name? According to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, everything. In 2007, MassINC and the Brookings Institution issued a report that used the phrase “Gateway City” to describe “the […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion
Latest Census finds fewer young children in Mass.
In an aging state whose prosperity depends on a pipeline of skilled, well-educated workers, the burden of sustaining the Commonwealth’s future prosperity is resting on fewer small shoulders. The 2010 […]
Posted inEducation, Opinion
Student churn hinders progress
Massachusetts education officials are celebrating the dramatic MCAS test improvements posted by the state’s most chronically underperforming schools. These impressive gains are testimony to hard work and a stubborn unwillingness […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion
The middle-class squeeze
The much-heralded demographic change seen in the latest Massachusetts census numbers is at least partly the reflection of a decade of economic change that was particularly challenging for the state’s […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics, State House News Service
Lawrence on the mat
lawrence, with an anemic tax base and the state’s highest poverty rate, is no stranger to the usual litany of urban woes facing struggling cities. But Lawrence’s problems suddenly became […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, The Download
Hampden County justice
The Globe’s Yvonne Abraham gives Hampden County Sheriff Mike Ashe some much-deserved attention today in this great column. Ashe’s reform-minded approach to corrections landed him — and his brother and partner […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
The Download: Presidential campaign idol
The just-concluded Conservative Political Action Conference marks the unofficial start of the presidential campaign season, and the months ahead will be full of fundraising, speechifying and quiet outreach. That’s the […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics, The Download
The Download: Pondering patronage
Former Senate president Billy Bulger practiced the trade with such abandon that MBTA was said to stand for “Mr. Bulger’s Transportation Authority,” an only partially tongue-in-cheek reference that seemed to […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics, State House News Service
Turnaround artist
Lisa Wong became a rising superstar in Massachusetts politics the moment she trounced a veteran Fitchburg city councilor and catapulted into the mayor’s office at age 28. The wonky daughter […]
Posted inArts and Culture, Economy, The Download
Will creativity gild the road to growth in Gateway City economies?
At a recent roundtable with leaders from across the state, we learned how Massachusetts discovered the value in “creative economy” economic development well before Richard Florida popularized the concept with […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
What Gateway Cities need to do to attract biotech firms
Gateway Cities officials today got a roadmap for attracting biotech companies from an executive of a company that moved to Massachusetts from Connecticut two years ago. Robert Cunningham, vice president of […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Calling for reform and progress in the Commonwealth’s Gateway Cities
Last week’s hearing on charter school legislation drew large crowds to Beacon Hill and demonstrated the energy surrounding the topic of education reform in Massachusetts. Another hearing of great importance […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Do small businesses in Gateway Cities have adequate access to credit?
By Benjamin Forman and Lynn Sanders Small business development is a central strategy for growth and renewal in the Commonwealth’s former mill cities, but there are real reasons to be […]
Posted inEducation, The Download
Can Gateway City innovations close the achievement gap?
Last month MassINC released a major research report examining changes in public education in the 15 years following passage of the landmark 1993 Education Reform Act. The report’s findings and […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
Jobs picture in Fall River going from bad to worse
The news that Silver Line Building Products is closing its Fall River plant is a body blow to a region already suffering from the worst employment picture in the state. […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
Galvin sitting on development tax credits
Secretary of State William Galvin is sitting on millions of dollars in tax credits designed to spur the economic development of historic buildings across the state. Despite the severe economic […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
New Bedford heading south again?
Steve Urbon of the Standard-Times has a succinct but awfully bleak assessment of how New Bedford is doing in the current recession. Opening sentence:Unemployment has hung like a dark cloud […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
“ArchitectureBoston” covers Gateway Cities
ArchitectureBoston, the quarterly published by the Boston Society of Architects, devotes its Summer 2009 issue to one of MassINC's favorite topics, the 11 Gateway Cities of Massachusetts. As editor Elizabeth […]
Posted inEducation, The Download
Data matters, and not just in math class
At Community Day Charter School in Lawrence, data rules. Founded in 1995, the K-8 school boasts that it has closed the achievement gap between Hispanic students and white students — […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Haverhill City Council prefers to live at-large
Haverhill gets into the debate over at-large versus district city councilors, but change doesn't seem to be in the air. The Eagle-Tribune's Shawn Regan reports that most of the current nine at-large […]
Posted inEconomy, The Download
Historic mill on the chopping block in New Bedford
New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang wants to tear down the 187,000-square-foot Fairhaven Mills building, but local preservationists aren't convinced. According to SouthCoastToday.com's Joe Cohen, a developer interested in the site […]
