Laura Melle, on the City of Boston Office of Technology team, was assigned to support the evolving departmental procurement process, provided the background information for this story. The Office of Technology “inbeds” data oriented staff in key line departments to build support for and overcome the challenges to bringing these departments into “smart cities” status.… Read More
Plan It and They Will Build
Urban planners can take a page from the “Field of Dreams” movie’s playbook. In the movie, Kevin Costner built a baseball diamond in a cornfield and his dreams came true. Planners around the world are finding that this technique can work for reshaping cities, too. In the old days of “master planning” lots of night… Read More
Fate of Boston’s Failed 2024 Olympics Bid – Determined in 1822
Boston is no longer in the running for the 2024 Summer Olympics. While the City convulses in streams of joy and sorry, the question “what went wrong” emerges. The answer to that question may go back to 1822 when the city was incorporated, over 200 years before the Olympics would have happened. Or maybe the… Read More
Olympics 2024 – Proxy for a Real Boston Master Plan Process
Don’t pick the fruit until it’s ripe. That was one of the more profound lessons learned from my favorite Capital Finance professor. The people of Boston, contemplating a decision about whether or not the city should host the Olympics in 2024 would be wise to take this lesson to heart. The City of Boston, with… Read More
Boston Trains Face Infrastructure Finance Challenge
John D. Macomber, Harvard Business School lecturer and construction finance expert addresses the long term challenge of infrastructure finance in the context of the short term public transit crisis facing the city of Boston and the MBTA in the city’s snowiest Boston winter on record… so far. The MBTA faces the same problems that confront every… Read More