We can get pretty depressed at the precarious state of the environment and the steps public officials are not taking to remedy the problem. Even more depressing are the climate change deniers, the clean coal boosters, the natural gas pipeline…
Author: Karen Cord Taylor
Downtown View:City Life Is a Sharing Life
So many people decide to move into the city—what might they be expecting? Convenient trips to the movies, the opera, the symphony, the theater. Walk-to restaurants, bars, parks and libraries. Shops and supermarkets that make deliveries. All these benefits exist.…
Old,White and Rich?
The reporting is breathless: Millennium Tower penthouse goes on sale for $37.5 million. A condo in a 19th-century Commonwealth Avenue townhouse sells for $7 million. Luxury apartments, rentable or buyable, going up in the Fenway and in the Seaport. These…
Downtown View:Curiouser and Curiouser
In the last three weeks, one vehicle on my block was not towed on street cleaning days. This has never happened in the last decade. The debris under those cars sat there for two weeks. A South End resident said…
Downtown View:Big Question
Do San Diego residents experience joy? I don’t know the answer and I’m not sure I would believe a SanDiegoan if they told me. I’m talking about the sublime feeling, the rush, the pure happiness we Bostonians feel when the…
Downtown View: Picture L.A.
Picture the skyline of Los Angeles. How about Minneapolis, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Phoenix, even Chicago? You can’t? Oh, well. Now picture Washington D. C., Seattle, Toronto or New York. You know those skylines, don’t you? There might be a gimmick—Seattle’s…
Downtown View:What is Best for Us, not Tsarnaev
We’ve had the trial even though Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyers admitted he was guilty on the first day. This trial was important to endure. If we hadn’t had it, the conspiracy theorists would crawl out, accusing the police of cover-ups. The…
Downtown View: Young Adults Invest in City
This is what older adults think of the newly minted adults—20 to early 30s—living on their block: They have loud parties. They drink too much. They put their trash out at any old time and don’t bag it properly. They…
Downtown View:Re-envisioning City Hall Plaza
Mayor Walsh has asked for help in remaking City Hall Plaza. He has resorted to Twitter to re-invent, re-imagine, re-envision #CityHallPlaza. In letters, radio commentary and Twitter, Bostonians have chimed in. Art exhibits, a baseball diamond, a roller rink, Yo-Yo…
Downtown View: Saving Space
So far this year, Bostonians have truly weathered the storms. Most people have kept their cool and maintained their good nature. I have also detected a note of pride in our resilience and bravery in the face of unprecedented snowfalls.…