On the Boston.com, it leapt out at me, so I clicked on the headline reading something like “Regional Planners thwart IKEA opening“, assuming they’re talking about Somerville’s battle with plans to open a branch of the furniture chain in Assembly Square. It turns out the article was about the corruption of Russian regional governments!
Swedish furniture giant Ikea’s Russian division was forced to call off the official opening ceremony of its second, huge shopping mall to the north of Moscow after officials claimed at the last minute that visitors’ cars could damage an underground gas pipe.
Substitute New York for Moscow, traffic for gas pipe and it could be Somerville. Now I have nothing against aggressive zoning to keep urban community or historic architecture intact. But Assembly Square is not a thriving neighborhood, it’s a barren, wind-swept concrete landscape. And Somerville thought it could exact as much surplus value as it wanted from development rights. It may happen, but I’m not holding my breath for all that mixed-used development they thought their due.
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