Why is Cambridge afraid of affordable housing? When Cambridge city staff decided to use the city’s zoning code to incentivize the creation of affordable housing, they faced a choice. They could, like generations of planners before them, trace old zoning and neighborhood boundaries, but those boundaries are the echoes of past racism and […]
POINT: YES TO AFFORDABLE HOUSING; NO TO THE CITYWIDE OVERLAY
Cambridge is embroiled in a heated debate over the 100% Affordable Housing Overlay (AHO)—a city-wide up-zoning plan to allow large housing developments citywide, four stories (45’) tall in all residential areas and seven stories (80’) tall on major corridors. Although absent from Cambridge’s 2019 Envision new city planning report, the AHO is being […]
THE RIGHT QUESTION FOR THE BROAD LEFT
On July 5, start asking the Democrats, “What policies will help working families?” The patriotic season is upon us. With it comes the arrival of the 2020 presidential race—far too early, in my estimation. Which in turn tends to generate conservative political ripples all the way down to the local level in the […]
PHOTOS: LOOKING BACK, LOVING FORWARD
Boston celebrates Pride month, and commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Stonewalls Riots Boston commemorated pride, and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, with a record setting parade. Over 50,000 people marched in the 2.27 mile parade across Boston, ending at City Hall Plaza. This year’s theme—Looking Back, Loving Forward—was intended as […]
IMAGINING AN AFTER
Exploring the Museum of Capitalism I was looking and looking for a quote that I thought was from the philosopher Wittgenstein about how difficult—how structurally impossible it is—to analyze a cultural phenomenon from inside of it, but I was never able to find the quote and am now not even sure it was […]
VOTING AS A SOCIALIST IS STILL HARD (IN THE MASSACHUSETTS OF 2018)
Plus an endorsement for Michael Capuano for Congress (MA 7th District) It’s never easy being a socialist in the United States. And at no time is it more difficult then come election season. Because neither of the two major parties—hard-right ravings to the contrary taken as given—is socialist. Both Republicans and Democrats are […]
HERALD READERS RESPOND TO ANTIFA COVERAGE
Spoiler alert: anti-nazis are somehow nazis On Saturday, a few hundred left-wing activists showed up to protest a tiny ultra-right wing protest held on City Hall Plaza around the anniversary of last year’s tiny ultra-right wing protest on Boston Common. That earlier action being completely dwarfed by the tens of thousands of people […]
PINCH MINI!
Boston’s Alternative to Punch Buggy So you’re tooling around town on a summer evening with nothing to do, but you’re sick of playing Punch Buggy—the ancient game where you shout “PUNCH BUGGY” and the color of any Volkswagen Beetle you see… followed by a (mock) punch to whatever part of any nearby companion’s anatomy […]
WHAT’S FOR BREAKFAST? MUFFINS
