My latest for the Globe tackles a redevelopment project 50 years in the making — the rebuilding of Jackson Square, along the JP/Roxbury line. The square was cleared a half-century ago to make way for the Southwest Expressway.

The doomed Expressway project became the Orange Line and Southwest Corridor Park, but vertical construction around Jackson Square has lagged. The gray blocks on the map above represent present-day building footprints. They’re layered on top of the 1931 Bromley atlas for the neighborhood. Highway and slum clearance wiped out most of the old square, leaving emptiness and blight behind. Now, after decades of false starts, construction is commencing on a set of buildings that will make Jackson Square a city square again, not just a vacant intersection. 

My latest for the Globe looks at an effort to reassemble the coalition that sank the Inner Belt and the Southwest Expressway. Forty years ago, activists from Somerville to Hyde Park crossed neighborhood boundaries to stop highway construction; now, they’re coming together as a constituency for transit-oriented development. Read the whole thing here.

[Creative Commons image via]

My latest op-ed for the Globe looks at crumbling roadways around the region — the McGrath Highway, the Longfellow Bridge, Storrow Drive and the Bowker Overpass — as opportunities for reorienting infrastructure’s relationship with the city, and correcting mistakes from the 1950′s and 1960′s.

Since the roadways have to be rebuilt anyway, it makes sense to seize the chance to radically reshape them, instead of just refurbishing the flaws already in place.

Read the whole thing here.

[BPL images, before and after Storrow's widening]

Given the recent history of locals losing interest in minor league teams full of players outside the major league pipeline, it looks like a risky business venture. But more importantly, the stadium would be astonishingly unproductive as a tool for revitalizing Malden’s struggling downtown. Right now the city needs as much mixed-income transit-oriented development as it can grab, and giving away a prime site across from the T isn’t the way to get there.

Read the whole thing here.

My latest for the Globe looks at the recent noise emanating from City Hall about using a Suffolk Downs casino to pressure Vornado into filling its Filene’s pit. The problem with these threats coming from City Hall is, there’s no way Hizzoner will actually throw the brakes on Suffolk Downs as payback for Filene’s. The mayor can’t credibly threaten Vornado when he’s been in the tank for Suffolk Downs for yeas.

Which is not to say those threats can’t or shouldn’t be made. The solution: Take the casino question out of the mayor’s hands, put it to a citywide vote, and unleash an angry electorate on the developers.

Read the whole thing here.

[Creative Commons image via]