Poetic views of good ideas

By CommonWealth Staff 0 Comments Dec 1, 2003

Play on Words In a good play on words Ideas seem to just emerge, Fully formed long lyrical lines From the chamber of a brilliant mind. Hah! Don’t believe it my friends! Chaos–thousands, thousands of words, Ideas, theories, notions carom off walls, Tumble off the backs of one another. Some drift lazily like hot-air balloons,(...)

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Whistleblowers get cover from an environmental group

By Michael Jonas 0 Comments Dec 1, 2003

INTRO TEXT When a federal subpoena seeking thousands of documents on the state’s automobile emissions testing program landed in the offices of the Department of Environmental Protection over the summer, state officials started to scramble. And nothing could have made Kyla Bennett any happier. FRANK CURRAN Kyla Bennett: in the thick of the auto-testing scandal.(...)

Politics

Women try to find some traction in Bay State politics

By Michael Jonas 0 Comments Dec 1, 2003

INTRO TEXT At one point, 2002 was shaping up as a banner year for women in Massachusetts politics. With Acting Gov. Jane Swift poised to run for the office she had inherited from fellow Republican Paul Cellucci, and state Treasurer Shannon O’Brien holding the pole position in the contest for the Democratic nomination, the buzz(...)

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Argument

By Anne Paulsen and John Hayes 0 Comments Dec 1, 2003

The automobile insurance system in Massachusetts is a mess. Let us count the ways: Massachusetts has the fourth highest average auto insurance rates in the country and the insurance companies have requested a 12 percent increase for next year. Urban motorists pay well over the state average, with some current premiums between $2,000 and $3,000(...)

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Counterpoints

By Frank O'Brien 0 Comments Dec 1, 2003

The automobile insurance market in Massachusetts is severely stressed. The signs of this stress are readily apparent: an ever-decreasing number of insurance companies writing policies; auto-insurance writers that are successful elsewhere refusing to enter the market; a highly concentrated distribution of market share; and the increasing unease with which companies, regulators, and legislators alike view(...)

Economy

The Hub has averted economic disaster before and can do so again

By Edward Glaeser 0 Comments Dec 1, 2003

What a difference two decades make. In 1980, Boston was a city in decline, the Hub not of the universe but of a middle-income metropolitan area in a cold-weather state. The city’s population had fallen from 758,000 in 1920 to 563,000, and real estate values had sunk so low that three-quarters of its homes were(...)

Education

Doubling down

Bankruptcy expert Elizabeth Warren says that housing and education, not restaurant meals, are driving two-income families to the edge

By Robert Keough 1 Comment Dec 1, 2003

WHETHER USED AS an income bracket, a collection of values and attitudes, or a state of mind, “middle class” is a pretty broad category. But at its core, middle class connotes material comfort born of personal responsibility. The luxuries associated with a middle-class lifestyle are contingent, the fruit of effort, not entitlement. And if financial(...)

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Letters

By CommonWealth Staff 0 Comments Dec 1, 2003

I would like to correct some erroneous information about AARP that appeared in your conversation with Theda Skocpol (“Civic Dissociation,” Summer 2003). Skocpol uses AARP as an example of an organization that doesn’t provide much opportunity for engagement among its members, saying, for example, that AARP “doesn’t have chapters.” This statement is incorrect. We have(...)

Uncategorized/ Opinion

What Boston needs to do to capitalize on the Democratic National Convention

By Hubie Jones 0 Comments Dec 1, 2003

Political and civic leaders of smart, effective cities use big public events to achieve long-lasting development and social benefits. That’s what I’ve learned from six years of visits to world-class metropolises in this country and abroad in search of models for civic development. These benefits are achieved because hosting high-profile occasions forces these cities to(...)

Fall 2003

Bankruptcy expert Elizabeth Warren says that housing and education, not restaurant meals, are driving two-income families to the edge