STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE YOU’VE LIKELY HEARD about the housing crisis in eastern Massachusetts, with too few units available and prices always on the rise. But a second housing crisis, one with effectively opposite circumstances, lurks across much of the rest of the state. In former industrial cities hit by economic challenges such as Fitchburg […]
Gateway Cities
Posted inPolitics
Correia arrested on federal fraud charges
FEDERAL AGENTS ARRESTED Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia early Thursday morning and charged him with defrauding investors in a company he started as a teenager, then using the money to “pay for a lavish lifestyle” that included a Mercedes, jewelry for himself and a former girlfriend, air travel, and trips to casinos and adult entertainment venues, […]
Posted inEconomy
Civic grit
BOOK REVIEW — Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America, by James Fallows and Deborah Fallows (Pantheon Books, 413 pages) PEOPLE WHO LIVE in cosmopolitan Boston and only venture beyond the metropolis to visit the Cape in summer or ski in the north in winter might assume that nothing much of interest […]
Posted inEconomy
A new Quincy
QUINCY MAYOR THOMAS KOCH calls the MBTA’s Red Line the “spine” of his aging city. With four stops in North Quincy, Wollaston, Quincy Center, and Quincy Adams, the T’s Red Line allows residents to move around the city and connect with Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville to the north. These transit connections have long been the […]
Posted inGambling
MGM, preparing to open, has feisty words for CT rivals
LET THE CASINO wars begin. The MGM Springfield casino is about to open, and at a press conference on Thursday several officials made clear that the battle is on with Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. Jim Murren, the CEO of MGM, who went to college in Hartford in the early 1980s, said he used […]
Posted inEconomy
Worcester lands the PawSox
IN A COUP THAT WAS three years in the making, Worcester officials were able to woo the owners of the AAA Pawtucket Red Sox to move the team into a to-be-built publicly owned and financed $90 million park that will be the cornerstone of a $340 million major redevelopment in the Gateway City. “Aren’t you […]
Posted inEconomy
Gateway Cities discover the power of food
PHOTOGRAPHS BY KEN RICHARDSON FOOD HAS ALWAYS LOOMED LARGE in the life of Dimple Rana. While growing up in Revere, she helped her parents, immigrants from India, work in Indian grocery stores in Somerville. Later, she helped manage convenience stores owned by her family. But working retail wasn’t her ambition. She promptly left Revere after […]
Posted inTransportation
Aloisi wrong on South Coast Rail
NEARLY A DECADE AGO, former transportation secretary James Aloisi assured the residents of the South Coast region that South Coast Rail would become a reality. “This is not just a vision anymore; it’s a plan . . . We’re building platforms for the future,” he said in a talk with the Standard Times editorial board. […]
Posted inEconomy
How does New Bedford compete against Boston?
What follows is an excerpt from New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell’s prepared remarks for his state of the city address on Thursday. OUR SUCCESS WILL DEPEND on our ability to think strategically about the future of our city, and to work together to follow that strategy. As we ask ourselves how we can continue our success, […]
Posted inEconomy
Economic development, co-op style
WELLSPRING COOPERATIVE IS PREPARING to launch its third business in Springfield, a greenhouse that will grow fresh greens and herbs and sell them to supermarkets and institutions in the area. The greenhouse, built on a brownfield in the eastern part of the city, will use hydroponic gardening (think plants growing in mineral nutrient solutions rather […]