Originally Posted by
wiggin
Ag, I don't have time to address this in detail, but a counterfactual to suggest that your city's problems aren't likely to be solved by your plan.
I, also, live in the Boston area, but I live in a ridiculously expensive neighborhood just west of the city. Stupid zoning laws have restricted the supply of housing and kept most housing relatively low density given its desirability and location, meaning that prices have been driven up to absurd levels, houses are routinely subdivided into small apartments and rented for ludicrous amounts, and many more people cram into homes than they were originally designed for. Indeed, just like your own town, the schools are overflowing, even as property tax revenue (the city's main revenue generator) has not kept pace. Though it is almost certainly more accessible to Boston, our transport links are quite congested, and the absolutely awful train system (Green Line) is the oldest in America, and shows it - my commute is 45 minutes by train for ~3 miles, or about 15 minutes by bike (albeit at significant risk to my life).
On the face of it, you'd think that my neighborhood should face the same challenges that yours does - overcrowding, inadequate space in schools, poor transportation infrastructure. Yet my neighborhood is home to some of the most desirable real estate in New England, fantastic schools (albeit currently a bit overcrowded, which is being addressed with a property tax rise that was just approved in a referendum), and a populace full of young, upwardly mobile, highly educated professionals (along with a number of rich oldsters who can afford to own homes).