Cost unconscious

By Dave Denison State Government 0 Comments Jul 24, 2007

On a Wednesday afternoon in late April, I went to the John W. McCormack state office building, a pillar of bureaucracy a half-block east of the State House, and found my way into a basement-level meeting room. There, 11 members of the Health Care Quality and Cost Council sat in a U-formation in the windowless(...)

Politics

Full disclosure

By Dan Kennedy Media and Journalism 0 Comments Jul 24, 2007

less than a year after its launch, the New England News Forum is a work in progress. At a time when the mainstream media are under assault from bloggers, political partisans, and an unprecedented financial squeeze, the Forum has the potential to educate the public about the importance of journalism in a dem-ocratic society, while(...)

Arts and Culture/ Uncategorized

Brainstorms

By Robert David Sullivan Demographics 0 Comments Jul 24, 2007

we’re still in a state of invention, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Massachusetts ranked fourth in the total number of patents granted last year, outranked only by California, Texas, and New York. We’re third when the numbers are adjusted for population size, as on our chart. Perhaps more important, the Bay State(...)

Health Care

Statistically Significant

By Robert David Sullivan Demographics 0 Comments Jul 24, 2007

Illustrations by Travis Foster Maybe it’s a subliminal reminder to do well in school, but girls’ names ending in “a” are all the rage in Massachusetts. According to the Social Security Administration, the top five names for newborn girls in the Bay State last year were Ava, Isabella, Emma, Sophia, and Olivia. Nationally, the top(...)

Economy/ Politics

On second thought

Smart-growth forces enjoy a reversal of fortune in Kingston

By Robert Preer City and Town Profiles, Growth and Development, Municipal Government 0 Comments Jul 24, 2007

UPDATE: Kingston’s Place turned out to be far from a done deal. The developer pulled the plug on the project in 2010. kingston — Residential growth, smart or otherwise, is rarely an easy sell in the outer Boston suburbs. Townsfolk fear that too many new homes and residents will erode the quality of life that(...)

Economy

Tax and mend

By Shawn Zeller Taxes and Budget Issues 0 Comments Jul 24, 2007

asked why he’s taken a lead role in the bid by House Democrats this year to enact an overhaul of the little-known alternative minimum tax, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal of Springfield points to Maggie Rauh, a Chicopee accountant and mother of three in his western Massachusetts district. Rauh and her husband are among the many(...)

Arts and Culture/ Uncategorized

Simple pleasures

By Albert LaFarge 0 Comments Jul 24, 2007

buildings matter. They temper our mood, refract our ambitions and sensibilities. At their best, they might inspire us to behave better. “We want [buildings] to shelter us,” says essayist Alain de Botton in The Architecture of Happiness (Pantheon, 2006). “And we want them to speak to us—to speak to us of whatever we find important(...)

Arts and Culture/ Environment

Squeaky wheels

By Charles Euchner Energy 0 Comments Jul 24, 2007

the specter of little toothpicks twirling on the horizon of Nantucket Sound is causing fits among the political elites who make summer a verb on Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket. On overcast days, they wouldn’t see anything but the soft line separating water from sky. But on sunny days . . . Those toothpicks(...)

Politics

Dispatches

By B.J. Roche 0 Comments Jul 24, 2007

Pay up—and shut up? Under one school of thought, second-homeowners are a major asset to the Massachusetts economy. They pay property taxes, constantly renovate those second homes, and buy up all the heirloom tomatoes and artisanal goat cheese the natives can crank out, without requiring much in return in the way of services. But there’s(...)

Uncategorized

Letter of introduction

By CommonWealth Staff 0 Comments Jul 24, 2007

Photograph by Russ Campbell on behalf of the MassINC board of directors, we are delighted to introduce readers to Gregory Torres, the new president of MassINC and publisher of CommonWealth magazine. Greg brings an uncommon set of qualifications that make him the right person to lead MassINC into its second decade. MassINC is now one(...)

Summer 2007

Smart-growth forces enjoy a reversal of fortune in Kingston