just about every community in the Bay State is trying to make do with less, but there are huge differences in the sizes of their municipal payrolls in relation to their population sizes. Statewide, there were 393 municipal employees for every 10,000 residents in FY 2008, according to the state Department of Revenue. But the […]
Robert David Sullivan
Posted inUncategorized
Census trends
next year’s us Census promises more drama than usual, thanks to some recent demographic twists resulting from the economic crash of 2008. For example, the latest estimates have the state of Florida, long dependent on the real estate and construction industries, losing population for the first time since World War II. The trend toward bigger […]
Posted inEducation
Graduate gap
by one measure, Massachusetts is easily the most educated state in the United States. Among our residents over 25 years old, 37.9 percent had at least a bachelor’s degree in 2007, according to US Census data — putting us in front of second-place Maryland (35.2 percent) and far ahead of the nation as a whole […]
Posted inPolitics
Logged in
The Census Bureau reported in June that the number of Americans over the age of 3 living in households with Internet access inched past the two-thirds mark, to 67.1 percent, as of November 2007. But as the map below shows, regional differences persisted: In New Hampshire, having access to the Web was almost as common […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
Untouchable turf
You know that municipal governments are in dire financial straits when they start looking to tax-exempt properties — schools, hospitals, and other nonprofit institutions — for new revenue. Many colleges and universities make voluntary payments in lieu of taxes (known as PILOT agreements) to their host communities, but that doesn’t always satisfy local officials. Remarks […]
Posted inPolitics
Statistically significant
Illustrations by Travis Foster follow the money to beacon hill Legislative elections nearly always go to the candidate with more money, and the candidate with more money is almost always an incumbent. That’s the upshot of the 71-page report released in June by the state’s Office of Campaign & Political Finance. According to the report, […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Statistically significant
Illustrations by Travis Foster bay state farms get fruitful and multiply Are “buy local” campaigns helping to preserve the state’s small farming sector? New data from the US Department of Agriculture show that the number of working farms went up from 6,075 to 7,691 from 2002 to 2007 — even though the amount of land […]
Posted inUncategorized
End of an exodus
Only a couple of years ago, many of us fretted about the Bay State’s declining population. (See “A Fading Dream?”, Civic Sense, CW, Fall ’06.) We didn’t realize that something was coming that would reverse the tide: a rotten economy. According to Census Bureau estimates, Massachusetts grew by just over 30,000 people from July 2007 […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
Patrick vs. Cahill
UPDATE: State Treasurer Tim Cahill is running for governor as an independent, not as a challenger to incumbent Gov. Deval Patrick in the Democratic primary. Still, this CW map from 2009 gives some idea of the geographic contours of this fall’s general election if Cahill manages to sneak past GOP nominee Charlie Baker to become […]
Posted inPolitics
Statistically significant
Illustrations by Travis Foster bridgewater’s town meeting bottoms out One of the largest communities in the Bay State that’s still governed by open town meetings may soon make the switch to an elected body. The Bridgewater Independent reported that its namesake town, which has 26,000 residents, will likely vote on a proposal this spring to […]