Brunswick Development

[mainejeff]

Please correct me if I'm wrong because maybe the state had nothing to do with this......but didn't they open a "Taj Mahal" home for veterans in Augusta a few years ago?

Maine Veterans' Homes - Augusta | Augusta ME

Maine Veterans' Homes - Augusta, Augusta, Maine. 1,855 likes · 5 talking about this · 1,754 were here. Award winning longterm care, skilled nursing, residential care and rehabilitation Home for Maine vet

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This is not meant to disparage veterans or the need for more housing.....but I hate it when media outlets don't tell the entire story.

Also....has Maine REALLY welcomed 75K asylum seekers in the past decade? Can they send some to Central Maine (Augusta/Waterville) so they can keep businesses open more than 4 hours a day?

 

[PlantArch]

Please correct me if I'm wrong because maybe the state had nothing to do with this......but didn't they open a "Taj Mahal" home for veterans in Augusta a few years ago?

Maine Veterans' Homes - Augusta | Augusta ME

Maine Veterans' Homes - Augusta, Augusta, Maine. 1,855 likes · 5 talking about this · 1,754 were here. Award winning longterm care, skilled nursing, residential care and rehabilitation Home for Maine vet

www.facebook.com

This is not meant to disparage veterans or the need for more housing.....but I hate it when media outlets don't tell the entire story.

Also....has Maine REALLY welcomed 75K asylum seekers in the past decade? Can they send some to Central Maine (Augusta/Waterville) so they can keep businesses open more than 4 hours a day?

Anything the Daily Mail reports should be looked upon with more than a little skepticism, if it should be looked at at all.
I believe Janet Mills is also referring to welcoming 75k new migrants in the next decade. Frankly, that is probably what it will take to keep the Maine economy from tanking. As Maine is the oldest state in the nation and more of us are aging out of the workforce every day, the situation does not look good. We also need to be trying to develop new industries to attract talented professionals to other regions of Maine other than Portland which I think is going to continue to develop basically into a bedroom community of Boston.

 

[Portlander]

Portland which I think is going to continue to develop basically into a bedroom community of Boston.

Will never happen in my opinion. Distance of 108 miles makes it geographically unrealistic especially with Portland having its own CSA and MSA and being the transportation, economic and medical hub for southern Maine and beyond. Worcester, Providence and Manchester would have to be swallowed up first and all three of those cities are defiantly independent. In fairness, I also don't believe Lewiston would ever be considered a bedroom community of Portland and it's only 40 miles away and surely depends on Portland more than we depend on Boston.

 

[TC_zoid]

I guess the definition of a bedroom community is that you have to come out of it (Portland) to use the living room (Boston). How often do Mainers, or in Southern Maine need to go to Boston? It's really only to attend pro sports games and top concerts, or Logan for international flights. Maine Medical Center can compete with any of the hospitals in Boston now. Education? Somewhat, though a degree from Bowdoin, Bates, or Colby or even UMO in engineering or agriculture is up near the top. I do know that there are people who live in Wells who commute daily into Boston. But that can still be almost a two-hour ride, though many who work in Manhattan live in outlying areas with up to two-hour commutes. But for social activities anyone living in Southern Maine should be primarily headed to Portland. Although, Boston is becoming the tech center for the world now. If you look at what is being built in the Seaport District and in Cambridge around MIT from who will be in the new offices and labs, you will agree. Tech and big Pharma is growing in a big way here. Amazon has two new large office towers with its top talent for cloud computing, robotics, and A.I. here or on the way. They want to pull students from Harvard and MIT. Some or many of Google and Boeing's top talent are now across the street from MIT. It's an easy internship commute. If you follow the Boston arch blogs you can get the information. Now if you work primarily at home and your employer is in Boston, then yes, Portland would be the better place to live, or if you want better options for outdoor recreation and a less stressful family life. But there is the North End. Almost worth it for that alone.

 

[cneal]

Maine Medical Center can compete with any of the hospitals in Boston now

Ha ha – this is not true. Nobody's flying across the globe to get treatment at Maine Med the way people fly to MGH.

No offense to MMC – several of my family members work there, and they would absolutely agree with this – but if you've got a serious cancer diagnosis and the world's best doctors are just 2 hours away, you're gonna travel to Boston.

But going back on-topic – my job is based in Boston and I regularly make the commute on Concord Coach, usually once a week for a day trip or an overnight. Remote and hybrid WFH schedules make this commute much easier for a lot more people. Before the pandemic I'd see the 6:30 or 7:30 am bus packed with regular daily commuters; now, the buses are back to running their same pre-pandemic schedule, and the 8:30 bus I typically ride is just as full.

So for a lot of white-collar workers who only need to be in the office 1-2 days a week, Portland absolutely can be a bedroom community for Boston. Spending 4 hours a week riding on a comfortable bus with wi-fi is way more appealing than spending 5+ hours a week driving in a daily commute between Portland and Windham or Standish.

Incidentially, this is part of the reason why Portland's housing prices have been going crazy since the pandemic. Boston's rents now rival San Francisco's, so having so many Boston-based workers looking for apartments here (with a much smaller inventory available) means that our rents are getting bid up to similar levels.