Part 2 of Chris Faraone's Weekly Dig series on Somerville

[ron_newman]

The second installment of Chris Faraone's Weekly Dig series on Somerville politics is now on the street and online:

Ghosts of Assembly Square

The article ends with a teaser for upcoming part 3: "the Dig will show some of the ways Curtatone’s development agenda has manifested throughout Somerville: an ethically challenged zoning board, uncertified building commissioners, and residents learning to fight back."

(for part 1, see both The Somerville Files, Part 1: Nightmare on Beacon Street on the Weekly Dig website, and the resulting discussion here on DSLJ.)

Comments

[adam vaccaro (from livejournal.com)]

Tom,

The article by my calculation (and I may be colored by the fact that I wrote it) goes to lengths to show that today's Assembly is looking good. As things stand today, the property looks very likely to accomplish the goal of bolstering Somerville's tax base. But like the Beacon Street article, which -- contrary to the take of some -- wasn't about bike lanes and hotels so much as it was about context, this article seeks to show how we got here and who has benefited. (Again, I note this is a matter of intent and colored by the fact that I wrote it.) I went to Assembly last week. It looks great and I'm excited to see how it develops going forward. I've never seen a Starbucks so nice.

Hope you're doing well post-City Hall -- and glad to see you've been reading and contributing to the discussion thus far.

Best,
Adam

[ron_newman]

I've never seen a Starbucks so nice.

but I'd rather have seen a new branch of Diesel/Bloc 11 or of True Grounds or of Fortissimo (or something entirely new and local). This is beyond the city's direct control, but I don't want to see the new area fill up with chains that lack local character.

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

amen