Local Politics Thread

Wu is not a progressive she is a mainstream Democrat hoping to run for senate. Democrats don't believe in using political capital, they prefer there to be long processes and "norms", etc. to protect interest groups
 
US Senator seems like a much, much worse job than Mayor of Boston, even without accounting for having three young kids, so I don't know why people always assume that.
 
She is definitely using her political capital on White Stadium, Madison Park, and the public school reorganization in general. That got her 70% of the vote. So, I think that she knows that she would get criticized about bike lanes in certain neighborhoods either way.
 
Scott said:
She is definitely using her political capital on White Stadium, Madison Park, and the public school reorganization in general. That got her 70% of the vote. So, I think that she knows that she would get criticized about bike lanes in certain neighborhoods either way.
Click to expand...
It's just so much less of a salient issue, even if the people invested in it (on both sides, myself included) can be loud. If Josh Kraft had an ounce of political instinct he would have been hammering on housing/cost of living and education. But he doesn't, so he chose bike lanes. From the perspective of her maintaining political popularity she's absolutely right to be laser focused on education and doing dumb red-meat things like inclusionary zoning requirements and rent control proposals for housing.
 
The Brookline Select Board is expected to decide whether to proceed with an override by March 31. Town and school officials say the funding would prevent cutting more than 200 teachers, classroom aides, administrators and other school department employees and dozens of town positions.

As a Bostonian I am happy to invite the fair people of Brookline to rejoin their ancestral homeland and merge with the city where they belong. Super-Mega-Boston must arise from the ashes to right the wrongs of the 18th century. We'll also take Chelsea, Everett, and Winthrop.
 
stevebikes said:
US Senator seems like a much, much worse job than Mayor of Boston, even without accounting for having three young kids, so I don't know why people always assume that.
Click to expand...
The thing is, there is no obvious successor office for a Boston mayor. It's a more powerful executive position than governor, despite the Commonwealth having a much larger budget. Healy has far less control over how it is wielded than Wu has regarding Boston. If the personal goal is wielding more power, I think the US Senate is probably the most likely place to do so.

Justbuildit said:
We'll also take Chelsea, Everett, and Winthrop.
Click to expand...
And let's also add Cambridge, Somerville, Malden, and Revere to that. Places that have subway service should be annexed.
 
HenryAlan said:
The thing is, there is no obvious successor office for a Boston mayor. It's a more powerful executive position than governor, despite the Commonwealth having a much larger budget. Healy has far less control over how it is wielded than Wu has regarding Boston. If the personal goal is wielding more power, I think the US Senate is probably the most likely place to do so.


And let's also add Cambridge, Somerville, Malden, and Revere to that. Places that have subway service should be annexed.
Click to expand...
Please take Quincy too so I get literally a single flex post built in this gd city
 
Well if we're in the era of using historical resentment to spur annexation of our weaker but closely related neighbors, then I think Boston has cover to do this. I would simply set the municipal boundary at I-95 to keep things easy.
 
KCasiglio said:
Please take Quincy too so I get literally a single flex post built in this gd city
Click to expand...
An unintentional omission, but I draw the line after that. Braintree and Newton are the exceptions to my subway service rule.
 
HenryAlan said:
An unintentional omission, but I draw the line after that. Braintree and Newton are the exceptions to my subway service rule.
Click to expand...
If Boston annexs Newton then Boston College will finally be in Boston. Seems only fair.

But seriously, why draw the line at those two? Expanding Boston make a lot of sense but I have no idea where I'd draw lines.
 
HenryAlan said:
The thing is, there is no obvious successor office for a Boston mayor. It's a more powerful executive position than governor, despite the Commonwealth having a much larger budget. Healy has far less control over how it is wielded than Wu has regarding Boston. If the personal goal is wielding more power, I think the US Senate is probably the most likely place to do so.


And let's also add Cambridge, Somerville, Malden, and Revere to that. Places that have subway service should be annexed.
Click to expand...
Louijeune has been the most popular at-large councilor for the past few cycles, she has a good grasp of policy, has had leadership roles in the council and doesn't get caught up in silly issues like many other councilors. If Wu does move on at some point, Ruthzee seems like the next in line to me based on bonifides and trajectory.

In terms of Wu's aspirations, I can see why she might try to moderate her position for Governor which has historically beeen a very moderate position. A governor is trying to find consensus, between the few conservative, mostly moderate and existing progressive regions in the state. It's much harder for me to see what she gains by moderating her positions and image looking towards the national level though. Her national image (i'm thinking of the sanctuary city policy stuff) is a "progressive" fighter who won't be derailed by pressure to powerful and special interests. She came up multiple times as inspirations for progressive candidates Mamdani and Lander in the NYC mayoral election (bike and bus infrastructure were strong pillars in both of their campaigns). Even though Markey is very old in a time when people are fed up with the age of our politicans, he will still probably comfortably beat Moulton because he has a more progressive and trusted image. In my mind, a national-level democrat politician who is eager to show how willing they are to collaborate with critics (MAGA) at this moment will not be popular. So what's the point?

Additionally, if the bike and bus lanes are such non-issues on a grand scale compared to housing and affordability (which I agree with), why would you bother flipping your position?
 
I really hope Flynn isn’t council president if she exits mid-term.
 
Longfellow said:
I would think of it like NYC - Somerville and Cambridge are Brooklyn, Brookline is Staten Island… I’ll stop now before I offend anyone
Click to expand...
Its pretty crazy how even though greater Boston is contained inside of one state its still divided up into hundreds of little towns and cities all with their own different zoning laws and development processes which make it super complicated to coordinate projects between towns and built transit across town lines. Nyc essentially has half of its city located in new jersey so theres a very valid reason why its so complicated there. Whats our excuse lol..

Everything within 95 is all within one state, thats a big advantage over nyc’s situation yet we still make it a super complicated mess. The annexation debate hasnt come up seriously in a while, but I think its time again to at least do a proper study on annexing everything within 95.
 
Last edited:
Longfellow said:
I would think of it like NYC - Somerville and Cambridge are Brooklyn, Brookline is Staten Island… I’ll stop now before I offend anyone
Click to expand...
I thought Brookline was considered more the "Hamptons" of Boston when compared to NYC and boroughs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top