I’ll welcome a sprucing up of Downtown Crossing but I worry when I read stuff like this:
‘It’s tired, it’s dirty, and it can be a real downer,” said David Levin, chief executive of Casual Male Retail Group Inc., which opened a store recently in Downtown Crossing. ‘’It has a real identity crisis.”
The reality of Downtown […]
Both Kenny at Cardinal Collective and Derek at Third Decade respond to my nostalgia for a gay ghetto with a healthy dose of skepticism. Derek writes, "Worrying about the existence of a gay ghetto strikes me as waxing nostalgic over a period of time and a place which really wasn’t a big deal to everyone." […]
Lately the Globe has run a few articles worth considering together, all in their own way touching on the usefulness of an economically vital, smoothly functioning and attractive urban center:
1) A comparison between the paths of Providence and Worcester. I thought the article did a great job at assessing the factors particular to each city […]
The tension betwen liberal environmentalism and nominally liberal conservationism is nothing new. The writers at Blue Mass Group have pointed out how shameful the not-in-my-backyard opposition to Cape Cod wind farms is, especially when couched in presumably liberal and universalist terms.
But what better textbook example of perversion of liberal aims could we look for than […]
Funny that I should mention London’s congestion tax yesterday, because today I read that the city council is considering a similar idea for Boston:
Saying the half-million commuters who drive into Boston each day are major contributors to traffic and parking congestion, Councilor Paul J. Scapicchio wants the city to look into requiring passes costing […]
If you’re local, you’ve probably been reading about the battle brewing between those in Southie (and other neighborhoods) and Mayor Menino over marking parking spots with chairs, pylons and sundry objects. If you’re a Boston resident and drive a car, you’ve probably been caught up in tussles over protecting the spaces you shoveled out (or […]
Planned Liveable Communities points out that the smart growth plan that Romney and the Legislature have instituted isn’t working. In essence, the plan allows towns to get around the developer override built into Chapter 40B (developers can get around zoning law if a town falls below a certain threshold of affordable housing units) by agreeing […]
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 […]
Starts and Stops reports that Boston’s most notorious intersection, Columbia Road at I-93, is finally getting a proper traffic light. Those of you who have ever had to cross it on foot will recognize how accurate Daniels’ description is:
When the walk signals activated, the red lights stopped blinking. Few drivers, however, were looking at the […]
On today’s Globe op-ed page, the best idea yet on what to do with the planned Rose Kennedy Greenway:
Let’s scrap for good the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Everybody is trying too hard to make something work that won’t. It is not a real urban open space opportunity. It is an after-thought resulting from the demolition […]
Yet another Big Dig Greenway addition is in the running, competing for parcel of land and for charitable funds.
Yesterday was the deadline for submitting proposals for this segment of the Greenway. Three qualified proposals were submitted, including those for the New Center [for Arts and Culture] and the Boston Museum Project. The third proposal […]
Over at WestNorth, Payton wonders whether the critics of smart growth aren’t losing perspective:
“Innovation Briefs” has an editorial concluding (largely, it seems, on the basis of anecdotes and David Brooks’ awful generalizations) that “the most recent Census Bureau data, documenting demographic trends since the 2000 Census, suggest that the “smart growth” movement is having little […]
It’s hardly news that Chinatown is transforming right now. The highest profile incursions into the neighborhood has been the development along Washington St. south from Downtown Crossing - the renovation of the Paramount, the erection of the Ritz-Carlton high rise, and now the new construction on the parking lot at Beach Street. On the other […]
For those who haven’t been downtown, or more precisely to the edge of downtown, to witness the progress of the Big Dig, it’s hard to put into words the revelation that tearing down the Central Artery has been. Yes, we knew this was the primary rationale for the project to begin with. And even now, […]
I guess Mayor Menino wanted something a little fuzzier to announce the day after he proposed making clean needles available to drug users. Today we hear that he’s proposing to makeover Faneuil Hall (again), this time ousting the tourist shop merchants and putting in the National Park Service (which is currently housed in the Old […]