Mass(achusetts) Exodus

[TrailBate]

Guess which state is the ONLY state in the union to have a decline in population last year? Massachusetts!
Which county came in #2 in the biggest losers in the country? Suffolk!

http://www.census.gov/popest/counties/tables/CO-EST2004-03-25.xls

[stich]

Must be those lousy Liberal Democrats that are driving all the Rightcheous Republicans up into New Hampshire, ;D

I sure hope the M*******s stay in MA.

Stich

[gnurider1080]

and we hope redneck republicans will fly south for the winter and decide to stay year round. ;D

[stich]

Yes especially the rednecks. ;D

[ArmOnFire]

Yeah, or it must be great residents like this guy (http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=80213) that made some people move

[Slider]

Of course, the trend is mostly due to economic reasons. I felt priced out of MA three years ago, and moving to CT was the best decision I've made. More land, more home, and lots of biking that is easier to get to, and less traffic.

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[CsharpDev]

I agree it is primarily economic reasons. Good jobs are scarce, and realestate is rediculous. $300k wont get you much more than a mail box. Go to FL and for $300k you can get a 3-4k sq-ft house with a pool. Probably has something to do with why Florida is the fastest growing state.

[ArmOnFire]

No work in FL, other than the hospitality industry (Restaurants, hotels, port-a-john, etc.)

[nobody_special]

Not to mention the fact that they just keep recounting the ballots in more and more creative ways until the numbers come out the way they want them.


No work in FL, other than the hospitality industry (Restaurants, hotels, port-a-john, etc.)

[stich]

Just another bitter democrat. Ho hum. :'(

[Slider]

No work in FL, other than the hospitality industry (Restaurants, hotels, port-a-john, etc.)


Even in CT, it took me a lot longer to find a job, when my idylic telecommuting thing ran its course, than it would have in MA. I commute 45 minutes, but at least I am moving the whole time! I earnless too, but I pay so much less for the big living expenses that it works out OK.

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[nobody_special]

No bitterness here. Just an observation.

So, tell me about Tom DeLay? I understand Bush is letting him ride around in Air Force 1 now that he got caught for traveling on the Lobbyists dime?

Just a couple more crooked Republicans I guess - yawn -


Just another bitter democrat. Ho hum. :'(

[CsharpDev]

No work in FL, other than the hospitality industry (Restaurants, hotels, port-a-john, etc.)


Don't forget NASA, Lockheed Martin, Seimens, and all those banks in Orlando

[Slider]

Here's another side of why I left Boston. I owned a triple decker facing Ronan Park. Heard the gun shots, saw my ex-wife's car dismantled over consecutive nights, had a fist fight with an ******* neighbor driving like a maniac among kid-filled streets.

I try to ignore the fact that any single floor of the three family I sold seven years ago for $175K is now worth at least $200K. I mean, I might be dead if I'd waited around any longer. But that pricing is also why I now live in CT. After leaving Dorchester, I lived in Brookline, Arlington, and Somerville. All great places to live, but rents were, on average, double my current mortgage.

We've talked about retiring in the city, but I don't think I could move back to that kind of stress late in life.

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When fear creeps in
Ronan Park a study in commitment, hope, but crime weighs on residents
By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | May 23, 2005

Theresa and Philip Wilkinson Jr., young architects with a baby on the way, thought they had hit upon the best-kept secret in Boston: a condo in a solid three-decker, on an 11-acre park with ocean views, in a neighborhood with the rich diversity they craved.

The area had its share of crime, they realized, but they moved there in 2003. Their first summer on Mt. Ida Road was idyllic.

Then their car was stolen. Then their house was broken into. Then another car was stolen. This month, their neighbor John Beresford was stabbed to death while the Wilkinsons were playing with their toddler in the park.

Over the past 20 years, newcomers and old-timers in the neighborhood around Ronan Park have struggled to build a safe, cohesive community. Now, after the killing of a hopeful activist who devoted tremendous energy to improving the park, they face a new question: Should they stay?

''It would be a different story if it was just my husband and I, but for my daughter's sake, I want to make sure she's in a safe place," Theresa Wilkinson said. ''I didn't think that we lived in a neighborhood where people were killed in broad daylight."

The dilemma is not unique in Boston, as redevelopment efforts and soaring home prices have inspired people to invest in once-blighted areas, only to face stubborn crime problems in their neighborhoods. But in the Ronan Park area, a place of energetic civic engagement, the reverberations of Beresford's murder are provoking deep reflection on the nature of community, and on the tension between the love of their neighborhood and the safety of their families.

At an emotional community meeting with Mayor Thomas M. Menino and other leaders last week, Councilor Maureen E. Feeney, who represents the neighborhood, begged the crowd of roughly 125 not to give up.

''I don't know how we have the nerve to stand before you tonight and ask you to do more," she said. ''I don't need to speak to anyone in this room, because you've been doing it for years. But this was a horrific, horrific crime, and I think it was at a time of such great hope. The tragedy is that we were this close to doing it."

Since the late 1960s, when many working-class Irish Catholics left for the suburbs, the demographics of the neighborhood have changed dramatically. Immigrants from Cape Verde, Vietnam, and the Dominican Republic live alongside African-Americans and whites. Young professionals are scooping up $500,000 three-deckers down the street from single mothers who need Section 8 housing vouchers to make the rent. Newly painted houses stand out amid shabby rental units with sagging porches.

Like the Wilkinsons, many newcomers are attracted by the neighborhood's vibrant community spirit. At least a half-dozen civic associations in the area monitor crime and traffic, and host festivals and cleanup days. An array of nonprofits serves the poor, youths, and immigrants. Under pressure from these groups, the city has added police patrols and helped fix up the park.

Still, violent death has visited Ronan Park before. In 1983, Mary Ann Hanley, 11, was sexually assaulted and strangled there one summer night. In the winter of 1990, George Georgeff, 30, was beaten with rocks, robbed, and left for dead just outside the park. On a spring morning in 1994, the body of Lori J. Berardi, a 33-year-old mother from Quincy, was found in the grass by the baseball field backstop. Each murder, longtime residents say, drove people away. And each time -- as now -- the community held vigils, organized, and pressured the city for more help.

Many residents insist safety in the neighborhood has improved over the past decade, and that Beresford's murder was a tragic aberration. Among them is Ed Cook, 57, a middle school principal who grew up in the area and bought a house on Longfellow Street in 1985. Cook's neighbors are Vietnamese, Jamaican, Honduran, Guatemalan, African-American, Puerto Rican, and Irish. They are bus drivers and firefighters, college teachers and health workers. Three, including Cook, graduated from Harvard.

''We have so many reasons to love living here that it makes us strong in the occasional terrible times -- the friendships, the working together, the shared values," he said.

Several shootings have occurred near his house over the years. Once, a young man who had been shot left a bloody handprint on a pillar outside Cook's front door, where he sought help. But those shootings appeared to be private disputes, not random killings, Cook said. He feels protected by ''invisible networks" of watchful neighbors. ''Crime brings people together, to work together, which in turn strengthens the neighborhood," he said.

But violence worries Sylvia Andrade, 35, a Cape Verdean immigrant who owns a home on Ridgewood Street. Though she is busy with three children, while working as a receptionist and going to school to become a medical assistant, she regularly attends civic association meetings. She hosts a weekly prayer group at her house, and she is organizing a block party in June.

Yet she does not feel comfortable in her neighborhood. She still thinks of the day, shortly after she moved in, that Berardi's body was found. Her cousin was murdered nearby three years ago. She lives near the park, but takes her 5-year-old to South Boston to play.

''It's very sad," she said. ''You have something like a playground in your neighborhood, but it's useless," she said. ''It's terrible."

Beresford's slaying has renewed her fears. Andrade would like to find a safer neighborhood for her family, but she is not sure whether they can afford it.

''We hope for the best," she said. ''I hope everybody can be a little more considerate, especially for people's lives."

Since the stabbing, which remains unsolved, community groups have gathered almost nightly to discuss what needs to be done. The mayor has promised better park maintenance and more police patrols, but neighbors and activists are worried about funding cuts for youth diversion programs and the lack of opportunities for young people who are getting out of prison.

''A lot of youth who have been incarcerated are coming back out of jail, back to the same neighborhood they were arrested from," said Mila Monteiro, a coordinator for Community Links, which forges ties among nonprofits, the city, and civic associations. ''I think that's why we continue to have that cycle."

Douglas Miller, 31, a middle school teacher who bought a two-family house on Bentham Street five years ago, believes that crime watch groups and civic organizations are only part of the solution -- the city must do more, he said.

''They should be ahead of us in preventing rather than having us react with them," he said.

Miller has volunteered with the Friends of Ronan Park, which Beresford cofounded. ''This is the first time I've felt unsure about being where I am right now," he said.

Miller feels an allegiance to the community. He reasons that if he is thinking of leaving, others are, too.

''The way I think about it is, I'm going to stay, or the whole place is going to go down," he said.

He cannot say he will stay forever. If the violence worsens, if he begins worrying about the safety of his 9-year-old daughter, he will reconsider. And yet, he is constantly reminded of why he loves his neighborhood. While walking along Dorchester Avenue on Friday afternoon, he said, he saw a white woman sneeze while sitting in a car at a stoplight.

A black man with dreadlocks walking by said, ''God bless you."

She replied, ''Thank you."

That, said Miller, is why he moved to Dorchester. And it is why he hopes to stay.

Lisa Wangsness can be reached at lwangsness@globe.com.

[MTBME]

Makes you wonder why more people aren't moving out. I saw an article this weekend that said Massachusetts will lag behind the rest of the country, in terms of job growth, till 2009! Not good news, especially for us contract workers. So why do we stay here? Certainly not for the weather. Were just "weeks" away from summer and it doesn't feel like we had any spring to speak of.

Maybe its the political wacko's like the following that keeps us entertained here.

"WALTHAM, Mass. - The chief justice of the court that legalized same-sex marriage in Massachusetts told Brandeis University graduates yesterday that judicial independence must be protected from ``the will of the majority.'' "

I thought this country was founded on the "will of the majority". This is the height of arrogance and is so par for the course for Massachusetts. Hows the mountain biking in North Carolina these days? I know the home prices are very good. Another rainy weekend and I'll be ready to put this state in my rear view mirror.

[TrailBate]

"WALTHAM, Mass. - The chief justice of the court that legalized same-sex marriage in Massachusetts told Brandeis University graduates yesterday that judicial independence must be protected from ``the will of the majority.'' "

I thought this country was founded on the "will of the majority". This is the height of arrogance and is so par for the course for Massachusetts. Hows the mountain biking in North Carolina these days? I know the home prices are very good. Another rainy weekend and I'll be ready to put this state in my rear view mirror.



I can't speak for him, but he might have meant the Republicans when he said "majority." Majority definately should rule, but not by silencing the minority. The Majority is also white, does that mean all the laws should favor white people? Of course not.


I've also been trying to finagle a move down south. A noreaster tomorrow, 2" of rain, and highs in the 40's for chrissakes. I hate this goddam place. I'll take the threat of hurricanes if it means a summer that lasts 6 months instead of 2.

[Slider]

The "majority" elects the politicians who make the laws. The higher levels of the judiciary, which is purposely kept independent of politics so that is can do its job impartially, interprets the law and determines how it is applied to individual cases.

It is very, very important that politics and justice be kept separate. The movement to let Congress or anyone else to tamper with that is a move toward totalitarianism.

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[kernel crash]

"How's the mountain biking in North Carolina these days?"

Check out this site for more info on Mountain Biking in North Carolina

http://www.mtbikewnc.com

pisgah - rocky rooty technical trails

tsali - fast smooth hardpack trails

Might make for a nice vacation one of these days.

[Slider]

WTF??

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[TrailBate]

WTF??

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wtf, wtf? Are you confused why someone posted about North Carolina singletrack? Somebody threatened leaving the area and asked what mountain biking was like in warmer, cheaper North Carolina.

[Slider]

Guess I missed the flow.

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[TrailBate]

yeah, this is a multi-topic thread. ;D

[Kilroy]

Judiciary should interpret laws...not write them...Judges have no authority to make any laws.

Legislator should write laws and if they dont like a Judges law write a new one, not bitch about the Judge.

The president should let Alan Greenspan make economic decisions for the country, including taxes...especially the budget.

my two cents

But yeah I am giving thoughts to heading south, need to find company willing to cover relocation costs though.

"Winter what's it good for, huh, Aboslutely nothing!!"