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May 20, 2013 - 5:25pm
Cambridge is a wealthy city. It's only at odd moments that one is confronted with how unusual that is in modern America. At a City Council committee meeting, an outside advisor was suggesting to Councilors that, among the things it should be asking for, was a projected annual maintenance budget for a certain system. When that was greeted by silence, the advisor, seeking to be helpful, explained that some cities had been blindsisde by costs of the system and had to make difficult choices between people and hardware. There was another silence, somewhat embarrassed, and then a senior City staff member quietly offered: "In Cambridge, we expect to be able to pay for both the people and the hardware."
But just how different is Cambridge? Selecting cities of roughly the same size, Cambridge has a municipal budget that exceed all of them.
How Wealthy is Cambridge? | Create infographics
Illustration is word cloud of the submitted FY14 Cambridge Municipal Budget
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May 13, 2013 - 6:51pm
Intelligence that suspected Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev might have posed a risk to public safety was not shared with the Cambridge Police according to a police spokesperson. The apparent failure of Federal agencies to share this information with local law enforcement was the focus of a May 9th hearing of the US House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security which summoned Commissioner Edward Davis of the Boston Police. But as the New York Times dryly noted, Tsarnaev lived in Cambridge, not Boston.
In response to emailed questions, Dan Riviello Director of Communications & Media Relations for the Cambridge Police Department, Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas was not invited to appear at that hearing. Riviello said that no information about Tsarnaev was shared with any member of the Cambridge Police Department Davis, in his testimony to the House Committee, noted that Federal agencies had not shared intelligence with his department, either.
In response to that testimony, the FBI Special Agent In Charge Richard DesLauriers issued a statement noting the Boston Police participation in the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) and that "Many state and local...
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May 8, 2013 - 4:50pm
Shaun Donovan, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration, told an MIT audience Tuesday that the most profound challenge urban planning faces is an era of austerity. Speaking in Kendall Square, a neighborhood of cranes, new construction and billions of dollars of venture capital, Donovan said that austerity requires that society find new ways to finance what had previously paid for as public investments.
Geography remains destiny, he said, and that a person's zip code is the best predictor of future economic success. Speaking in MIT's Wang auditorium, located in zip code 02142, he spoke to an audience and in an area that will, for the most part, be unaffected by austerity. But it is the residents of zip code 02139, just a short walk up Main Street, that bear its brunt. Financing for public housing, like Newtowne Court, is eroding due to a policy choice of austerity and with it the social safety net.
Portland Street though, the dividing line between the zip codes, isn't a natural geographic feature. Rather, it's a border created by an older generation of planners, ones who built Tech Square in the 1960s, and perpetuated by planners who build the future...
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May 7, 2013 - 11:35am
On Saturday May 4th, CCTV along with the Digital Media Law Project of Harvard's Berkman Center and MIT's Center for Civic Media hosted a forum entitled "Filling the News Gap in Cambridge and Beyond." It was a day to celebrate citizen and non-traditional journalism, and to learn how people are covering Cambridge and other communities.
[View the story "Filling the News Gap in Cambridge and Beyond" on Storify]
Photographs courtesy Maurice Wilkey and Christian Herrold.
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April 28, 2013 - 9:30pm
An independent study of Cambridge's Information Technology Department (ITD) shows that Cambridge under-invests in technology compared to peer cities and that ITD lacks the organizational maturity, skills, and expertise to meet growing technology needs. The $200,000 study was released to the City Council and public the same week as a City budget proposal in which ITD, unlike every other City department, provides no list of accomplishments, no metrics about performance, nor any breakdown of its budget request beyond a total dollar figure. The budget request, shown in its entirety, is above.
The six-month study (PDF), conducted by leading information technology consulting firm, Gartner, reviewed in depth the strengths and weaknesses of Cambridge and provides an objective framework to understand issues that are otherwise observable only as anecdotal complaints. For example, this week's policy order by the Council, requesting more space for email storage, would seem an indication of problems as elected officials should not have to resort to full-fledged policy orders for something that should be routine. The Gartner report provides ample evidence that this is part of a pattern of...
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April 23, 2013 - 11:34am
The week started on familiar ground. The sidewalk on which I walk to my dentist blown up in an act of terror. And, just as things were starting to reset to normal, Thursday night happened.
It started with a tweet from a neighbor. A block of Brookline street blocked off by police and FBI, helicopters overhead. Quickly, they were gone. Being out of town, it was just a moment of disorienting dizziness.
Then Twitter lit up. An MIT emergency alert about an active shooter in front of the Stata Building. MIT friends and colleagues started checking in, local reporters come onto the scene. As pictures surfaced, tweeters pointed others to internet sites on which you can monitor Cambridge and Boston police scanners. Red Line trains leaving Kendall were being stopped and searched. The crime scene perimeter kept changing. Police officer reported to have been shot. Huge mobilization of law enforcement resources, in keeping with the shooting of a police officer, who was now reported to have died.
More scanner traffic. A car-jacking in Cambridge. The car's locator traces the car to Watertown. Police reported to be streaming out of Kendall Square towards Watertown. Scanner traffic: "Be sure to let...
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April 17, 2013 - 3:13pm
As ripples from the terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon finish line moved through the community, the Cambridge Innovation Center issued an open invitation to any Boston startup company displaced by the tragedy to set up shop in Cambridge. Tim Rowe, CIC Founder and CEO tweeted out the invitation
RU a Back Bay startup without a place to work? CIC is offering refugees free space this week, fcfs. Call to arrange: 617-758-4200
— Timothy Rowe (@rowe) April 16, 2013
CIC, which describes itself as the largest flexible office space for startup and emerging companies in the Boston area, is located in Kendall Square and is the epicenter for Cambridge's innovation economy. Alex Schultz, a member of the sales team, said that CIC will "continue to open our doors to any displaced start-ups in need of a place to work while the Back Bay is closed.
CIC staff confirm that Spark Capital, a $1.5 billion venture capital fund with headquarters on Newbury Street, has taken up the CIC on their offer and that other companies from the Back Bay are operating in co-working or other CIC space.
Update: The Boston Globe "Inside the Hive" blog reports that other Cambridge co-working spaces have opened...
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April 16, 2013 - 2:19pm
A day after two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, Cambridge remains jittery, with the Cambridge Police Department responding to numerous reports of suspicious or abandoned packages. The CPD's "police scanner via Twitter" takes us past the distant sirens and lets us see what's making our neighbors nervous and the stresses of being a first responder in the aftermath of terror.
Each incident has been investigated and the scene declared cleared. Cambridge Police have urged residents to remain vigilant and patient, and report anything suspicious.
The City of Cambridge and the Cambridge Black Pastors’ Association will hold a Candlelight Vigil Wednesday, Apr. 17, at 7 p.m., on the steps of City Hall, 795 Mass. Ave., to offer comfort and support to those impacted by the tragedy that took place during the Boston Marathon.
[View the story "Suspicion in Cambridge" on Storify]Photo from:
@cambridgepolice any updates? There are an awful lot of you outside my office right now… twitter.com/E0M/status/323…
— Evan Morikawa (@E0M) April 15, 2013
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April 1, 2013 - 9:37pm
It was dubbed "The Evolution of the Fan", but last week's Harvard Sports Law Symposium was, instead, an opportunity for corporations that dominate the sports and entertainment universe to talk about their business and legal strategies. For a law school whose faculty includes some of the most vibrant thinkers about telecommunications, internet and copyright policy, it was a symposium that oddly featured only the corporate view, a view that many of these thinkers have made a career of challenging.
Telecomm Monopoly? No, Comcast is a great partner
If you were a supplier of a service and its distribution depended on one of your competitors, the complications you encounter would be fascinating to explore. Yet Ed Weiss, General Counsel of the Fenway Sports Group and the New England Sports Network, and Ed Durso, Executive Vice President of ESPN, didn't even mention that their fellow panelist, Brett Goodman, Senior Vice President of NBC Sports worked for Comcast, their competitor and distributor. Comcast's controversial purchase of NBC is the centerpiece of Susan Crawford's recent book, Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age, and serves as the lens...
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March 20, 2013 - 4:20pm
A Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) draft study assessing the safety implications of ethanol-carrying freight trains reveals that communities through which these trains will travel are unprepared to for a possible accident. While state and local governments are preempted from regulating rail traffic, Global Petroleum, the Chelsea-based destination for the ethanol, requires a state license for improvements to its rail depot located on the protected harbor area of Chelsea Creek. Last year's state transportation bond bill both mandated this study and prohibited the state Department of Environment Protection from issuing the license until the study's completion.
The MassDOT study examined ethanol accidents nationwide, local rail accidents, possible freight routes, and made recommendations regarding rail operations and maintenance as well as emergency preparedness.
Currently, ethanol trains enter Massachusetts from the west or north, head to Worcester, where they turn south to Providence, Rhode Island. There, the ethanol is loaded on barges and brought to Global's facility in Chelsea where it's offloaded, mixed into gasoline, and then sent to retailers. Global plans...
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