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Part of me wants to be a loyal Bostonian and defend my hometown- most of the evils described in the article could be found in any other state, Republican- or De

Part of me wants to be a loyal Bostonian and defend my hometown- most of the evils described in the article could be found in any other state, Republican- or Democrat-run alike. But the point about innovation rhetoric does strike true. The "innovation district" is full of big pharma and etc companies that would have had an easy time finding offices anywhere; most of the time when the i-word is trotted out, its because someone is either offering tax breaks to some giant corporation to entice them to grace us with their presence, or launching some gaudy public cheerleading event that no one really cares about. But substantial issues relating to the "creative class"? Such as, for instance, effective public transit? Suddenly the state and city can't spare a dime; its not a "priority"; students and post-car intellectuals (and, incidentally, the working class) are stuck paying through the nose to get on a subway that's broken again. Or, taking an Uber because its past midnight. (Late night service was great for the six months it lasted!) There are other issues of a similar bent; there's a fight going on in Somerville (the neighborhood of MIT, Harvard, and Tufts students, now that Cambridge property deeds come platinum-plated) to allow more than four unrelated individuals to share a house. And they're facing fierce resistance. Most of us who can head to the west coast at the first opportunity; Boston would be SF if it wasn't for its outright hostility to the bright minds pouring out of its universities. The scale of the wasted opportunity is staggering.

Thriptic 11y ago
> But substantial issues relating to the "creative class"? Such as, for instance, effective public transit? Suddenly the state and city can't spare a dime; its not a "priority"; students and post-car intellectuals (and, incidentally, the working class) are stuck paying through the nose to get on a subway that's broken again. Or, taking an Uber because its past midnight. (Late night service was great for the six months it lasted!) I couldn't agree more. The area just absolutely does not give a shit about infrastructure. It took Google coming into Kendall square to get the jacked up sidewalks and roads fixed outside of MIT, and the Longfellow bridge restoration project has been consistently extended. Meanwhile, up the block in Central square we have major Novartis, Takeda, J&J, and Pfizer research centers going in with no apparent consideration for how these workers will commute in and out. Cambridge seems more concerned with forcing people to use reusable bags for shopping than they are with actually instituting useful change.
jt2190 11y ago
> [T]here's a fight going on > in Somerville...to allow more > than four unrelated individuals > to share a house. And they're > facing fierce resistance. As they should. The solution is not to cram 17 students into a house. The solution is to build more housing. Boston is full of slumlords who gouge students, landlords who resist new development because it would force them to provide decent living conditions at a reasonable profit.
- wcummings 11y ago
  The law is Boston reads "4 unrelated undergraduates". The fight is to change the language in Somerville to match (it reads "4 unrelated persons" now). It's about allowing found-families and co-ops, not students.
  - jt2190 11y ago
    Some landlords want to remove any limit on number of tenants occupying a single unit, related or not. [1] [1] http://somerville.wickedlocal.com/article/20160127/NEWS/160126306 http://somerville.wickedlocal.com/article/20160127/NEWS/1601...
- maxander 11y ago
  Indeed, the ideal solution would be to build more housing in the places and price-points where they're so in demand- but that's a large material effort. Lifting the 4-people restriction would just require the town government to stop actively trying to make life difficult for people. And its also true, this kind of rule exists for a reason- in my experience, the sardine-student-housing lifestyle stops being fun at about 8 or 9 people to half as many bedrooms. But I guarantee you that Somerville is already full of such situations, and they're all much worse off because they're illegal- these people's landlords can get away with anything, because if their tenant's complain to the town everyone living in the building will get evicted.
beambot 11y ago
> Boston would be SF Not sure that's a good thing. SF has its own share of big problems right now. I certainly wouldn't want Boston to emulate those!
wcummings 11y ago
>Most of us who can head to the west coast at the first opportunity Speak for yourself, I'd rather be dead in Somerville than alive in SF.
msabalau 11y ago
Inequality in blue states flows from housing policy. Boomers propping up housing costs regardless of the societal impact. Sneering at meritistrocats won't put fish back in the sea for the people of New Bedford to catch, but allowing developers to build a ton of housing would create a lot of jobs for working people, help lower the largest expense of poor and working class people, and make it affordable for college students to stay. As for public transit, the city and state certain can spare many dimes. What they can't spare is the ten billion dollars it would take to actually deal with the MBTA's debt and deferred maintenance. It absolutely has to be addressed, for the sake of the entire regional economy, but investments on that scale, when they are not immediately relevant to the lives of 4/5ths of voters, are... challenging. If killing off an expensive but lightly used late night service that accounted for 0.4% of trips makes it marginally easier to deal with the root issues, then it should be cut. The T had four years (not six months) to make late night service viable, they failed.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  > What they can't spare is the ten billion dollars it would take to actually deal with the MBTA's debt and deferred maintenance. I'm pretty sure that debt was seven billion smaller before they dumped the Big Dig's debt onto the MBTA's books. >investments on that scale, when they are not immediately relevant to the lives of 4/5ths of voters, are... challenging. It's immediately relevant to all of us whether a few inches of snow shuts down or delays the Red Line and Orange Line.
eli_gottlieb 11y ago
>There are other issues of a similar bent; there's a fight going on in Somerville (the neighborhood of MIT, Harvard, and Tufts students, now that Cambridge property deeds come platinum-plated) to allow more than four unrelated individuals to share a house. And they're facing fierce resistance. Wait... there is!? Because my roommate just got a girlfriend, and when she stays over, that makes four of us. I should probably start attending public meetings about this.

Thriptic 11y ago

> But substantial issues relating to the "creative class"? Such as, for instance, effective public transit? Suddenly the state and city can't spare a dime; its not a "priority"; students and post-car intellectuals (and, incidentally, the working class) are stuck paying through the nose to get on a subway that's broken again. Or, taking an Uber because its past midnight. (Late night service was great for the six months it lasted!) I couldn't agree more. The area just absolutely does not give a shit about infrastructure. It took Google coming into Kendall square to get the jacked up sidewalks and roads fixed outside of MIT, and the Longfellow bridge restoration project has been consistently extended. Meanwhile, up the block in Central square we have major Novartis, Takeda, J&J, and Pfizer research centers going in with no apparent consideration for how these workers will commute in and out. Cambridge seems more concerned with forcing people to use reusable bags for shopping than they are with actually instituting useful change.

jt2190 11y ago

> [T]here's a fight going on > in Somerville...to allow more > than four unrelated individuals > to share a house. And they're > facing fierce resistance. As they should. The solution is not to cram 17 students into a house. The solution is to build more housing. Boston is full of slumlords who gouge students, landlords who resist new development because it would force them to provide decent living conditions at a reasonable profit.

wcummings 11y ago
The law is Boston reads "4 unrelated undergraduates". The fight is to change the language in Somerville to match (it reads "4 unrelated persons" now). It's about allowing found-families and co-ops, not students.
- jt2190 11y ago
  Some landlords want to remove any limit on number of tenants occupying a single unit, related or not. [1] [1] http://somerville.wickedlocal.com/article/20160127/NEWS/160126306 http://somerville.wickedlocal.com/article/20160127/NEWS/1601...
maxander 11y ago
Indeed, the ideal solution would be to build more housing in the places and price-points where they're so in demand- but that's a large material effort. Lifting the 4-people restriction would just require the town government to stop actively trying to make life difficult for people. And its also true, this kind of rule exists for a reason- in my experience, the sardine-student-housing lifestyle stops being fun at about 8 or 9 people to half as many bedrooms. But I guarantee you that Somerville is already full of such situations, and they're all much worse off because they're illegal- these people's landlords can get away with anything, because if their tenant's complain to the town everyone living in the building will get evicted.

beambot 11y ago

> Boston would be SF Not sure that's a good thing. SF has its own share of big problems right now. I certainly wouldn't want Boston to emulate those!

wcummings 11y ago

>Most of us who can head to the west coast at the first opportunity Speak for yourself, I'd rather be dead in Somerville than alive in SF.

msabalau 11y ago

Inequality in blue states flows from housing policy. Boomers propping up housing costs regardless of the societal impact. Sneering at meritistrocats won't put fish back in the sea for the people of New Bedford to catch, but allowing developers to build a ton of housing would create a lot of jobs for working people, help lower the largest expense of poor and working class people, and make it affordable for college students to stay. As for public transit, the city and state certain can spare many dimes. What they can't spare is the ten billion dollars it would take to actually deal with the MBTA's debt and deferred maintenance. It absolutely has to be addressed, for the sake of the entire regional economy, but investments on that scale, when they are not immediately relevant to the lives of 4/5ths of voters, are... challenging. If killing off an expensive but lightly used late night service that accounted for 0.4% of trips makes it marginally easier to deal with the root issues, then it should be cut. The T had four years (not six months) to make late night service viable, they failed.

eli_gottlieb 11y ago
> What they can't spare is the ten billion dollars it would take to actually deal with the MBTA's debt and deferred maintenance. I'm pretty sure that debt was seven billion smaller before they dumped the Big Dig's debt onto the MBTA's books. >investments on that scale, when they are not immediately relevant to the lives of 4/5ths of voters, are... challenging. It's immediately relevant to all of us whether a few inches of snow shuts down or delays the Red Line and Orange Line.

eli_gottlieb 11y ago

>There are other issues of a similar bent; there's a fight going on in Somerville (the neighborhood of MIT, Harvard, and Tufts students, now that Cambridge property deeds come platinum-plated) to allow more than four unrelated individuals to share a house. And they're facing fierce resistance. Wait... there is!? Because my roommate just got a girlfriend, and when she stays over, that makes four of us. I should probably start attending public meetings about this.