Michigander in Mass

I've already started doing it: Just look at my last post. And since there's really not enough material that happens to delve on both Michigan and Massachusetts, I'm going to officially devote this blog in 2005 to the issue of urban development, and specifically on our new home town: Somerville, Mass. Why? Well...

Urban development has always fascinated me, though for some reason I never realized it. MSU even had a program in it, but somehow (no doubt because of my suburban roots), the word urban somehow just didn't connect with me. Yet tell me you want to plan a new highway, or a new park, and I'd be all sorts of excited.

This anti-urban bias, which I never realized I had, stuck with me for quite a while. When I first moved to Boston, Somerville seemed, well, a little scary to me. Mind you, I led a fairly sheltered life in a small midwestern town (think Wellesley and you'll get the general idea). Somerville seemed like a dank, dense, dark city... Not decrepit, but definitely past its prime.

But then again, so did a lot of Boston-area towns, at least to my eyes, trained as they were on the sprawling, relatively modern midwestern cityscapes I experienced growing up.

So how then, did I possibly end up in Somerville? Same way we ended up in Massachusetts: Serendipity. Well, and cheap home prices. And location. And public transit (at least where WE are, but more on this later). Etc. etc.

Okay, so when we really started thinking about it, there were a lot of reasons to live in Somerville. In fact, the only reasons we could think of to not live there were noise, pollution and crime. Specifically, we were afraid that street noise would keep us up at night, pollution from nearby power plants would stink up the air, or there might be some gang violence in our part of town.

None of these have happened yet... Well, okay, a few neighbors got coupons for muffler shops on their windshields for Christmas, and if anybody's selling a highly-focusable EMP gun so I can disable a couple car stereos as they drive by, please contact me... But earplugs have helped, and it's in fact quieter than I had expected.

In fact, we're loving our place. We got a good deal on a decent amount of space, with a buff kitchen, new fixtures, etc. We have a parking space. We get along with our neighbors. We feel safe. In short, we're getting used to city living.

Now that I'm a homeowner, I've gotten very interested in local politics. And urban development is one of the most important functions local governments handle. So here we are. I'll be talking about various topics here, and sharing news on all aspects of development in Somerville, but with a focus on:

• Assembly, Union and Sullivan Squares
  
• Green Line Extension
  
• Somerville Community Path
  
• The Urban Ring
  
• Inner Belt/North Point Redevelopment
  

So check out some of these links, and let me know what you think. If you live in Somerville, Charlestown, Cambridge, Medford, Everett, etc., you may want to check back in from time to time...