The YIMBYs are coming, to the suburbs
Fed up with the hostile reception to new development in Franklin, Frongillo and a group of other residents formed what was once a rare breed of advocacy organization in Boston-area suburbs: a pro-housing group, whose members go to public meetings to say yes to more housing development, instead of no. Katherine Einstein, a Boston University researcher who has studied housing politics in Massachusetts, said the new advocacy groups can wield a lot of influence. Even showing up at public meeting to speak in favor of projects is helping to offset longstanding dynamics that have shaped decisions about local housing policy.
Four Mass. residents awarded MacArthur ‘genius’ grants
Four people from Massachusetts — a cellular and molecular biologist, an environmental ecologist, a computer scientist, and an interdisciplinary scholar — on Wednesday received “genius” grants from the MacArthur Foundation, which awards fellowships to individuals pursuing a range of intellectual and creative interests. Hutyra is a professor in Boston University’s Department of Earth and Environment and has been a member of BU’s faculty since 2009. She is investigating impacts of urbanization on environmental carbon cycle dynamics.
High prices, years-long wait lists: Massachusetts needs more senior housing
Nearing 70 years old, Mary McPeak had long had a stable home in Greater Boston. But after a breakup four years ago, she suddenly found herself unmoored, couch-surfing at friends’ homes or renting a room while she faced years-long wait lists for affordable senior housing.
Then a break: McPeak “won the lottery,” figuratively and quite literally, when she was selected in 2020 by lottery for a new senior housing complex, the Brown Family House in Brookline run by 2Life Communities.