Peter Picknelly, Victor Bruno, and Chris Cignoli, they love the city and want it to succeed more than anything in the world, but they fail to understand that it is their obsession with cars, traffic, and parking that is what is making the times tougher and our future ever more grim. Moving more cars more
The real point of living a resilient life is making that life worth living. Whatever resilience I may have created begins with the life I want to live. I realized early on that it was the hustle and bustle of the city that I most enjoyed and so my resilient life must flow from that
(My feature from Strong Towns with its original quirks and a few different photos) I lower the bar, making success easier to achieve, I stay away from the edge, so small mistakes don’t become catastrophes, and I focus my investments on multi-utility outcomes. These strategies have worked for me. I could make more money than
There are signs. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company is selling one of its major holdings in the downtown. The head of the non profit development corporation of which MassMutual is the primary funder has decided to move on. Some subsidiaries are already being shifted to other regions. GE is moving to Boston, Aetna is moving
I was invited to participate in a panel discussion on the campus of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst a few weeks ago because someone had heard a commentary I had done for New England Public Radio. I had no idea what I was getting into, what the format would be, or who would be
It’s funny. So much energy expended in the discussion of building a wall to keep out the Spanish speaking hordes from Mexico, but an island famous for its walls is already inside “Fortress America” and the savage category 4 hurricane named María seems destined to bring hundreds of thousands if not a million of those
The river did us a real favor. As problematic as the so called “100 year flood” is going to be for north-south rail travel in the valley, the alignment of tracks from Springfield to Greenfield through Holyoke and Northampton makes for a short trip which connects the rider to 4 unique places. Taking the idea
I’ve written and talked about the two very distinct faces of my little part of the world: Heaven and Hell I’ve called it. Nothing quite tells the tale of this Jekyll and Hyde situation like photographs. From prostitutes seeking out Johns in the snow to sex workers shoveling my sidewalk: A Seuss parade: Followed closely
It is a strange time of year to live in New England. It’s a place that people leave, ostensibly, because of the weather, but in September it’s hard to imagine anyplace having a better mix of enjoyable climactic conditions. It’s cool at night, warm during the day, it rains now and again, and some of
Essex Junction is something of a puzzler: the Amtrak station is horrid both architecturally and functionally: It’s hard to imagine how passengers could be treated any worse without it turning into a Monty Python sketch about freemasonry! Across the street is some lovely fine grained small town urbanism: Around the corner what seems to be