Did you know that the most popular communist in American history was born in Taunton? William Foster spent his life trying to build organized labor movements across the country. He was especially known for his advocacy towards fighting against racism both within the labor movement and within society at large. His view was that the labor movement wouldn't be able to build class conciousness and solidarity if all of the workers were too busy being racist to one another.

Thankfully our country worked hard to address these issues. Most of the labor organizers were arrested or assassinated. William Foster's works were actually brought before congress during the red scare, it was cited as evidence of how pro-labor anti-racism is "Un-American". Taunton even deindustrialized, you can't organize labor when nobody has jobs! As an added bonus that forced local hospital to cut back on services. Morton doesn't even cover deliveries any more, no more commie babies! 🦅🇺🇸 🫡

So is the recession over? It was only like 2 weeks ago that a major bank in the tech industry went belly up and had to be bailed out. Said bank was bailed out because it was used by many startups (including local ones) for payroll. More companies are announcing layoffs too. Lots of conditions in the market are changing at the same time and it will take a bit for the dust to settle.

Developers don't build affordable housing but that doesn't mean that "luxury" units don't provide pressure relief from gentrification. The road infrastructure isn't scalable for single family housing. Right now the best solution is to build 5-over-1's near public transit and hope that the market can sort itself out over time.

It was also supposed to generate traffic for the nearby mall to help it stay open, but that's gone now too.

Agreed, for the record I'm in the get rid of it all camp. I have nothing against the tribe and the arguments against their recognition were flimsy at best. Just disappointing to see how normalized gambling has become. Vices are fine when they are treated as a luxury, but I grew up in the area and I know what the unfortunate reality is. There will absolutely be kids in the surrounding towns that get stuck in the poverty cycle because their parents are addicts. That's just how the world works and it's sad to see us washing the blood of the past off of our hands with the blood of the future.

That's true but inheritance and generational wealth are real things in our modern society. If we want to make things equal we can either remove wealth inheritance rights from everyone or we can try to compensate the decendants of people who were wronged in the past. Anything else would be treating certain groups as second class citizens.

The irony is that the term luddites came from workers banding together to destroy machines that were replacing their jobs. Its understandable when you consider those workers needed those jobs in order to pay for things like housing and food. This casino was first proposed during the great recession because the machines and manufacturing had all been offshored and people were desperate to create jobs of any form. Somewhere along the line we've learned to ignore the worker's legitimate concerns about putting food on the table and only see things from the perspective of the factory owner who doesn't give a damn about anything but their bottom line.

Glad to hear that the tribe got its status recognized, it was long overdue. That being said I'm not a fan of building a casino right in the middle of Brockton, Taunton, New Bedford, and Fall River. All of these towns have struggled after de-industrialization and it can be a tough life when vice industries come in to prey on that desperation. But that's the way the cookie crumbles I guess. It does seem strange to frame this as a NIMBY issue when that's usually focused on housing development, this is a casino after all.

South coast technically doesn't even reach Taunton. South shore is strictly for towns within Massachusetts bay. Hockomock gets close but is a bit east of I-95. Blackstone is also close but that's a bit west. I'd say that those towns are more closely integrated with Hockomock if anything due to the I-95/495 connection. Taunton is squarely Hockomock and it even shares a transit system with Attleboro.

Mansfield has access to both 95 and 495, you can look along either of those for housing options. 495 is generally lighter traffic with the exception of southbound cape bound traffic on Fridays in the summer. The intersection of 495 and 95 can be a shitshow so try to avoid it if possible.

Human beings are incredible at their ability to adapt and persist through struggle. The struggle isn't the issue, it's struggle without any reward. Parents work their fingers to the bone on a daily basis in order to give their children opportunities, and they're often content with that path as long as their kids have the chance to do better.

The flip side is what happens to society when things are structured in a way that makes improvement impossible? Individually that may manifest itself as a mental health problem, but what happens when the majority of people start to struggle with these same issues?

Grew up in a rust belt-ish town and watched the industry leave and the prescription opiods move in to replace them. The local hospital had to cut back it's services because the tax base disappeared, that included mental health, but the "non-addictive" pills dulled the pain at first. Money got tight really quick once 2008 rolled around since the jobs were scarce and housing equity dried up. Take a wild guess which way my town swung in the 2016 election. Honestly had nothing to do with the policies and platform, people just wanted an outlet for anger and frustration.

93 south is the only highway access that I-95, Route 24, and Route 3 have in order to get to downtown. The daily cluster fuck on 93 is all of the drivers from 3 major highways south of the city converging into one.

Yeah that's true and it would reduce the cost of living for those who do make it into the program, but the affordable housing program is already overloaded as it is and the winners and losers are chosen by a lottery system. Even if the AMI requirement is lowered it would just put more stress on the affordable housing program without actually creating any additional housing, and as it stands the program is already being forced to turn people away. Unless more housing is built the program will further solidify itself as a poverty trap since increasing your income would drop you off a welfare cliff, and the market prices will only keep rising until more units are built.

The fact that affordable housing is 70% of the Area's Median Income is likely due to survivor bias. If the market doesn't have enough housing supply then the prices will go up until they consume larger and larger portions of people's income. Eventually the people on the lower end of the income spectrum are forced out because the housing system is market based and the winners and losers are chosen according to who can afford rent. Inclusionary polices cannot solve a supply problem, and the market but its very design will leave low income (often synonymous with underprivileged and marginalized) people holding the bag.

At some point we have to accept we are not Europe and we can't just instantly undo 70 years of developing car-centric cities and suburbs. We don't have mixed used block housing and sprawling plazas and parks, we have dying malls and over conjested roadways from everyone being forced to drive 20 minutes just to go shopping or visit a restaurant. If we can revive the malls by building dense housing nearby, we can start to look at expanding public transit since there will be a thriving mall worth visiting as well housing that is condusive to car-free lifestyles. Plus if it attracts white-collar workers and young families that means those people aren't being forced to outbid lower income people and gentrify the existing housing market. The only people who benefit from not building housing are the NIMBYs who want to see their property value go up for no reason other than the fact that they like getting money for doing absolutely nothing (except complain about "neighborhood character" and increased property taxes).

I'm no corporate boot licker but don't get it twisted this absolutely would be creating more housing. Market rate is never going to be logical or fair, it's just a reflection of how abundant supply is in comparison to demand. Unless there is some sort of tennant cooperative movement that can get people organized and accumulate the capital needed to break ground and push through NIMBY resistance, corporate developers are the next best thing. No point in arguing about ownership of something that never gets built in the first place.

The developer wants to charge that because that's what the market value for rentals is. The market's value of rentals is set that way because there are more people looking for housing than there are actual units to rent.

This project would turn some of those parking lots and a couple of single family homes into 495 units of apartments and senior living homes. Here are some of the opponents claims:

"Braintree officials are now set to review the proposal, and Mayor Charles Kokoros has spoken out against the plan.

“It’s an extreme amount of density,” Kokoros said, according to The Patriot Ledger. “We do not see this as favorable to the town.”

Kokoros is concerned that the development would negatively impact Braintree’s roads, water, and sewer systems, the Patriot Ledger reported. 

Resident Justine Huang said that the proposed complex is “not compatible with our neighborhood at all,” according to the Patriot Ledger."

This is the proposed site of the project

They haven't even seen a black person before yet they still put up those signs. How selfless they must be!

Life can just be fucked up, that's all. Seeking out someone to blame is just a coping mechanism so we can sleep at night under the assumption that if you do the "right" thing then things will work out. Arthur DaRosa tried to do the right thing, the day before the stabbings he attempted to have himself held at the local hospital for a mental health crisis. The system that is supposed to help people out of mental health crises examined him and told him to go home. He wasn't a pretty white woman so people were much more reluctant to treat him as a victim, but he did what he was supposed to do and our system's response was telling him to pound sand. She was doing the right thing and trying to work with the same system. It's obvious that it didn't work and now a lot of people got hurt for it. I'm just saying if people want to direct their frustration and anger into something productive it's time we start figuring out why the system isn't working.

Our healthcare system is breaking due to staffing shortages and that includes mental health. It's unfortunate but seeking out mental health doesn't necessarily mean you are getting all if the support needed to make a full recovery. That leaves an incredibly heavy burden on the family of the afflicted person. Life doesn't just pause until you can sort things out, chores need to be done, bills need to be paid, etc. And to top that all off your partner is unable to contribute and instead needs extra care. Caretaker fatigue is a real thing and it's not anyone's else place to cast judgement because until you've been in those shoes you can't understand how conflicting and dehumanizing it feels.

It's sad and unfortunate but this is not the first tragedy our communities have suffered due to mental health crises.

Which is why the US would absolutely want Morrocco to play by its rules, food will become the new oil.

Boston first belonged to the natives, then the puritans, then to the colonists, then the patriots, then the industrialists, and now it's changing hands to the corporate aristocrats. It's not fair but then again it never was. I look forward to more entitled posts on the sub about how bullshit this city is because it doesn't cater hard enough towards privilege.