Open Thread

[vanshnookenraggen]

/\ My vote for the most ignorant post ever. /\

I dont even have the energy to pick apart how vastly racist and ignorant what you said is. You know even less than most people about who lives in Africa and what is over there. You should be ashamed but clearly you wouldn't appreciate the shame.

[Lurker]

No offense Van, but you can talk to me when you've spent a few years of your life in Angola, Somalia and Ethiopia during civil, or worse, wars. It's even more fun with crazy trigger happy Cubans tagging along.

I am specifically talking about the rural remote areas in the countryside, which are quite vast, and even under iron fisted colonial rule weren't under the greatest control or administration. Also remember these areas were Belgian, Portuguese, and Italian controlled, which were not the best nor benevolent of the colonial powers

The countryside is nothing like the cities. There's limitless misery and cruelty in these places, which have no law or order, beyond crazy men with guns and trucks. These remote areas were never civilized, because there was not enough population density and strong tribalism which prevented the formation of more or less homogenous civilizations like other parts of Africa.

This barbarism used to be confined to small village and tribal conflicts. The collapse of colonialism left the strongest and craziest assholes with all the weapons and vehicles. What had been a few madmen here or there a century ago or two became a force capable of hundreds of square miles with ease. You must understand that the colonial powers kept the populace more or less disarmed and when the armories were emptied by the most bloodthirsty and the colonial armies fractured during independence, it became a free for all against lots of defenseless people. This is still the case today is places like Sudan!

The colonial borders should have been erased with the end of the colonies. The central governments spend so much time fighting over the arbitrary lines that they often allow internal tribal issues to be resolved brutally by paramilitary forces or outright warlords. Unfortunately there wasn't a sane transition to independence in central Africa and a lot of Cold War opportunism, through proxies and special forces, took place making matters worse.

[GW2500]

^^ Pretty acurate assesment, but I'd have to say if it wern't for European colonies Sub-Sahara Africa would be a MUCH happier place.

[Lurker]

It would have been more like parts of Central Asia and Oceania that weren't really heavily dominated by colonial powers. The civilized areas probably would have developed more along the lines of Korea and the tribal areas wouldn't have become bloodbaths.

Many of the colonial powers also nurtured brutality in the domestic military leadership to keep the populace in line. Once that leadership was released from their handlers, they did a lot to carve out the atrocities and political nightmares which exist to this day. Couple this with your garden variety nomadic madmen (sometimes with delusions of grandeur) getting guns and trucks, and the poor hunter gathers or village communities never stand a chance.

This isn't to say that Africa can blame everything on colonialism; as there's plenty of corruption and brutality throughout the history of the developed civilizations on the continent. Much like any other primarily per-industrial civilizations I might add. But colonialism only multiplied these problems by a large magnitude. Had there been a more stable transition to independence and an absence of meddling during the Cold War, the entire continent would have been much better off than it is today.

[BostonUrbEx]

Regardless of blame or histories, we need to take a step back. We're still in Iraq (not sure how many are left) and Afghanistan, we are/were on the brink of landing forces in Libya, we can't get our noses out of Israel, Syria, and Iran, and we have the powers-who-be still waiting to pounce in on North Korea and Taiwan whenever they deem the moment to be right. Now Obama is telling me we have to go babysit Uganda now, too? Fuck no, Obama, you sit the fuck down, and your warmongers and weapons contractors can kiss all of our asses after taking our taxes as payment.

We seeded terrorism by supposedly seeding democracy and friendship. Why did 9/11 happen? Because we got involved in the Middle East, and we did it in the name of fighting communism, spreading "democracy", and "strategic interests". We set ourselves up for terrorist attacks and wars that can't be won. Does that mean it was justified and we deserved it? Hell no, and the perpetrators can burn in hell. But those who instigated them and pushed them can rot in hell, too. Our occupation -- real, shadow, or otherwise -- is going to piss people off. If we want to get involved in winning over friends, send bails of wheat and bushels of apples. Not crates of guns and ships of planes. And stop assassinating people, especially when putting someone of our own choice to pull strings for us.

I'll stop rambling there, I haven't slept much and it is late, I've forgotten what my point even was now...

[statler]

The forum seems crazy busy today. Must be the rain.

[statler]

Mostly for Van, but interesting to most:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/kx5fa/iama_new_york_city_transit_subway_conductor_ama/

[vanshnookenraggen]

No, sick passenger is code for "dead customer ON the train". Often times it actually IS a sick passenger though - sick usually refers to some kind of bodily injury, rather than someone puking or passing out, and the delays are mainly from the MTA doing an investigation to cover their asses when that customer eventually files a lawsuit.
"Police investigation" is the code for a suicide by train. Service will be disrupted for about a half hour, usually. I've seen it mess up things for as long as 3 hours though.

I really wish I hadn't learned this.

[Ron Newman]

this is a quote from where?

[statler]

My link directly above his post.

[Archibald "Harry" Tuttle]

In case you haven't seen it yet, here is the Zombie in a Penguin Suit short film. It's a zombie movie from an entirely different perspective...very beautifully shot too. Filmed all over New England, you'll certainly recognize where the film starts off.


http://www.zombieinapenguinsuit.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtdEKIsnEkM

[tobyjug]

It is 1:32 AM, and according to the counter at the bottom there are 3 members and 90 guests on the site. What are they looking at? Let's have a look... Ok, the 3 of us are looking at the same old shit. But most of the 90 "guests" are "searching forums". What gives?

[statler]

Search engine bots.

[Ron Newman]

but how many search engines are there these days? Google, Bing, Yahoo (or are they just Bing repackaged now?), DuckDuckGo, Blekko, .... what else?

[statler]

My guess would be that different engines send out multiple bots looking for different types of data and files (text, images, pdf, etc)

Just a guess though.

[briv]

It's Baidu. They just showed up recently. Spiders aren't supposed to show up as guests--none of the others do. I find it annoying and hope to have it fixed soon.

[tobyjug]

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't complaining. As a dog, I can relate to flea problems.

[BostonUrbEx]

http://samrainer.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/us-denominations.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DlJyFTh4bjU/S1mO7_rGZ2I/AAAAAAAAJKk/nLH53-1QIN4/s1600/religion.jpg

[vanshnookenraggen]

Maps without an explanation are bad maps.

[JohnAKeith]

Can we build a fence to contain those Baptists?

[BostonUrbEx]

Can we build a fence to contain those Baptists?

Too late, looks like they already infiltrated Maine! Oh noes!

[JohnAKeith]

They've only infiltrated the north of Maine, so they're called Baptistes.

Too late, looks like they already infiltrated Maine! Oh noes!

[datadyne007]

http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/307255_10150510406853079_209721698078_11501042_137 2878906_n.jpg

[statler]

Sorry to be that guy but....

they are different arches (http://www.snopes.com/photos/architecture/nagasaki.asp).

[datadyne007]

Ok then, "what the heck are these arches made from?" Now we're good. ;-)

Still a triumph for architecture. Thx for the background info though.

[blade_bltz]

Er...yeah, Nagasaki is in extreme southwest Japan, basically swimming distance from the Korean peninsula, while the tsunami wreaked havoc on the northeast. About as different as you can get for such a small nation.

Those "arches" are called torii, the most ubiquitous and recognizable structures associated with the Shinto religion. I'm sure everyone's seen pictures of Itsukushima shrine in Hiroshima...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/ItsukushimaTorii7381.jpg/300px-ItsukushimaTorii7381.jpg

[BostonUrbEx]

Whether they're different arches or not, that's amazing. :o

[BostonUrbEx]

http://s1-03.twitpicproxy.com/photos/large/437189079.jpg

http://s1-04.twitpicproxy.com/photos/large/437196848.jpg

[statler]

Boston.com (http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2011/11/01/the_almost_match_facebook_and_boston/?p1=News_links)
The almost match: Facebook and Boston
By Michael B. Farrell
Globe Staff / November 1, 2011

If Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg had to do it over, he might have kept his online social network, which today has more than 800 million users, in Boston.

Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, famously hatched the company while he was a Harvard University undergraduate but moved it to California’s Silicon Valley, where it grew into the multibillion-dollar enterprise it is today.

Asked Saturday at a Stanford University forum what he would do differently, Zuckerberg said he might stay local, a video of the event shows.

“If I were starting now,’’ he said, “I would do it very differently, but I knew nothing back then. Honestly, if I were starting now I would have just stayed in Boston.’’

Zuckerberg said Silicon Valley’s attention span lacks “long-term focus’’ and its culture often does not value commitment. “A lot of the companies that have been built outside of Silicon Valley . . . seem to be on a longer-term cadence than the ones in Silicon Valley.’’

The comments struck a chord in Boston. The fact that Cambridge saw the birth of one of the Web’s biggest innovations - and of a company that has been valued at $80 billion - but lost it to California has been a sore point.

“What I was pleased to see is that he’s acknowledging that Boston can hold its own,’’ said Michael Greeley, a general partner of Flybridge Capital Partners, a Boston venture capital firm.

Many investors have said Boston has a strong roster of companies but lacks brand-name consumer companies like Facebook, Google Inc., and Apple Inc. “If Facebook had stayed,’’ Greeley said, “we would have had a dozen other companies that would have been started by Facebook employees.’’

Zuckerberg said his point was that upstarts don’t need Silicon Valley to succeed. Still, California at the time was the right place. “I had to be [in Silicon Valley]. Facebook would not have worked had I stayed in Boston.’’

Michael B. Farrell can be reached at michael.farrell@globe.com.

[datadyne007]

Sounds like Menino should hire him for SPID PR... and there's still plenty of room in the SPID to build a new Facebook HQ!

That's rly cool how he's acknowledging that Boston can hold its own though.

[statler]

My hope is that there is some MIT or Harvard kid who will some day start The Next Big Thing and is reading this and stores it in the back of their mind.

[BostonUrbEx]

I can't recall the last time I laughed so much at a Halloween costume:

http://foughtthebattle.tumblr.com/post/12208730321/best-halloween-costume-fung-wah-bus

Epic.

[JohnAKeith]

Mmm. That's clever and funny!

I lost enthusiasm, however, for jokes about cheap buses after the Megabus disaster. New York magazine had a great article about it; the injuries and deaths were horrific.

[datadyne007]

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/201111/nba-no-longer-3rd-best-attended-us-sports-league

Now let's get a damn stadium built in Allston and get those numbers higher!

[Lurker]

There's a special place in Hell for whomever got the idea to pull this bullshit.

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/seiu-siphons-dues-mich-medicaid-payments

SEIU siphons 'dues' from Mich. Medicaid payments (http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/seiu-siphons-dues-mich-medicaid-payments)
byJoel Gehrke (http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/author/joel-gehrke) Commentary Staff Writer

If you're a parent who accepts Medicaid payments from the State of Michigan to help support your mentally-disabled adult children, you qualify as a state employee for the purposes of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). They can now claim and receive a portion of your Medicaid in the form of union dues.

Robert and Patricia Haynes live in Michigan with their two adult children, who have cerebral palsy. The state government provides the family with insurance through Medicaid, but also treats them as caregivers. For the SEIU, this makes them public employees and thus members of the union, which receives $30 out of the family's monthly Medicaid subsidy. The Michigan Quality Community Care Council (MQC3) deducts union dues on behalf of SEIU.

Michigan Department of Community Health Director Olga Dazzo explained the process in to her members of her staff. "MQC3 basically runs the program for SEIU and passes the union dues from the state to the union," she wrote in an email (http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/15943) obtained by the Mackinac Center. Initiated in 2006 under then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm, D-Mich., the plan reportedly (http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/15943) provides the SEIU with $6 million annually in union dues deducted from those Medicaid subsidies.

“We're not even home health care workers. We're just parents taking care of our kids,” Robert Haynes, a retired Detroit police officer, told the Mackinac Center for Public Policy (http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/16001). “Our daughter is 34 and our son is 30. They have cerebral palsy. They are basically like 6-month-olds in adult bodies. They need to be fed and they wear diapers. We could sure use that $30 a month that's being sent to the union.”

According to the Mackinac Center, the theoretical public employer for whom the Haynes' work is the Michigan Quality Community Care Council (MQC3), an entity within the DCH that continues to operate, even though the state legislature has defunded it (http://www.mackinac.org/15944). Even the MQC3 calls the families hiring in-home health care providers (http://www.mqccc.org/portal/-q=node-45.htm) "employers of providers," but these health care providers are also treated as employers of MQC3 when it comes time each month to take dues out of their Medicaid payment and send it to the SEIU.

Mr. and Mrs. Haynes, of course, are both the parents (the employer) and the health care providers for their children, but they still lose money to the SEIU every month, despite having no interest in joining the union. They have been arbitrarily classified as state employees so that the union can take money from them.
Gov. Rick Snyder, R-Mich., already ended (http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/03/union-power-grab-unravels-michigan) a similar scheme to provide unions with new "public employees" in the area of child care. His predecessor, Gov. Jennifer Granholm, D-Mich., had classified in-home daycare providers (http://washingtonexaminer.com/node/470521) as public employees -- a designation that forced them to pay union dues but conferred no other benefits upon them. Snyder's director of the Department of Human Services ended that program. "[We] will stop all funding and, because these providers are not state employees, will also cease collecting union dues,” DHS director Maura Corrigan said at the time. (http://www.mackinac.org/14689)
(http://www.mackinac.org/14689)
Michigan's state House has already passed a bill to prevent this sort of rent-seeking by public-sector unions, but it has stalled in the state Senate.

[BostonUrbEx]

I got a commendation from my editor and editor-in-chief on my school paper thanks to some dude named Kent Xie. Wonder who that guy is. Hmm.

[palindrome]

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/201111/nba-no-longer-3rd-best-attended-us-sports-league

Now let's get a damn stadium built in Allston and get those numbers higher!

Somerville would be better with a shiny new greenline extension.

[palindrome]

Original thread is locked so just throwing this here:

Big ‘W’ for builder
Judge OKs hotel tower’s bankruptcy exit
By Thomas Grillo | Tuesday, November 15, 2011 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Real Estate


The developer of the W Boston Hotel and Residences won court backing yesterday to exit bankruptcy, but it still must unload 71 unsold condos in the Theater District luxury high-rise to settle its debts.

U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Joan Feeney approved SW Boston Hotel Venture’s reorganization plan over strong objections from top creditor Prudential Insurance, which had ponied up more than $181 million for the project.

“(The ruling) will allow all of our creditors to get paid in full,” Carol Sawyer Parks, CEO of SW Boston and daughter of Hub taxi magnate Frank Sawyer, said in a statement.

SW Boston built the 123-unit condo and 235-room hotel tower in October 2009, but went bankrupt in April 2010 after struggling to sell condos and keep cash flowing into the Stuart Street project.

Prudential tried to foreclose on the 26-story glass structure last fall, but Feeney rejected that bid along with the company’s opposition to the reorganization plan. Prudential attorney Emanuel Grillo could not be reached for comment.

Using proceeds from condo sales over the next three years, SW Boston will first pay back the $52 million it still owes Prudential, then repay its $10 million loan from the city of Boston along with lesser amounts of money owed to other creditors, according to the reorganization plan.

SW Boston said it has sold 52 units and has another eight under agreement. Feeney noted the developer managed to sell 22 units, netting nearly $25 million, during an eight-month stretch amid the bankruptcy proceedings.

“The credible evidence submitted at the confirmation hearing compels a finding that the (reorganization) plan is feasible,” she wrote in her 50-page ruling. “The projections for the sales of condominiums are realistic and workable.”

In June, as part of its financial overhaul, SW Boston sold the hotel to an affiliate of Pebblebrook Hotel Trust for $89.5 million.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/real_estate/view.bg?articleid=1381048

[JohnAKeith]

Abandoned, half-built amusement park outside Peking. (Pictures & video.)

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2011/11/abandoned-disneyland-outskirts-beijing/496/

http://cdn.theatlanticcities.com/img/upload/2011/11/15/china1/largest.jpg

[vanshnookenraggen]

Whenever asked what archBoston should do to expand I always thought it should have a blog in the Curbed fashion. Looks like we finally got beat to the punch.

http://boston.curbed.com/

[statler]

God damnit. I already spend waaaay too much time online.

[tobyjug]

Abandoned, half-built amusement park outside Peking. (Pictures & video.)

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2011/11/abandoned-disneyland-outskirts-beijing/496/

http://cdn.theatlanticcities.com/img/upload/2011/11/15/china1/largest.jpg

The Tragic Kingdom.

China...a Potemkin village?

[datadyne007]

Off to BuildBoston! Who else is going today??

[jass]

Whenever asked what archBoston should do to expand I always thought it should have a blog in the Curbed fashion. Looks like we finally got beat to the punch.

http://boston.curbed.com/

Personally, Ive always thought we should steal the people from railroad.net and make this the authoritative MBTA forum.

[vanshnookenraggen]

Personally, Ive always thought we should steal the people from railroad.net and make this the authoritative MBTA forum.

Don't even get started with rail fans. That is a box of shit you DO NOT want to open.

[Lurker]

RailRoad.net's moderators remind me of some authoritarian colleges from the USSR. You do not want them here. I would have been banned from ArchBoston years ago with them in charge.

[BostonUrbEx]

RailRoad.net's moderators remind me of some authoritarian colleges from the USSR. You do not want them here. I would have been banned from ArchBoston years ago with them in charge.

LOL! Incredible amounts of truth.


However, site ownership has changed, and I feel moderation has since become more lax. Of course, there's still some lingering restrictions, but definitely no up-your-ass-on-every-single-little-topic-diversion.

[JohnAKeith]

Alan Shepard, astronaut, was asked what he was thinking before his spaceship took off before its first flight.

He replied, 'The fact that every part of this ship was built by the low bidder.'"

[briv]

Whenever asked what archBoston should do to expand I always thought it should have a blog in the Curbed fashion. Looks like we finally got beat to the punch.

http://boston.curbed.com/

So JohnAKeith, did you get the gig or what?

Van did suggest shifting the site towards a Curbed-like blog a few years ago. It probably could have worked but would have involved a lot work by a devoted staff of content producers and such. The site would likely have to have been monetized. I also thought it would change the site into a more of a passive, content-consumption type of place and kill the participatory nature of the board, where anyone can freely contribute whatever. I thought it would kill the spirit of the board.

[datadyne007]

I think I discovered part of the problem of why retail doesn't want to be in the historic parts of Boston (DTX, GC, etc) tonight -- Everything closes at 8PM, even on Saturdays (mind you, this was also a special high-traffic saturday because of the Marketplace Center Christmas Tree lighting). I needed to go to CVS on my break at AE, but of course the GC one (in 1-2-3 Center Plaza) closes at 8. Same with the CVS at DTX. This is really absolutely ridiculous. Burger King in 123 isn't even open on weekends. Starbucks (Kettle) closes early as well. The Au Bon Pain on State St also closes at 6:30 everyday. It's no wonder why people go shopping at suburban malls - they're physically forced out of the city because it closes down. This doesn't make any sense and is an extreme inconvenience to the people that work in the retail stores that are open until 9PM and the shoppers as well.

Its stupid things like this that make me miss working at CambridgeSide and South Shore Plaza.

[Ron Newman]

I don't think any ordinance is forcing those stores or restaurants to close early.

[datadyne007]

I'm not saying an ordinance is forcing them to close. I'm just commenting about the mentality of the area driving away business (and shoppers). I'd love to go shopping downtown, but it's so inconvenient to do so, so when I want to go shopping I go to South Shore Plaza. It's really no wonder why suburban malls are thriving.

[Lurker]

I think I discovered part of the problem of why retail doesn't want to be in the historic parts of Boston (DTX, GC, etc) tonight -- Everything closes at 8PM, even on Saturdays (mind you, this was also a special high-traffic saturday because of the Marketplace Center Christmas Tree lighting). I needed to go to CVS on my break at AE, but of course the GC one (in 1-2-3 Center Plaza) closes at 8. Same with the CVS at DTX. This is really absolutely ridiculous. Burger King in 123 isn't even open on weekends. Starbucks (Kettle) closes early as well. The Au Bon Pain on State St also closes at 6:30 everyday. It's no wonder why people go shopping at suburban malls - they're physically forced out of the city because it closes down. This doesn't make any sense and is an extreme inconvenience to the people that work in the retail stores that are open until 9PM and the shoppers as well.

Its stupid things like this that make me miss working at CambridgeSide and South Shore Plaza.

Operating hours based on the peak office crowds seem to forget that there are a few hundred thousand other people living in the city which would patronize those locations for various reasons outside of the typical work day. Hopefully with more residential units mixed into downtown in formerly obsolete office spaces, this attitude will change.

[datadyne007]

Operating hours based on the peak office crowds seem to forget that there are a few hundred thousand other people living in the city which would patronize those locations for various reasons outside of the typical work day. Hopefully with more residential units mixed into downtown in formerly obsolete office spaces, this attitude will change.

I'd also be willing to bet that the primary patronage at these locations isn't even from the 8-6 office employees. It just doesn't make any sense.

[jass]

RailRoad.net's moderators remind me of some authoritarian colleges from the USSR. You do not want them here. I would have been banned from ArchBoston years ago with them in charge.

Im saying users, not policies.

An yes, even though things have gotten much better with ownership change, Id still prefer all MBTA discussion to happen here, where buses can roam free.

I don't think any ordinance is forcing those stores or restaurants to close early.

There must be some policy forcing places like Kenmore Mcdonalds and BK park street to close at 11pm.

[datadyne007]

There must be some policy forcing places like Kenmore Mcdonalds and BK park street to close at 11pm.

Wendys and BK Copley Sq too. It makes no sense to close at 11pm, even on the weekdays.

[Lurker]

Hmmm........
http://www.gearupcenter.com/new-crovel-extreme-shovel-multi-tool/

[palindrome]

Personally, Ive always thought we should steal the people from railroad.net and make this the authoritative MBTA forum.


i think we got one of their best, most educated members in F-Line.

[BostonUrbEx]

i think we got one of their best, most educated members in F-Line.

Sure do. I don't see anyone else with more knowledge out of the MBTA, New England, or Amtrak forums than F-Line. There might be some who know more history, but he certainly knows the planning more than anyone.

[kennedy]

Really awesome view of the John Hancock Tower through Google Maps aerial view. (http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Boston,+MA&hl=en&ll=42.350764,-71.07487&spn=0.00467,0.006968&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=56.899383,114.169922&vpsrc=6&hnear=Boston,+Suffolk,+Massachusetts&t=k&z=18)

[BostonUrbEx]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjXvEpVRTDA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD5Z9npYKzY

[datadyne007]

Damn, I wanna try that chowder now. Currently my favorite in Boston is Top of the Hub's clam chowder. I go up for lunch all the time. This looks very similar.

[Lurker]

Coming soon to Boston:

http://www.golocalprov.com/news/11555/

Warwick Facing Pension Meltdown

Saturday, November 26, 2011
Russell J. Moore, GoLocalProv News Contributor


Just like scores of other communities across Rhode Island, if you live in Warwick, you’ve seen a steady increase in property taxes every year over the last ten years—more often than not, by the maximum allowed by law. But a GoLocalProv review of reports shows Warwick’s tax increases went, almost exclusively, to increases in the costs of benefits to city employees—not to increases in services or infrastructure.
http://www.golocalprov.com/images/sized/images/sized/remote/images-golocalprov-com--piggybank-360x242.png

To be more precise, 92.5-percent of all new revenue went to pensions, healthcare, salaries, sick pay bonuses, and longevity. The remaining 7.25-percent went to services and infrastructure.
In the year 2004, the City of Warwick spent $30.3 million in employee benefits. This year, the city is budgeted to spend $47.9 million. That’s a 58-percent increase in the cost of employee benefits (pension, health care, dental, unpaid sick days, etc.) over 8 years—a steady hike of 7-percent every year. By comparison, the city spent $6.6 million on social services in 2004. This year, the city is budgeted to spend less than it did 8-years ago—$6.4 million.
And all the data suggests this number is only going to increase absent significant reforms.
40 Percent of Taxes Goes to Pensions

Although the City of Warwick generally makes its Annual Required Contributions to its pension plans, it spends the most on pensions as a percentage of its total budget. Roughly 40-percent of all city taxpayer dollars go to pensions and (OPEB) (Warwick has an unfunded health care liability of $258 million according to a recent auditor general’s report). And that doesn’t even take into account the city’s unfunded health care liability, which according to a recent Auditor General’s report, tops $300 million.
When Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian sent a plan he called “pension reform” to the City Council earlier this year, it was a public relations success. Newspapers and blogs heralded it. But when one got past the headlines, it became apparent that the savings were, at best, miniscule, and that absent property tax increases so far as the eye can see, Warwick will need significantly more reform.
If the pension reform proposed by General Treasurer Gina Raimondo, enacted by the state legislature, and signed by Governor Lincoln Chafee can be compared to a marathon for its size, scope, and ambition, the city of Warwick’s pension reform can more easily be compared to a walk from the couch to the refrigerator (and perhaps back).
Unlike the state reform plan, which suspended automatic raises for retirees, moved current employees into a hybrid style 401-k plan, and increased the retirement age for state workers and teacher, the Mayor’s pension reform plan, slightly increased contributions, but for new hires only. And, he consistently pointed out that it, saved $8 million in the future. Perhaps, but “the future” is a pretty vague term.
In fact, Avedisian, 47-years-old, will be far into retirement by the time the city realizes $8 million in savings. According to actuarial reports, Warwick will not save $8 million (in one fiscal year) until 2049. Avedisian will be 85-years-old.
http://www.golocalprov.com/images/sized/images/sized/remote/images-golocalprov-com--pensonstats-710x428.png



Only Slight Savings

By the year 2049, thanks to the pension reforms, the city will have saved roughly $114 million (a 38-year period). But the city will have spent $1.175 billion to keep the pension plans afloat.
To put things in perspective by the year 2027, the city will be spending $50.3 million in taxpayer dollars to fund the municipal pension plans. Absent the Avedisian pension reforms, the city would have to spend $52 million.
In 2016, the city will save roughly $141,000 thanks to pension. However, over that same time-period, the city’s annual required contribution (ARC) will also increase by $7.2 million. In sum, the savings referenced are merely a slight decrease in known future expenses.
Taken in sum, the most current actuarial reports data made public on the status of Warwick’s four municipal pension plans, shows the city pension plans were funded at 57-percent. But the data from the city’s most troubled plan, the Police and Fire I plan, is taken from June 30, 2008, months before the stock market crash.
City Denied Request for Actuarial Info

Perhaps more importantly, that data is based on a rate of return on the pension fund of 8-percent, and uses life expectancy tables for the Police and Fire pension plans—which is funded at just 27-percent (even with the scarily outdated life expectancy charts). When Raimondo and the State Retirement Board, updated their mortality tables, the taxpayer contributions for the state pension plan ballooned by almost 40-percent—a major catalyst for pension reform.
In April of this year, long before pension reform was debated on the state level, City Councilman Steve Merolla asked for updated analysis of the city’s unfunded liability, based on updated mortality tables, salary increases, and a lower rate of return on investment. Before the full City Council, the city’s actuaries (GRS, same as the state’s), told Merolla that they didn’t feel comfortable preparing that information, because it was only the request of a single councilman, who didn’t have the authority to expend city funds. (It would have cost the city money, to do the required actuarial work.)
On a day when the mayors from Rhode Island’s other large cities testified before the House and Senate combined finance committees about the need for major municipal pension reform, Avedisian seemed to downplay the situation in Warwick. Avedisian told the committee that the city had adopted updated life expectancy charts, as well as lowered the expected rate of return on the pension fund to match the 7.5-percent expected by the state and that the city’s plans were in decent shape.
However, peculiarly Avedisian cited the same liabilities that were determined based on the older assumptions. But as Raimondo showed with the state fund, updating those assumptions increases the unfunded liability—and by no small amount (millions and millions of dollars). A Warwick resident, who follows the cost of legacy benefits closely, contacted the city clerk and asked for the information to back up Avedisian’s testimony.
Here is the response the resident was given:
“No formal correspondence (such as a formal letter) was sent ton GRS requesting incorporating the new state assumptions into our plans. The city has not received new public safety valuation reports. They are being updated at the present time,” the city clerk wrote in an email on November 7.
Chafee’s Role http://www.golocalprov.com/images/sized/images/sized/remote/images-golocalprov-com--politics_Lincoln+Chafee+2-360x450.jpg



In any event, Governor Chafee has been an outspoken advocate for municipal pension reform. But several of the issues in Warwick, can be directly traced to his administration. For instance, the Police and Fire I plan, which is dangerously underfunded and acts an as albatross to Warwick’s other pension plans is currently funded on a 40-year schedule. This was implemented in 1995—when Lincoln Chafee was Mayor of Warwick. Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) standards, which are federal guidelines that municipalities are supposed to adopt, and are solidified in state law, (General Law 45-10-15) say that a plan should not be funded over a period shorter than 30-years.
In a letter to Avedisian, dated October 4, 2011, Dennis Hoyle, the state’s Auditor General, and state revenue director Rosemary Galoogly made him aware that the city is not in compliance with state law.
“Management’s plan should include a timetable towards achieving and maintaining 100% funding of the pension cost on an annual basis. We have received a copy of the valuation completed as of July 1, 2009. If a more recent actuarial valuation…has been completed, please forward a copy…along with management’s plan for funding the plan,” said Hoyle.
In a letter back, Avedisian said that he had made the state aware of the pension plan’s situation and that it would cost significantly more to meet the 30-year amortization rate.
“In other to comply with (GASB) Statement 27, the City of Warwick would be required to increase it’ contribution by more than $6.5 million annually,” Avedisian wrote.
The city is already spending amongst the highest percentage of total budget on pensions in the state.

[statler]

Uh, how long has this been here?

http://i.imgur.com/NGY9P.png (http://designmuseumboston.org/)

[Lurker]

Uh, how long has this been here?


I see lots of stereotypical image conscientious and pretentious people, with academic backgrounds in 'design', operating a cocktail conversation oriented oriented organization funded by government endowments and the business places of relatives.

Why work hard and produce when one can 'create' (code for bullshit) and be smug at parties without ever actually accomplishing anything in life other than spending the money of others? There's a whole dedicated class of these useless people forever warehoused in pseudo-intellectual institutions, or trivial organizations, in order to avoid embarrassing families.

[statler]

How do you distinguish between real artists and this 'dedicated class of [...] useless people'?

[Pierce]

I see lots of stereotypical image conscientious and pretentious people, with academic backgrounds in 'design', operating a cocktail conversation oriented oriented organization funded by government endowments and the business places of relatives.

Why work hard and produce when one can 'create' (code for bullshit) and be smug at parties without ever actually accomplishing anything in life other than spending the money of others? There's a whole dedicated class of these useless people forever warehoused in pseudo-intellectual institutions, or trivial organizations, in order to avoid embarrassing families.

do their levels of pretension, condescension, and empty criticism rival that of your post? At least they have formal design education, degrees and research backing their "bullshit"

[Pierce]

Uh, how long has this been here?

http://i.imgur.com/NGY9P.png (http://designmuseumboston.org/)

I remember seeing this at City Hall quite awhile ago, maybe late 2010? It was underwhelming-- I think my snarky criticism at that time was that you could get the same thing by just visiting the Utile website and not have to go through a metal detector.

[Lurker]

How do you distinguish between real artists and this 'dedicated class of [...] useless people'?

Real artists produce tangible work that people who've never heard of them or been influenced by anyone else enjoy and are willing to pay for. This is in comparison to people that produce nothing, are promoted heavily through other blowhards, and people 'like' simply because it is the socially expected thing to do. You know all the supposed artists with studios, which never seem to produce anything except when there is a show. At the show everything is terrible and lacking in talent but no one viewing the 'works' has the courage to call out the emperor for having no clothes; as that might upset the host?

do their levels of pretension, condescension, and empty criticism rival that of your post? At least they have formal design education, degrees and research backing their "bullshit"

I don't create websites and organizations to masturbate my ego. But I am an arrogant prick if you haven't notice already. It's part of my witty sarcastic charm, or lack thereof depending on your stance. Mind you many "formal design education degrees" don't mean anything anymore. People from the best schools can't design functional spaces nor practically detail buildings anymore. It's a significant problem in the industry that academia is producing a bunch of conformist graphic artists and theory junkies woefully disconnected from the real world. My assumptions are based on the personnel bios, their chosen portraits of themselves, and their general presentation of information. I see far more playing to styles and fad fetishism than I do recognition of actual merit.

[Justin7]

http://i430.photobucket.com/albums/qq29/ShaggyB/grandpa_simpson_yelling_at_cloud.jpg

[armpitsOFmight]

Time to retire the Blue Man Group. Enough is enough, get something new at that theater.

[statler]

I agree.

[Ron Newman]

There was a time when the Charles Playhouse had regularly changing shows, just like the Lyric or any other local theatre.

[datadyne007]

...john made some really weird posts last night...

[JohnAKeith]

Is this about me?

...john made some really weird posts last night...

I looked back and I made about ten posts around 6:45pm last night. I guess I had a lot of energy?

I was going to blame the Ambien(R) but I don't take that until midnight or so. It's led me to do some things I don't remember ...

[statler]

Oh lord...

The 25 Funniest Autocorrects Of DYAC’s First Year (http://damnyouautocorrect.com/13603/the-25-funniest-autocorrects-of-dyacs-first-year/)

[JohnAKeith]

Okay, just drop everything and sit down for five minutes to watch this. It will blow your mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACkmg3Y64_s

[datadyne007]

I love it when they light the Pru up for certain social awareness days... Red tonight for World AIDS Day. It's great to see Boston Properties keep up with the social trends.

[statler]

Anyone else feel like they need to take a break from the internet every once in a while? Like you get too caught up in it?

I think I'm reaching that point...

[JohnAKeith]

^ I said that not more than 45 minutes ago. Easy to say, hard to do.

[Suffolk 83]

Go get some fresh air, losers.

[a630]

Guess this belongs in 'new development' - Curbed has (at last) started a Boston page "Curbed Boston: The Boston Neighborhoods and Real Estate Blog"

http://boston.curbed.com/

[BostonUrbEx]

Had to go to the ER last night, been really sick the past week (started the day before Thanksgiving). They diagnosed me with a sinus infection, double ear infection, and a chest infection. I slept for about 12 hours once I was home. My throat feels like I have strep. Soooo shitty.

[datadyne007]

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/05/9221540-cuts-to-first-class-mail-will-slow-deliveries-in-2012

Remember when we were discussing this?

From the article:
Unprecedented cuts by the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service will slow first-class delivery next spring and, for the first time in 40 years, eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day.

[Lurker]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gPm7iWo0Tg4

Any of you seeking a political career might need to acquire one of these.

[Ron Newman]

Do we know yet whether Fort Point is one of the mail processing centers they expect to close? Seems like a huge and busy place to just have go away.

[armpitsOFmight]

What's the name of those two white box buildings on the corner of Mass Ave and Huntington? Any chance those will be demolished in the future for something better?

[BostonUrbEx]

Had to go to the ER last night, been really sick the past week (started the day before Thanksgiving). They diagnosed me with a sinus infection, double ear infection, and a chest infection. I slept for about 12 hours once I was home. My throat feels like I have strep. Soooo shitty.

And now I have pneumonia. Ugh /facepalm

[datadyne007]

What's the name of those two white box buildings on the corner of Mass Ave and Huntington? Any chance those will be demolished in the future for something better?

Symphony Towers? No, they're here to stay.

[tobyjug]

They would go on my "most hated buildings" short list.

[Lurker]

Boston Architecture News Writer

Date: 2011-12-06, 3:38PM EST
Reply to: job-jgyah-2739388534@craigslist.org (job-jgyah-2739388534@craigslist.org?subject=Boston%20Archite cture%20News%20Writer&body=%0A%0Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fboston.craigslist.org%2Fgb s%2Fegr%2F2739388534.html%0A) [Errors when replying to ads? (http://www.craigslist.org/about/help/replying_to_posts)]
Multi-City urban planning and architecture online magazine needs students or new professionals in architecture, urban planning, public admin., or public relations to write weekly summaries of projects and events for magazine. Periodic attendance at planning commission, community group, or business district organization meetings encouraged but not required. Social media savvy a plus. Non-compensated but terrific opportunity to network, gain access and recognition in spare time in high exposure role. You will receive credits in website along side nationally known architects and planners. Additionally, our news contributors often receive press access to various events, which otherwise charge for entry. Applicants please write letter describing your interest, education, career path, and social media skills/aptitude. Resume optional but appreciated. Please identify the city for the ad to which you are responding.



Compensation: None but excellent exposure & networking
Telecommuting is ok.
This is a part-time job.
This is a contract job.
This is an internship job
OK to highlight this job opening for persons with disabilities
Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
Please, no phone calls about this job!
Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.






PostingID: 2739388534

[Pierce]

Boston Architecture News Writer


So they'll help a social media guru to network? And also to gain access to public meetings? All in exchange for actual work? Where do I sign up?!?!

[statler]

Just saw this on Twitter:

Did you hear there's a libertarian version of Kickstarter? Same idea, but when you get the money, you don't admit anyone helped you.

[Lurker]

That's part of the Steve Jobs/Bill Gates school of copying other peoples' technology and repackaging it with slicker marketing or subterfuge.

[BostonUrbEx]

shields_up: So just like most Kickstarters in practice?

[vanshnookenraggen]

Anyone else step back and realize the good amount of development going on in Boston in these shitty economic times? Very impressive and a good sign that so many people out there see a future in this city.

[/random]

[statler]

You've come to the wrong place. This here site is for complaining and grumbling only.

Take yer hippy-dippy love-fest shit elsewhere.

[datadyne007]

Anyone else step back and realize the good amount of development going on in Boston in these shitty economic times? Very impressive and a good sign that so many people out there see a future in this city.

[/random]

Boston didn't suffer that much during the entire thing. Our unemployment rates are consistently well below average and there weren't that many construction projects actually lost due to the recession here either. It was all due to corruption from developers and the local government. We're a biotech and knowledge powerhouse and that is where the money is and that is where we are seeing a lot of development. It's also great that Liberty Mutual has finally decided to up their HQ size with the new tower as well. There are (and have been) so many things going for this city. Development is exploding all over the place. We can only hope that the Copley Place tower has broken the ice for the future development of 500+ footers.

[JohnAKeith]

Traffic fatalities are down to an all-time low in New York City, lowest since records were first kept, in 1910.

A hundred years ago, accidents were caused by horses, streetcars, and automobiles. Children playing in the street were a major cause of fatalities.

On one tragic day in May, a Brooklyn lawyer was arrested for hitting a 16-year-old. The boy was fine, and the lawyer offered to drive him home, but during that ride he struck and killed a 6-year-old girl playing with other children in the streets. The lawyer was arrested again and this time charged with homicide.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2011/12/evolution-traffic-fatalities-new-york/741/

[Lurker]

Dear Leader in North Korea has died.

If you want any idea of how crazy events could get in the following months, enjoy this bit of history:
http://rokdrop.com/2008/12/30/dmz-flashpoints-the-blue-house-raid/

This one is actually a bit more humorous in a dark way:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2003/apr/04/artsfeatures1

[kz1000ps]

Have people been reading Curbed Boston? I visited a couple times when it first dropped but haven't been back, turned off by what I thought was the overly cutesy/trying-too-hard tone of the main writer. Also, being a regular reader of Curbed LA and NY, I must say the news coming out of Boston seemed a bit dull by comparison.

So have you guys warmed up to it? Should I give it a second chance?

[vanshnookenraggen]

I follow it on my RSS feed but only read what grabs me so I guess I haven't noticed the writing style. It's that whole snarky Gawker writing style that is far too prevalent online these days. It's a good idea for a site but they have to have the content to back it up and a lot of the business model for the Curbed network is advertising homes/apartments. Reading it on an RSS reader blocks all that out (Google Reader 4 lyfe).

A lot of it, for me anyway, is how I consume my news. I've always come here for Boston related arch/urban news but I preferred Curbed over Wired NY (not really sure why?).

[statler]

CNN: Times are changing in the early 'all-alike' suburb Levittown (http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/20/times-are-changing-in-levittown-the-first-u-s-suburb/?hpt=hp_bn2)

The saddest quote:

Right from the start, Dwyer was weirded out by the sameness of Levittown.

"I was not impressed, frankly," she said. "I said, 'Oh, they're all alike. Look at 'em!' And we were just going to go in the middle of the all-alike place?

"But you settled in slowly, and then it became my life."

[Ron Newman]

The word "suburb" didn't even exist back then, in the late '40s and early '50s.

What? The word appears in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Also in Measure For Measure. And Twelfth Night.

[statler]

Hyperbole?

[Ron Newman]

In the comments of that article, someone points out that the Chevy Suburban station wagon dates back to the 1930s.

[Lurker]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sftuxbvGwiU

Prequel to the first American movie I saw fresh off the boat.

[palindrome]

Have people been reading Curbed Boston? I visited a couple times when it first dropped but haven't been back, turned off by what I thought was the overly cutesy/trying-too-hard tone of the main writer. Also, being a regular reader of Curbed LA and NY, I must say the news coming out of Boston seemed a bit dull by comparison.

So have you guys warmed up to it? Should I give it a second chance?

I was turned off when they kept saying 500 Atlantic ave was part of downtown crossing.

[JohnAKeith]

I was hopeful that I'd be given the gig to write Boston Curbed but was never approached. The trouble with Boston is, there isn't a hell of a lot of news that comes out and new developments are few and far between. NY, LA, and SF are large enough to warrant daily updates. Curbed includes news about metro Boston, too, which helps build out the pages but is of limited interest to those of us interested only in Boston-Cambridge development.

Boston Curbed is written by someone locally, but not someone who lives in Boston, from what I gather, and by someone who hasn't lived here full-time for the past several years. Without a base of knowledge, it's hard to provide a worthy read, and, as you point out, harder still to be snarky. Snarky is built on the "We know better than everyone else" model.

I have it on my Twitter feed and I have found over the past week to ten days that I've clicked through more than once a day, which is a good sign. Mostly, however, they retread stories you find elsewhere in the Boston-news sphere. Read Universal Hub, this board, Boston.com and the BRA news feed and you're pretty much up to date.

[vanshnookenraggen]

The Curbed network is basically just an aggregate with snarky coments. It's a good way to have all the news you need in one place but if you have options then it isn't that necessary.

I actually applied to write for Curbed NY but didn't hear back after sending in some samples.

[Lurker]

Demographic doom as a consequence of economic and social policy.


http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/12/27/if-tomorrow-comes/


If Tomorrow Comes (http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/12/27/if-tomorrow-comes/)

December 27, 2011 - 2:08 am - by Richard Fernandez (http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/bio/)

(http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,805075,00.html)
Der Spiegel (http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,805075,00.html) tells the story of a man who sells of pews and furniture from dying churches. And he is doing a land-office business. “Some 4,400 church buildings remain in the Netherlands. But each week, around two close their doors forever. This mainly affects the Catholics, who will be forced to offload half of their churches in the coming years. ‘And that’s just the beginning,’ says de Beyer.”
For years the number of faithful has been declining. The trend has swept across all of Western Europe, with churches forced to close in France and Belgium too. But in the Netherlands, Christianity’s retreat from society has been particularly drastic. The Protestant Church alone loses some 60,000 members each year. At this rate, it will cease to exist there by 2050, church officials say.

de Beyer thinks of himself as a rescuer of temples. He wants to preserve their value. His instructions are meant to help distinguish between the valuable and the worthless. He often personally shows up to the churches to provide guidance and support. Pews and Bibles are usually sold to members of the congregation.
“Altars often find new places in Eastern Europe,” says de Beyer. “There’s a big demand there because new churches are always being built.”
But it isn’t just the churches that are dying. Mark Steyn (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/286634/elisabeth-s-barrenness-and-ours-mark-steyn) writes that Europe itself is racing its old churches to the graveyard. It isn’t just the churches that boarding up the windows. It’s the factories, the schools and the families.
The problem with the advanced West is not that it’s broke but that it’s old and barren. Which explains why it’s broke. Take Greece, which has now become the most convenient shorthand for sovereign insolvency — “America’s heading for the same fate as Greece if we don’t change course,” etc. So Greece has a spending problem, a revenue problem, something along those lines, right? At a superficial level, yes. But the underlying issue is more primal: It has one of the lowest fertility rates on the planet. In Greece, 100 grandparents have 42 grandchildren — i.e., the family tree is upside down. In a social-democratic state where workers in “hazardous” professions (such as, er, hairdressing) retire at 50, there aren’t enough young people around to pay for your three-decade retirement. And there are unlikely ever to be again.
The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/magazine/29Birth-t.html?pagewanted=all) featured the town of Laviano in Italy. Only half its houses were occupied. But any closures of its churches were the least of its problems. It’s problem was even worse: it didn’t have enough kids to keep the schools open. The newly elected mayor “racked his brain and came up with a desperate idea: pay women to have babies.”
Laviano is not unique in Italy, or in Europe. In fact, it may be a harbinger. In the 1990s, European demographers began noticing a downward trend in population across the Continent and behind it a sharply falling birthrate. …
For the first time on record, birthrates in southern and Eastern Europe had dropped below 1.3. For the demographers, this number had a special mathematical portent. At that rate, a country’s population would be cut in half in 45 years, creating a falling-off-a-cliff effect from which it would be nearly impossible to recover. Kohler and his colleagues invented an ominous new term for the phenomenon: “lowest-low fertility.”
What happened? The problem as Steyn succinctly puts it, is that socialism not only “runs out of other people’s money”, as Margaret Thatcher once put it. It simply runs out of people. Future historians, if there are any left, will puzzle over how this came about. The economists will have an easier time explaining it. Through some process, socialism has apparently increased the discount rate to the point where the future is consumed for the sake of the present. Not only is investment taxed to feed consumption, tomorrow is hocked to pay for today.
If the fiscal deficit is the direct monetary expression of this high discount rate, the collapsing population is its equivalent demographic expression. Both are saying the same thing, in different terms. In incentives terms, the future is no longer real; so people don’t save up for it nor do they have any incentive to sacrifice for it.
Steyn points out that one feeds into the other. By failing to provide for the next generation to feed present consumption, the present West has also reduced its capacity to service the debt when tomorrow rolls around.
As Angela Merkel pointed out in 2009, for Germany an Obama-sized stimulus was out of the question simply because its foreign creditors know there are not enough young Germans around ever to repay it. The Continent’s economic “powerhouse” has the highest proportion of childless women in Europe: One in three fräulein have checked out of the motherhood business entirely. “Germany’s working-age population is likely to decrease 30 percent over the next few decades,” says Steffen Kröhnert of the Berlin Institute for Population Development. “Rural areas will see a massive population decline and some villages will simply disappear.”
If the problem with socialism is, as Mrs. Thatcher says, that eventually you run out of other people’s money, much of the West has advanced to the next stage: It’s run out of other people, period. Greece is a land of ever fewer customers and fewer workers but ever more retirees and more government.
Ironically this outcome was baked into socialism from the beginning. It was suspicious of “tomorrow”– that place where the worker would enjoy his benefits — and preferred to consume things today. The most hated tomorrow in socialist opinion was the Christian heaven. It was the “opiate of the people”; the object to which they lifted their eyes the better not to see the miseries of the present. The sooner man was rid of heaven and its earthly equivalents, the nation or the country, the better the new man would be. As John Lennon knew, the best way to understand socialism is to imagine a world without tomorrow.
Imagine there’s no heaven.
It’s easy if you try.
No hell below us, above us only sky.
Imagine all the people living for today.
And that is precisely what the welfare state consisted of. Living for today. Social security is a perfect example. It was never a “fund”; it was never anything more than a payroll tax moving money from young workers to old workers. For it while it seemed to work, but only because the West was running on the legacy of a generation that believed in tomorrow and had sacrificed its life and youth in World War 2 to secure it. The “living for today” lifestyle resulted in the spectacular party some may remember at the end of the 20th century: an era that valued unlimited sex, unlimited welfare, and sacrifice for God and country not at all.
Imagine there’s no countries.
It isn’t hard to do.
Nothing to kill or die for.
And no religion too.
And then the music stopped. This was the silent scene where we came in at the beginning of the screening: the churches closing at the rate of two a week; the factories closing even faster. What Lennon failed to grasp was that any society that had nothing it would sacrifice for would find nothing worth investing in. And so here we are, dragging on the end of our smokes, tipping over any bottles that still might contain some wine. Because the vineyards are barren and will stay that way. The ultimate problem with “living for today” is that tomorrow eventually comes.

[choo]

Interesting, although I do not agree with the conclusion, as i think it shows more a slight correlation rather than a causation. In the advanced world, the price of future opportunity and success is extremely high. Go to schooling through college to advanced degree programs means people are at entry level jobs at 23-28 and need more time to build professional credentials then when they could be 17/18 and go to the mill and earn good middle class wages for 10 years. now that 10 years of solid middle class income is gone, so people are starting families later. Additionally, women have ever more opportunity to grow their own careers. A women doesn't need to get married by her mid-20s to ensure her economic security, she has much more self determinism than just 30 years ago. You see the same thing happening in the United States.

The arguments that the social security or welfare assistance is the fundamental cause of the declining birth rate is too far removed. I'm 25, take out my social security taxes (and all of them) and I am still not planning on having a kid until I am in my mid-30s. Also, from the limited perspective I have, I would think having a child in Western Europe to be much easier a task then in the US. The US seems to have very little in the way of mandated parental leave with job protection, early child schooling and day care support, and healthcare, and college is much more greatly subsidized. In Europe, many of these are built into the systems, so people are paying for it whether they have kids or not. So with the barriers to entry being lower, I would say given the economic choice, I would be much more likely to have more kids sooner in say France, than I am in the US.

My thoughts (certainly not set in stone on this topic), I'd be interested to hear how some others (esp. those with children) think of this.

[Lurker]

My Western European friends have had fewer children on the basis that children are very expensive and taxes are very high. They'd rather have fewer or no children and be free to spend what disposable income they have after taxes enjoying their long vacations. The thought process, as critiqued in this article, is about enjoying the present and not really thinking of the effects on the future.

When asked who will take care of them when they get older, they always assume the state will be there as it is now. When asked who will be around to pay the taxes to maintain that state since there are fewer and fewer children, they just shrug and assume immigrants will. When it's pointed out most of the immigrants to Western Europe don't particularly like the native culture or have high wage jobs, such that there won't be much of a tax base or future political climate too keen on expensively supporting old disliked westerners, they think briefly and quickly change the subject.

The next few decades in Western Europe aren't going to be pleasant. I really hope Central and Eastern Europe can counterbalance the sick old men in the west. I'm quite worried they will be too preoccupied dealing with the sick old man in the East to be of much help.

[choo]

I agree that disposible income is an issue and in Europe the higher tax rates can be an inhibitor, but the same think is going on with the upper middle class in the US. But taxes on this segment have been in decline since the 50s and 60s and many reviews showed taxes on those groups are near all time lows, and the declining birth rate has seemingly mirrored this decline in taxes. That's why I think its more a correalation, and am inclined to think things like the growth of career opportunity for women and the need for more advanced degrees across the board are more the cause for this. In the US, we have a more robust immigration model to compensate for the declining birthrates, so the impacts are less severe than Europes, where most countries treat immigrants as second class citizens more so than places in the US.

[TheRifleman]

"disposible income" the key to financial freedom

[Lurker]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGd_yw-KZgo&feature=player_embedded#!

I think Mr. Newman will enjoy this.

[JohnAKeith]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdpf-MQM9vY

[datadyne007]

While we're talking about speedy construction... Came across this today - documentary about the construction of Marina City in Chicago!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8436878713861094352

[vanshnookenraggen]

Welcome to the future.

[datadyne007]

Welcome to the future.

Yeah, it was pretty cool how the MEP, floor tile, and ceiling were all on the trusses! The building literally just snapped together!

[BostonObserver]

This is the house Romney gave up tp live in his son's unfinished cellar:

http://boston.curbed.com/archives/2012/01/mitt-romneys-hub-home-285-fewer-bathrooms-than-the-white-house.php

can you blame him?

[JohnAKeith]

Why don't people shrink their photos before posting them on this board?

[palindrome]

I hate this building.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=holiday+inn+beacon+st+brookline&hl=en&ll=42.343875,-71.115414&spn=0.00479,0.009645&client=firefox-a&hq=holiday+inn&hnear=Beacon+St,+Brookline,+Norfolk,+Massachusetts +02446&t=h&vpsrc=6&fll=42.343526,-71.117849&fspn=0.00479,0.009645&z=17&layer=c&cbll=42.343909,-71.115275&panoid=e2bv-d6HSO4TAGecB51iHQ&cbp=12,287.88,,0,4.3

[TheRifleman]

I hate this building.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=holiday+inn+beacon+st+brookline&hl=en&ll=42.343875,-71.115414&spn=0.00479,0.009645&client=firefox-a&hq=holiday+inn&hnear=Beacon+St,+Brookline,+Norfolk,+Massachusetts +02446&t=h&vpsrc=6&fll=42.343526,-71.117849&fspn=0.00479,0.009645&z=17&layer=c&cbll=42.343909,-71.115275&panoid=e2bv-d6HSO4TAGecB51iHQ&cbp=12,287.88,,0,4.3


+1

[AdamBC]

I hate this building.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=holiday+inn+beacon+st+brookline&hl=en&ll=42.343875,-71.115414&spn=0.00479,0.009645&client=firefox-a&hq=holiday+inn&hnear=Beacon+St,+Brookline,+Norfolk,+Massachusetts +02446&t=h&vpsrc=6&fll=42.343526,-71.117849&fspn=0.00479,0.009645&z=17&layer=c&cbll=42.343909,-71.115275&panoid=e2bv-d6HSO4TAGecB51iHQ&cbp=12,287.88,,0,4.3

That part is utter crap.

Why can't it be as good as what is at the other end of the hotel?

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=holiday+inn+beacon+st+brookline&hl=en&ll=42.343439,-71.117045&spn=0.005535,0.008712&client=firefox-a&hq=holiday+inn&hnear=Beacon+St,+Brookline,+Norfolk,+Massachusetts +02446&t=h&vpsrc=0&fll=42.343526,-71.117849&fspn=0.00479,0.009645&layer=c&cbll=42.343461,-71.116958&panoid=JrMGM-dZmIWA-0BWnLvPwQ&cbp=12,31.02,,0,-6.76&z=17

[Beton Brut]

That hotel is one of the great architectural mysteries in Greater Boston. Who the hell designed it?

I agree that its Beacon Street facade is absolutely deadening, but I still find it...interesting? There are architectural gestures that call to mind three disparate Frank Lloyd Wright buildings:


The A. D. German Warehouse in Richland Center, WI (http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/wisconsin/richlandcenter/wrightwarehouse/warehouse.html);
The Richard Lloyd Jones Residence in Tulsa, OK (http://www.steinerag.com/flw/Artifact%20Pages/RLJones1985.htm);
Fallingwater (http://www.cambridge2000.com/gallery/html/P9098901e.html).


(Perhaps you'll see what I see, perhaps you'll think I've been huffing paint.)

I'll confess to having the same complicated relationship with the often-reviled Midtown Hotel (http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/74/3c/eb/boston.jpg). From an urbanistic standpoint, I hate it with the heat of a thousand suns. Architecturally, removed from its context, it's an interesting example of Midcentury Modernism. The white masonry and flat roofs remind me of Edward Durell Stone masterful Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula (http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/bts/archives/healthcare/08_MontereyHospital/images/thumb.jpg), recently restored and expanded by HOK (2008 ArchRecord story here (http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/bts/archives/healthcare/08_MontereyHospital/)).

[kz1000ps]

My band's new video dropped today, and while I usually try not to spam aB with our stuff, I think you guys will like this -- Boston, the Fort Point wharehouses and Atlantic Wharf are practically central characters to the story...check it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YHOZ9ehPe4

Shooting happened back in early October (the shadow of the Occupy protests loomed large), and it was tons of fun taking over that parking lot across from the post office annex and having a helicopter fly all around us!

[datadyne007]

^ Love all the Boston imagery (and the fare gate chime cameo at the beginning)! The Fort Point urbex is pretty damn cool.

On the topic of Boston in music videos are there any other music videos that feature Boston?

[BostonUrbEx]

I usually try not to spam aB with our stuff

Please do! I don't always get the updates right on my FaceBook feed, and don't often go to the page to check what's up.


Awesome video! How'd you get all those people to the parking lot?! lol.

[Beton Brut]

Nice work kz. Chorus reminded me a bit of Elbow.

On the topic of Boston in music videos are there any other music videos that feature Boston?


Ol' School:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9fZlNbyLVU

[choo]

What are peoples thought on the recent developments, do i say turnaround, at the ashmont T stop/peabody square. Seems to be a fair amount of new development going on. Is it an up and comer or still really iffy? I ask because I am contemplating moving tothe area.

[Shepard]

That hotel is one of the great architectural mysteries in Greater Boston. Who the hell designed it?

I agree that its Beacon Street facade is absolutely deadening, but I still find it...interesting? There are architectural gestures that call to mind three disparate Frank Lloyd Wright buildings:


The A. D. German Warehouse in Richland Center, WI (http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/wisconsin/richlandcenter/wrightwarehouse/warehouse.html);
The Richard Lloyd Jones Residence in Tulsa, OK (http://www.steinerag.com/flw/Artifact%20Pages/RLJones1985.htm);
Fallingwater (http://www.cambridge2000.com/gallery/html/P9098901e.html).


(Perhaps you'll see what I see, perhaps you'll think I've been huffing paint.)

I'll confess to having the same complicated relationship with the often-reviled Midtown Hotel (http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/74/3c/eb/boston.jpg). From an urbanistic standpoint, I hate it with the heat of a thousand suns. Architecturally, removed from its context, it's an interesting example of Midcentury Modernism. The white masonry and flat roofs remind me of Edward Durell Stone masterful Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula (http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/bts/archives/healthcare/08_MontereyHospital/images/thumb.jpg), recently restored and expanded by HOK (2008 ArchRecord story here (http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/bts/archives/healthcare/08_MontereyHospital/)).

I confess some love, with reservations, for this building as well. Actually, I think the low-rise landscraping backside is far more interesting than the high(ish)-rise cruditecture St Paul street front. The Beacon Street wall is repetitive and certainly lacks for street-engaging activity. However, this isn't your typical blank wall. Large curtains of glass facing the street allow passersby to see right into a hallway onto which guestroom doors face. Walking past it there's often activity to see - doors opening and closing, families trudging through the hallway. It's an engaging interplay between intimate and public space.

[Beton Brut]

I didn't expect anyone to reply to this one, Shep -- thanks!

Am I out of my tits about the design elements lifted from Wright?

[datadyne007]

I didn't expect anyone to reply to this one, Shep -- thanks!

Am I out of my tits about the design elements lifted from Wright?

No, not at all. I have felt the very same way in regards to the Wright-inspired elements. The emphasis of the horizontal is extremely prominent and the Japanese detailing blends directly with Wright.

[JohnAKeith]

Dogmatics. Thayer Street, South End, Boston.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_QakUvlcgM

[statler]

Back Bay Polka - George and Ira Gershwin

Therefore, when all is said

Life is so limited.

You find, unless you're dead,

You never get ahead in Boston.

[statler]

Eh.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am2QPRwzalQ

[datadyne007]

http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/296411_259927584049082_203742949667546_688992_6333 53283_n.jpg

[statler]

Nice.

[JohnAKeith]

Dudes. Where is everyone?

[datadyne007]

Honestly it's safe to say that there are probably as many Dunkin Donuts in Berlin as there are in Boston, take a few (but not many).

Also, living in East Berlin is legit just like living in Soviet Germany/Russia. This is awesome. It was snowing like mad last night and like -6C and I felt like I was in a vintage 60s movie set in Soviet Russia. The urban fabric and condition is just fascinating, especially around here. You walk down the street and there are still bombed buildings and piles of rubble just... there.

[blade_bltz]

Dudes. Where is everyone?

I suspect most folks have finally had it with...certain elements on this board.

[vanshnookenraggen]

That and I suspect many of the people who would be reading this site (i.e. architects) are so dirt poor they had to cancel their internet and are left to bum wifi at Starbucks.

[BostonUrbEx]

Alien abductions.

[kz1000ps]

I've cut back on my aB visiting to about twice a week instead of once a day. There just isn't that much architectural going on here, and I don't give a shit about the political "discussions" that have been popping up like weeds everywhere.

[kmp1284]

More stoogery from the Globe -

http://www.boston.com/business/gallery/newbury_street_now_and_then?pg=7

The 'remodeled' side of the building collapsed after a major fire killing ten or so firefighters. Are they that oblivious to Boston history that this was just 'a bit of remodeling'?

[JohnAKeith]

Funny you should mention that (not that it is funny) but I also noticed that the pictorial seemed a bit light on history. I didn't know about that fire - wait, that was part of the Vendome? Didn't know. But, yeah, you can't mention that parking lot without mentioning the mural on that wall, either.

And to say that "339 Newbury was an independent bookstore" without mentioning it was Avenue Victor Hugo is just cruel.

(Also, what was the address on Newbury where Gund Associates was located - isn't that where it was?)

[Shepard]

I like this
http://www.boston.com/business/gallery/newbury_street_now_and_then?pg=10
And wish that similar transformations were viable around more parts of brownstone Boston/Brookline/Cambridge

[tobyjug]

Great post. Thanks!

But the caption writer is a chump... corner of Dartmouth and Newbury and reference to a "little bit of remodeling" on the building on the background. Yeah. A little bit of remodelling. Tell it to the firefighters' families.

[Lurker]

I suspect most folks have finally had it with...certain elements on this board.

Oh I'm not that bad.....am I?

The lack of construction updates, new proposals, and photographs has likely led to the board's decline over the past two years. The recent rash of new proposals and construction starts will probably reverse that trend over the course of the next few months.

[blade_bltz]

Hah. It's not you...it's the legion of watered-down and (ultra)-high volume posting wannabes that have come out of the woodwork to fill the activity vacuum you mentioned.

[kz1000ps]

So.................who's gonna win tonight?

Will our offense set Indy on fire, or will the New York Football Giants' front four disrupt Brady's rhythm?

Either way, I reeeeeeally hope we get to see Elisha's stinkface:

http://2.media.sportspickle.cvcdn.com/70/36/932c4c13f35ee0eb3242e5be5414a809.jpg

Eli Manning: making panties moist since never.

[datadyne007]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXv0mD6N3Kc

My childhood and probably a lot of yours too.

"Ga-head!"

[statler]

Lurker -

I really like your avatar. What is it from?

[GW2500]

My predictions, either it's close and you can basically flip a coin, or Pats come out firing on all cylinders and win with a little pad. One things for certain, Brady is a human just like me and you. He wants to beat the team that ruined his claim to the best team in NFL history more than anything else.

[Lurker]

Lurker -

I really like your avatar. What is it from?

http://shop.theoatmeal.com/collections/frontpage/products/bobcats-print

[tobyjug]

My predictions, either it's close and you can basically flip a coin, or Pats come out firing on all cylinders and win with a little pad. One things for certain, Brady is a human just like me and you. He wants to beat the team that ruined his claim to the best team in NFL history more than anything else.

Hoodie and the blowfish

[czsz]

Boston's unfortunate strain of small-minded provinciality reaches a new low? People can't believe a "major metropolitan city" would do something like this...

You read that right: Boston, a major metropolitan city, altered its streetscape to reflect the fact that “The Town Take 2” – an extended cut featuring a darker ending and a “beefier romance” between bank robber Affleck and kidnapped bank manager Rebecca Hall – will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 6 as part of The Town: Ultimate Collector's Edition.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/02/dvd-release-directors-cut-ben-afflecks-town-gets-its-own-boston-street/1176/

[statler]

Oh, hey.

I just noticed we have over 1000 members now!

Congrats Briv!

[datadyne007]

"Bradying" has become the new "Tebowing"

http://www.bradying.com

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lz3vg8K3V61r5f6w5o1_500.jpg

The trend has gone global.

[briv]

Oh, hey.

I just noticed we have over 1000 members now!

Congrats Briv!

Almost. There's usually a backlog of spammers waiting to be deleted so the number of members listed runs as high as a dozen or more above than it actually is. After the latest round of spammer deletions the official number is 996. We're close :)

[statler]

Damn!

[JohnAKeith]

Uh. My Jimbo Jones and I Am Angry accounts can be deleted ...

[bolehboleh]

I'm not sure where to put this but I thought this in here...

In my real life, I work part time booking guests for a weekend radio show here in Boston. So many of you have so much knowledge about development going on around Boston. I was wondering if anyone might like to be a guest on our show to discuss recent development in Boston, and maybe dish a little gossip on the ongoing conflicts between Menino and some local developers (and BRA).

If you're interested, please send me a private message so we can exchange emails addresses and maybe phone numbers.

Thank you,

Bolehboleh

[kz1000ps]

Uh. My Jimbo Jones and I Am Angry accounts can be deleted ...

Whoa, I knew about Jimbo Jones, but I never knew you were also IMAngry. It all makes sense now!

[BostonUrbEx]

I'm not sure where to put this but I thought this in here...

In my real life, I work part time booking guests for a weekend radio show here in Boston. So many of you have so much knowledge about development going on around Boston. I was wondering if anyone might like to be a guest on our show to discuss recent development in Boston, and maybe dish a little gossip on the ongoing conflicts between Menino and some local developers (and BRA).

If you're interested, please send me a private message so we can exchange emails addresses and maybe phone numbers.

Thank you,

Bolehboleh

Oh, oh! JohnAKeith?

[bostonbred]

IAM volunsterr for RADIOMAn.

[BostonUrbEx]

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=42.356548,-71.085306&spn=0.001903,0.00284&t=h&z=19

Happy 4th.

[JohnAKeith]

Happy Valentine's Day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_gOSybb_NY

[BostonUrbEx]

https://p.twimg.com/Al1G3YGCIAA3F4n.png:large

[statler]

Niiiice...

I wonder if there is an architect one.

[vanshnookenraggen]

I made this one
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/426522_908526688334_26309738_38773056_168634316_n. jpg

[datadyne007]

Niiiice...

I wonder if there is an architect one.

There's a million. Pretty much all of them end with "What I really do" as AutoCAD blocks of bathroom fixtures.

Exhibit A:
http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/423507_297424980311090_219802078073381_751316_1921 793304_n.jpg

[BostonUrbEx]

Has anyone seen any for urban planners?

I tried searching for ones of urban planners and architects, but I couldn't find any for either.

[datadyne007]

Has anyone seen any for urban planners?

I tried searching for ones of urban planners and architects, but I couldn't find any for either.
I edited one in my post, but it took me a while because I can't figure out how the symbols work on this Spanish keyboard.

[czsz]

Boston named #3 best student city in the world, beat only by Paris and London:

http://www.topuniversities.com/student-life/best-student-cities/2012/

Beyond the boundaries of this survey -- as someone who went to college in NYC and grad school in Boston, I never got the enthusiasm for Boston as college town (yeah, there are a lot of students here relative to the general population, but that doesn't automatically a great college town make -- the nightlife is just too timid for one). Maybe it's just that I did everything in the wrong order.

[BostonUrbEx]

Does the "For the first time in generations, home ownership in America is being threatened..." commercial bother anyone else? It annoys me every time.

For one, generations? What, our parents and our grandparents?

Two, threatened? What, afraid the new generations won't be conned into going into debt for your lump of bricks and timber for an overvalued $500k in the middle of goddamn nowhere?

Sheesh...

[Commuting Boston Student]

Beyond the boundaries of this survey -- as someone who went to college in NYC and grad school in Boston, I never got the enthusiasm for Boston as college town (yeah, there are a lot of students here relative to the general population, but that doesn't automatically a great college town make -- the nightlife is just too timid for one). Maybe it's just that I did everything in the wrong order.

Maybe I'm doing college wrong, but I feel like the 'timid' nightlife would be a bonus if I actually chose/could afford to become Residential Boston Student instead.

I just don't see the appeal in WILD AND CRAZY PARTY!!! night after night after night. Sometimes you just want a low-key gathering, nice and relaxed and quiet.

Or am I totally misunderstanding what you're getting at with 'timid nightlife'?

Does the "For the first time in generations, home ownership in America is being threatened..." commercial bother anyone else? It annoys me every time.

For one, generations? What, our parents and our grandparents?

Two, threatened? What, afraid the new generations won't be conned into going into debt for your lump of bricks and timber for an overvalued $500k in the middle of goddamn nowhere?

Sheesh...

I did some digging and I guess that ad is actually blatant political scaremongering (http://blogs.bostonmagazine.com/boston_daily/2012/01/26/is-the-dream-of-homeownership-being-threatened/)? It annoys me, but for a much different reason than what I think you're trying to get at. I'd definitely like to own a home some day.

Just, not one anywhere near a city. A nice, quiet place in the woods, like the home I grew up in. That, or a vacation/summer home.

[datadyne007]

Boston named #3 best student city in the world, beat only by Paris and London:

http://www.topuniversities.com/student-life/best-student-cities/2012/

Beyond the boundaries of this survey -- as someone who went to college in NYC and grad school in Boston, I never got the enthusiasm for Boston as college town (yeah, there are a lot of students here relative to the general population, but that doesn't automatically a great college town make -- the nightlife is just too timid for one). Maybe it's just that I did everything in the wrong order.

Calling the nightlife "timid" is being very generous. "Non-existent" and "pathetic" are better words to describe Boston's nightlife. (I'm not talking about house parties, I'm talking about public social venues)

[Ron Newman]

Really? Seems to me we have a pretty good selection of live-music clubs.

[czsz]

Maybe I'm doing college wrong, but I feel like the 'timid' nightlife would be a bonus if I actually chose/could afford to become Residential Boston Student instead.

I just don't see the appeal in WILD AND CRAZY PARTY!!! night after night after night. Sometimes you just want a low-key gathering, nice and relaxed and quiet.

Or am I totally misunderstanding what you're getting at with 'timid nightlife'?

I'm all for low-key gatherings. Nightlife is about more than partying, though. It's about being able to have those gatherings at 3am, if you so choose, or places to grab a snack when working on a term paper around the same time. About round the clock food delivery and enough people walking the streets late at night to make them feel reasonably safe.

My jaw dropped in disbelief when I first started grad school here that the only 24hr option for anything in Harvard Square was the CVS - one former Harvard undergrad told me people "stocked up on candy" there for all nighters. Given the size of the potential market of overachieving students craving food at the time, it was completely unbelievable. The new 24hr market in the square is a huge improvement, but much of the rest of the city could use a similar set of amenities, and Harvard Square (and other parts of the metro near universities and colleges) could use more. I mean, 24hr pharmacies are a feature of strip malls in suburbia now; why not in every Boston square?

And for god's sake, let the T run just a couple hours longer. Not just for party people, but for late-shift janitors, labworkers who need to run a continuous experiment past 1am, etc. You know, the Night Owl buses weren't heavily used, but they might have made a great down payment on Boston's ability to retain college grads.

There was an op-ed in the Globe today noting just how limited Boston's "innovation economy" was by the fact that the city shuts down so early:

We need a 24/7 city

By J. Alain Ferry

START-UP ENTREPRENEURS don’t work from 9 to 5. We don’t drive to the office. We don’t cook dinner. And we don’t make tons of money. We sell our cars, operate out of our apartments, and hold meetings in coffee shops.

Even when we start in Boston and want to stay in Boston, Silicon Valley lures us away with its friendly investors and sunny weather, or New York calls to us with its non-stop action and center-of-the-universe vibe. We need to make Boston a city that never sleeps, instead of a city that chases us out of coffee shops at 7 p.m. We need creative ways to keep innovators and change agents here. Make Boston a 24-hour city, and you will make Boston more difficult to leave.

Better mobility: Bike lanes help, but only while the weather is good, typically from April to November. Expand MBTA hours to 3 a.m. so entrepreneurs can take advantage of 24-hour offices. Many start-ups crank out work at night; coders should not have to sprint to catch the T at 11:45 p.m.

More inexpensive and late-night food: Much of Boston’s start-up community is clustered near Kendall Square and South Station, yet most of Boston’s late-night dining options are clustered near its universities. We need more restaurants that are affordable to entrepreneurs on student budgets and we need them open until at least midnight.

Startup entertainment: Entrepreneurs work hard and play hard; entertaining adrenaline junkies is no small task. Bring more live music into the nerd neighborhoods. Make sports tickets more attainable. Plan geek weekends in the mountains and on the Cape. Organize group bike rides and kickball leagues and running clubs.

Living/working spaces: Entrepreneurs work 12 or more hours per day and want nothing more than a bed, fridge, and bathroom when they go home. Build innovative live/work spaces and make working out of living rooms less dismal. And make them pet-friendly; every start-up needs a four-legged mascot.

J. Alain Ferry is the founder and CEO of RaceMenu.

[Commuting Boston Student]

My jaw dropped in disbelief when I first started grad school here that the only 24hr option for anything in Harvard Square was the CVS - one former Harvard undergrad told me people "stocked up on candy" there for all nighters. Given the size of the potential market of overachieving students craving food at the time, it was completely unbelievable. The new 24hr market in the square is a huge improvement, but much of the rest of the city could use a similar set of amenities, and Harvard Square (and other parts of the metro near universities and colleges) could use more. I mean, 24hr pharmacies are a feature of strip malls in suburbia now; why not in every Boston square?

And for god's sake, let the T run just a couple hours longer. Not just for party people, but for late-shift janitors, labworkers who need to run a continuous experiment past 1am, etc. You know, the Night Owl buses weren't heavily used, but they might have made a great down payment on Boston's ability to retain college grads.

Ah, that makes much more sense.

Yeah, the T shutting down at the time that it does is ridiculous. Even running 5 am - 3 am would be a huge improvement if they weren't inclined to go to a full 24-hour service.

[Lrfox]

As far as partying (bars, clubs, etc) goes, I still can't jump on the "Boston's nightlife is terrible!" bandwagon. Is it NYC, Miami, Vegas or LA? No. But it's a little ridiculous to expect it to be. Boston's not a huge city. It doesn't excel in all areas of nightlife. I always cringe when I hear someone decry Boston's nightlife as "awful" because the city doesn't have the volume of some oddly-specific or alternative type of nightlife venue (i.e. clubs where everyone hops on one foot while listening to swing music).

It's also annoying when people are bothered by the fact that Boston doesn't have enough venues containing certain types of nightlife that are more or less regionally specific. I mostly hear this with Jazz/Blues bars. I've also heard people whine about Boston "lacking" in the country bar department (*gags*) or (not nightlife related) Southern cuisine. Well, of course Boston lacks in Southern Cuisine. And of course it doesn't have Jazz clubs on par with New Orleans or Blues bars on par with Chicago. I guess I just don't know why anyone would expect Boston to have such a diversified array of nightlife options. It has some of each and excels in certain aspects. I'm not sure what standard everyone's holding Boston's nightlife too, but I don't think it's fair. Outside of Vegas, NYC, Miami and LA, I haven't been to too many places in the US that are much better. San Francisco's nightlife isn't exactly leaps and bounds better than Boston (I found it to be less enjoyable, actually. Last call is 2am there too). Dallas, Atlanta, Philly, and even DC didn't exactly have me wowed either.

Now, I WILL agree that Boston does leave a little to be desired in the general late night activities department. There aren't enough places serving food late or open for late night shopping. The T shutting down when it does is probably the biggest embarrassment. It's pathetic that when I used to crash at NEU and party downtown, it was almost impossible to get back to campus without walking the entire way. But still, aside from the four cities already mentioned, much of the same could be said for almost any other city in the U.S. and for what it's worth, waiting for a late night train in NYC is no piece of cake either. Same goes for SF's "night owl" service. Still, at least they have it.

Does the "For the first time in generations, home ownership in America is being threatened..." commercial bother anyone else? It annoys me every time.

For one, generations? What, our parents and our grandparents?

Two, threatened? What, afraid the new generations won't be conned into going into debt for your lump of bricks and timber for an overvalued $500k in the middle of goddamn nowhere?

Sheesh...

It bothers me too. Scare tactics and corny acting. It's what I imagine hell is like. Unless the cost and location are right, I see no real need to own a house. I actually got preapproved recently just so I could go look at a few properties that interested me near home and I'm amazed at the maximum I was approved for. Especially after the recent mortgage crisis. Without putting numbers out there, I'll just say that in order to make payments, I'd have to pretty much not eat and hope to god that I don't encounter any incidental costs. I can only imagine how many people out there buy homes for the max they are approved for and end up foreclosing later on simply because they just can't afford it. The mortgage crisis happened before I was even considering my own home, so I had no idea how it could happen. Now that I've gone through some of the motions, I can certainly see why it would happen. And the thought that lenders have actually made it more difficult to get a mortgage makes me wonder what I would have been approved for 10 years ago on my meager income.

[datadyne007]

One of the things I LOOOOOOOOVE about being here in Berlin is that I don't have to hear those fucking political attack ads for whole 3 months. The Republicant attack ads take "absurd" and "fear-mongering" to a whole new level.

"Santorum gewinnt Vorwahlen in drei US-Staten" ...was not the headline I wanted to see while flipping through a paper I thought I'd never understand two weeks ago though.

[JohnAKeith]

Happened to see the opening minutes of "Beverly Hills Cop", earlier today. The movie's first scenes take place in Detroit. The movie came out in 1984.

It made me wonder how these places have changed in the past 27 years. I wish someone would make a short film update.

EDIT: Okay, well, there's actually a whole intro to this video clip where they show scenes of Detroit. That's what I'm talking about. But, you can just watch this if you've been jonesin for some Pointer Sisters' music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3-gQIXhg4A

[palindrome]

As far as partying (bars, clubs, etc) goes, I still can't jump on the "Boston's nightlife is terrible!" bandwagon. Is it NYC, Miami, Vegas or LA? No. But it's a little ridiculous to expect it to be. Boston's not a huge city. It doesn't excel in all areas of nightlife. I always cringe when I hear someone decry Boston's nightlife as "awful" because the city doesn't have the volume of some oddly-specific or alternative type of nightlife venue (i.e. clubs where everyone hops on one foot while listening to swing music).

It's also annoying when people are bothered by the fact that Boston doesn't have enough venues containing certain types of nightlife that are more or less regionally specific. I mostly hear this with Jazz/Blues bars. I've also heard people whine about Boston "lacking" in the country bar department (*gags*) or (not nightlife related) Southern cuisine. Well, of course Boston lacks in Southern Cuisine. And of course it doesn't have Jazz clubs on par with New Orleans or Blues bars on par with Chicago. I guess I just don't know why anyone would expect Boston to have such a diversified array of nightlife options. It has some of each and excels in certain aspects. I'm not sure what standard everyone's holding Boston's nightlife too, but I don't think it's fair. Outside of Vegas, NYC, Miami and LA, I haven't been to too many places in the US that are much better. San Francisco's nightlife isn't exactly leaps and bounds better than Boston (I found it to be less enjoyable, actually. Last call is 2am there too). Dallas, Atlanta, Philly, and even DC didn't exactly have me wowed either.


This x100. I was in DC two weeks ago. Talk about non-existent nightlife.

Boston nightlife is great for what it is. Could it improve exponentially very easily? Absolutely.

Beyond the boundaries of this survey -- as someone who went to college in NYC and grad school in Boston, I never got the enthusiasm for Boston as college town (yeah, there are a lot of students here relative to the general population, but that doesn't automatically a great college town make -- the nightlife is just too timid for one). Maybe it's just that I did everything in the wrong order.

In my experience during undergrad, nightlife only really mattered for your senior year. The other three were spent drinking on campuses/house parties.

[datadyne007]

Downtown DC is terrible for nightlife (everything closes at 6), but there are surrounding neighborhoods that have a decent scene afterhours.

[Pierce]

Has anyone seen any for urban planners?

I tried searching for ones of urban planners and architects, but I couldn't find any for either.

not urban planners, but an allied profession:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/p480x480/408834_2854824293137_1335450098_32773726_202610179 1_n.jpg

[datadyne007]

I just registered for

Marcel Breuer: American Houses

This course introduces students to the work and thinking of one of the greatest architects that defined American modern culture. Through field trips, drawings and models, the students will investigates the theoretical bases of Breuer's work, the relationship between program, materials and site and his modern design approach in the middle of the 20th century. The projects investigated, most of them built, show a great amount of open possibilities for the future of residential design in New England.
Prof. Manuel Delgado

for my final Arch. elective this summer. Pretty pumped. I love Breuer's work!!

[palindrome]

Downtown DC is terrible for nightlife (everything closes at 6), but there are surrounding neighborhoods that have a decent scene afterhours.

To be fair to DC, I only went out around DuPont circle. Had some simply amazing ethiopian food while there as well.

[Beton Brut]

I love Breuer's work!!

Breuer's homes are beautiful (http://mag.sellmodern.com/modern-homes/modern-boston-home/). The same could be said of the work of Hugh Stubbins (http://modernmass.blogspot.com/2010/09/hugh-stubbins-designed-house-in-lincoln.html).

Trivia: The blog with the Stubbins link is written by one of Boston's best rock musicians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Janovitz).

[BostonUrbEx]

not urban planners, but an allied profession:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/p480x480/408834_2854824293137_1335450098_32773726_202610179 1_n.jpg

Heh, love it.

[kz1000ps]

This blows my mind

300-million-year-old 'Chinese Pompeii' found buried under volcanic ash

Researchers near Wuda, China, have uncovered a tropical forest that was preserved by ash from a volcanic eruption during the early Permian era.

http://www.sott.net/image/image/s4/94769/full/buried_forest_edited.jpg

About 300 million years ago, volcanic ash buried a tropical forest located in what is now Inner Mongolia, much like it did the ancient Roman city of Pompeii.

This preserved forest has given researchers the unusual opportunity to examine an ecosystem essentially frozen in place by a natural disaster, giving them a detailed look at ancient plant communities and a glimpse at the ancient climate.

This ancient, tropical forest created peat, or moist, acidic, decaying plant matter. Over geologic time, the peat deposits were subjected to high pressure and became coal, which is found in the area.

The volcano appears to have left a layer of ash that was originally 39 inches (100 centimeters) thick.

"This ash-fall buried and killed the plants, broke off twigs and leaves, toppled trees, and preserved the forest remains in place within the ash layer," the authors, led by Jun Wang of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology in China, wrote in an article published Monday (Feb. 20) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The ash layer dated to about 298 million years ago, early in the Permian Period, when the supercontinent Pangea was coming together.

The researchers examined three sites with a total area of 10,764 square feet (1,000 square meters) near Wuda, China. At these sites, they counted and mapped the fossilized plants. The tallest trees that formed the upper canopy — species in the genera Sigillaria and Cordaites — grew to 82 feet (25 meters) or more. Lower down, tree ferns formed another canopy. A group of now-extinct, spore-producing trees called Noeggerathiales and palm-like cycads grew below these, they found. [Image Gallery: A Petrified Forest]

"It's marvelously preserved," University of Pennsylvania paleobotanist and study researcher Hermann Pfefferkorn said in a press release issued by the university. "We can stand there and find a branch with the leaves attached, and then we find the next branch and the next branch and the next branch. And then we find the stump from the same tree. That's really exciting."

Link to article (http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0221/300-million-year-old-Chinese-Pompeii-found-buried-under-volcanic-ash)

Official pdf document at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/02/14/1115076109)

[BostonUrbEx]

One-Person Households in Mass

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/specials/snapshot/snapshot_massachusetts_one_person_households_2010/

Rank | City | % of Households Occupied by One Person
#1 is Provincetown (54.3%)
#2 is Gosnold (46.2%)
#3 is Cambridge (40.7%)
#4 is Lenox (40.3%)
#5 is Stockbridge (39.8%)
#6 is Greenfield (38%)
#7 is Aquinnah (37.9%)
#8 is Quincy (37.7%)
#9 is Orleans (37.5%)
#10a is North Adams (37.3%)
#10b is Wellfleet (37.3%)
#13 is Boston (37.1%)

[czsz]

Gosnold, really? Lonely place to be, well, alone...

[JohnAKeith]

Never heard of it, but probably everyone else has ... it's off the coast of Falmouth?


Gosnold is a town that encompasses the Elizabeth Islands in Dukes County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 75, making it the least populous town in Massachusetts. Most of the residents live in the village of Cuttyhunk, while most of the land in the town is owned by the Forbes family.

[czsz]

Fun Cuttyhunk fact: there are almost no cars; everyone drives golf carts.

[datadyne007]

P-Town hahahahaha. Livin' the singles life, hooking up with different people every night.

[KentXie]

I would love to live in a 1 person household. More privacy, no problem deciding who buys what, sharing problems etc.

[tobyjug]

P-Town hahahahaha. Livin' the singles life, hooking up with different people every night.

Probably a drag to be an aging bear, though.

[datadyne007]

Who knew that Mies even did a gas station???

Montreal Architects Rescue Mies Van Der Rohe Gas Station from Obscurity
http://www.architizer.com/en_us/blog/dyn/39384/montreal-architects-rescue-mies-van-der-rohe-gas-station-from-obscurity/

[Commuting Boston Student]

If I might complain at you guys for a minute?

It's snowing now. It was snowing a couple hours earlier when I was driving home, as well, and you know traffic was piling up on 95. Conditions were bad for driving, but great for potentially getting into a car accident.

WHICH IS WHY I AM SO ENRAGED, EVEN HOURS AFTER ACTUALLY WITNESSING IT, TO SEE ON MY WAY HOME
not one!
not two!
not even three!
but FOUR DIFFERENT AND EQUALLY HORRIBLE PEOPLE cruising along past the rest of us who know what acceptable behavior on the roadways is in the breakdown lane.

You know, the lane that is there to pull cars that are in a bad way off to?

[czsz]

Where were you on 95? Because it's completely legal to drive in the breakdown lane in the parts that are coterminous with 128...just another completely irrational and unsafe Boston-area quirk!

[Commuting Boston Student]

Where were you on 95? Because it's completely legal to drive in the breakdown lane in the parts that are coterminous with 128...just another completely irrational and unsafe Boston-area quirk!

Yes, I was near Dedham, and I know it's legal to drive in the breakdown lane during certain hours of the day, but I was pretty sure that it was not legal to do so during a snowstorm or when a weather advisory is in effect.

I'm just glad I didn't have engine troubles or a reason to need to pull over, or else I just might have been rear-ended!!

[Ron Newman]

I don't see why the rules would be any different just because there is a little light snow falling. (This is not a 'storm' and there's no need for anyone to even slow down much)

[tobyjug]

Agreed. Made it from Nashua to Boston in about 40 minutes in a rear wheel drive car. It's just a dusting.

[Commuting Boston Student]

Maybe I'm just extremely resentful of people who cruise by me sitting in a jam, then.

That, and what's the point of calling it a breakdown lane if you're just going to let people drive in it normally?

[BostonUrbEx]

My problem with the snow is how last night was hyped up and nothing stuck. Now I just got home and theres a good 2 inches all over the place, sticking to the roads and whatnot, and all the plows and sand trucks were already pulled off the roads this morning! This is the worst part and nothing! It's a bit hairy right now.

[Commuting Boston Student]

My problem with the snow is how last night was hyped up and nothing stuck. Now I just got home and theres a good 2 inches all over the place, sticking to the roads and whatnot, and all the plows and sand trucks were already pulled off the roads this morning! This is the worst part and nothing! It's a bit hairy right now.

Yikes!

For me, I was always more concerned about the snow melting, then re-freezing into ice. I could be sounding like a complete idiot by saying that, but I'm pretty sure that's a potential outcome of weather that is not quite cold enough for accumulating snow but not warm enough to preclude snowfall.

[Ron Newman]

Two inches of snow is not worth plowing or sanding. I biked to Kendall Square and back tonight in it without any problem.

[BostonUrbEx]

Two inches of snow is not worth plowing or sanding. I biked to Kendall Square and back tonight in it without any problem.

It's worth a once over with sand and salt, IMO. They were out for what, 12 hours last night? And now we get the real snow. Looking out the window now, it looks like 4 inches.

[kz1000ps]

^ Where are you, if you don't mind me asking? Here in Brighton I'd say we've got an inch at best.

[Ron Newman]

All I saw last night was rain. Nothing to plow or sand at all.

[BostonUrbEx]

^ Where are you, if you don't mind me asking? Here in Brighton I'd say we've got an inch at best.

At the moment in Saugus. Maybe just in a pocket here. Melrose seemed to have the most that I've seen earlier today (last night as well), so they must have a pretty good amount over there now.

I believe there's a strong ocean melt effect going on. Even Malden wasn't seeing any stick.

[Commuting Boston Student]

Seems like it's all been washed away down here in Rhode Island, although that could just be where I am.

[datadyne007]

So I rode in one of the brand new low-floor trams (Bombardier's "Flexity Berlin") on the Berlin MetroTram today. Holy-LRV orgasm. Seriously. Incredible.

http://www.berliner-verkehr.de/trbilder/4001_07.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/FLEXITY_Berlin_innen.JPG

www.youtube.com/watch?v=At_smPIlge4

I never want to go back to the Green Line. Ever.

[CSTH]

Can someone remind me why we dont have these on the GL?

[datadyne007]

Can someone remind me why we dont have these on the GL?

If the government cared about infrastructure (Obama actually does but the Republicants constantly shoot his proposals down) we would have Flexity Boston trains. Germany invests so heavily in public transit and green initiatives. The government even built a PLUS (not net-zero) energy house and gave it to a family to live for 15 months in free to study green building.

[Commuting Boston Student]

Man, I would love to see those trains over here. I might even stop whining about the Green Line not being a proper heavy rail if we got those...

Not so sure about the low floors though. I'm the weird guy who actually likes raised platforms.

[BostonUrbEx]

They're great, but they look so cheap and dainty on the outside. Don't want that running on the street, it might hit a piece of gravel and crack in half.

[Lurker]

If the government cared about infrastructure we would have Flexity Boston trains.

Sorry but buy American, buy union (the dependable constituency is what Obama really cares about), and USDOT safety standards say no to off the shelf Eurotrams. The MBTA's unique and sometimes outright stupid sizing requirements usually require custom designs for light rail equipment anyway. Otherwise the Kinki-AmeriTram would be the new Type-9 hands down.

[BostonObserver]

Wow, I didn't know Obama started that policy. We must be in like year 30 of the Obama presidency. Now I know who's sucking on Limbaghs other teat.

[datadyne007]

Bombardier created the Flexity Berlin specially for Berlin. Why wouldn't they be able to create a special design (to US standards) for Boston? Bombardier is no stranger to the T either... the RL uses their stock.

[Lurker]

Buy American provisions I believe started under either Carter or Reagan. The union labor stipulations were eliminated by Bush II and reinstated by Obama. The whole problem with "special" designs is that they eliminate the savings one has from having a multi-city production model. There's less commonality of parts and no way to have joint production orders. The Kinki Ameritram is designed to meet US DOT standards and be used in several US cities. If the MBTA didn't have an issue with wanting the entire fleet to fit on their current service lifts and the pesky Boylston curve, it would be the best and cheapest solution.

[Commuting Boston Student]

Buy American provisions I believe started under either Carter or Reagan. The union labor stipulations were eliminated by Bush II and reinstated by Obama. The whole problem with "special" designs is that they eliminate the savings one has from having a multi-city production model. There's less commonality of parts and no way to have joint production orders. The Kinki Ameritram is designed to meet US DOT standards and be used in several US cities. If the MBTA didn't have an issue with wanting the entire fleet to fit on their current service lifts and the pesky Boylston curve, it would be the best and cheapest solution.

The service lifts are one thing, but I imagine there's a very good reason the MBTA wants their fleet to fit in the Boylston curve...

[JohnAKeith]

http://fuzzyco.com/news/archives/mime/choo.gif

[czsz]

At first it was an Onion joke, but now the High Speed Bus is real:

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/03/european-superbus-can-go-155-mph-track/1442/

http://cdn.theatlanticcities.com/img/upload/2012/03/08/superbus%202.JPG

Everyone get ready for the Northeast Corridor to get "upgraded" to High Speed BRT...

[czsz]

Take that, Nanjing!

http://cdn.theatlanticcities.com/img/upload/2012/03/08/2.jpg

[Beton Brut]

...now the High Speed Bus is real:

Make sure to get Joe Bologna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Bus) behind the wheel.

[BostonUrbEx]

Take that, Nanjing!

http://cdn.theatlanticcities.com/img/upload/2012/03/08/2.jpg

What is this?

[czsz]

It's a population size comparison of Boston to China's largest cites. I think it must be measuring metro pop based on where Boston comes out. Here's the source:

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/arts-and-lifestyle/2012/03/how-big-your-city-really/1444/

[BostonUrbEx]

http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/432039_10150722094326885_311478426884_11812839_739 598590_n.jpg

[Beton Brut]

^ Word!

[Commuting Boston Student]

I made something for you guys.

If you (http://i.imgur.com/qtPZs.jpg) would like (http://i.imgur.com/eARof.jpg) a vision of (http://i.imgur.com/rDyDe.jpg) the future in (http://i.imgur.com/jI59g.jpg) Massachusetts (http://i.imgur.com/fqyrK.jpg), imagine (http://i.imgur.com/qL1Nr.jpg)...

http://i.imgur.com/4EcXc.jpg

[Ron Newman]

I'm all for this if it will keep our MBTA service running.

[bostonbred]

IAM thinKin shold bee BISCYCLE LICENS mit der BIG FaTT fEE. paying for VIZUAL ISORE of sPenDEx NUTTHUGGERS und big FLOWIN AZZESS.

[datadyne007]

The aB awards needs a new category: Best bostonbred post of the year.

[BostonUrbEx]

The aB awards needs a new category: Best bostonbred post of the year.

IAM thinKin YESES to dis WUNDRAFUL ideas.

[BostonUrbEx]

http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/424123_10150611717516897_66087696896_8933928_86628 7362_n.jpg

[Lurker]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-Lnb2l_kBg&t=2m3s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=o-Lnb2l_kBg#)

Primer on the design of the Seaport District. Around the 2:03 mark the focus shifts to architecture.

[BeeLine]

During my wanderings (mostly in Southie) I have noticed several smallish projects being built, but I can't find them on the BRA's Development Project list. My question is; Does the BRA review all projects in Boston? If not, what determins what they review (size, location, type, cost, or politics)? I can understand a single family house not being reviewed by the BRA, but a 9 unit condo building. Or do we have a bunch of rough Irish builders running amuck?

[czsz]

Economist ranks Boston the 10th most competitive city in the world, ahead of Frankfurt, Toronto, and San Francisco (interesting how those cities always seem to keep surfacing as Boston's economic peers, along with maybe Zurich and Geneva):

http://www.citigroup.com/citi/citiforcities/urban_exchange/eiu.htm

[BostonUrbEx]

Doing my best to make a map of the extent of tonight's fire/power outage:

http://www.google.com/maps/ms?msid=217656314107067401485.0004bb29e776aa945e5c f&msa=0&ll=42.353787,-71.091928&spn=0.043068,0.090895

Anyone have any reports?

[Commuting Boston Student]

Doing my best to make a map of the extent of tonight's fire/power outage:

http://www.google.com/maps/ms?msid=217656314107067401485.0004bb29e776aa945e5c f&msa=0&ll=42.353787,-71.091928&spn=0.043068,0.090895

Anyone have any reports?

Back Bay Station is open and fully operational, and power is on at Tremont Street.

This report live from the ground.

[underground]

Economist ranks Boston the 10th most competitive city in the world, ahead of Frankfurt, Toronto, and San Francisco

That's what years of those horrible socialist liberals will get you! Can't wait for the Herald editorial response.

[BostonUrbEx]

Back Bay Station is open and fully operational, and power is on at Tremont Street.

This report live from the ground.

The map is for the fullest extent of the blackout, not live as-it-happens.

[czsz]

That's what years of those horrible socialist liberals will get you! Can't wait for the Herald editorial response.

The Herald will just admit Mass. liberals are reasonable compared to "true socialism" in Canada and Germany and whatever it is they call the system that makes them hate SF, then express fears that current pols are "taking us down that road," as they have for decades.

No idea how they make that work with cities near the top of the list like New York and Paris though.

[KentXie]

If the government cared about infrastructure (Obama actually does but the Republicants constantly shoot his proposals down) we would have Flexity Boston trains. Germany invests so heavily in public transit and green initiatives. The government even built a PLUS (not net-zero) energy house and gave it to a family to live for 15 months in free to study green building.

But then again, Germany has a higher tax rate for funding infrastructure improvements. Here in the US, we don't want taxes to be raised unless that tax money goes straight to building a private railway from one's front lawn to one's office.

[datadyne007]

But then again, Germany has a higher tax rate for funding infrastructure improvements. Here in the US, we don't want taxes to be raised unless that tax money goes straight to building a private railway from one's front lawn to one's office.
Yup and the sales tax is 19%... and no one complains.

There is nothing wrong with taxes. No one in the US wants to pay for what they expect. That's the problem.

[Lurker]

Smart Germans shop in Andorra or Lichtenstein to avoid the VAT or get everything declared as used or a gift in the post. =)

There is nothing wrong with taxes. No one in the US wants to pay for what they expect. That's the problem.

We already pay too much and don't get what we expect. I expect to pay taxes for essential infrastructure, services, and safety not to provide the entire extended family of miscellaneous hackery a fat paycheck and pension for a do nothing job.

The US doesn't have a revenue problem it has a spending problem. What we are spending IS NOT being effectively spent on productive endeavors. The 'stimulus' packages passed during the past decade are poster children for this. Billions going to make work projects, paperwork shuffling, infrastructure to nowhere, and patronage investments, when essential roads, rails, bridges, ports, tunnels, and aqueducts are literally falling apart.