Whitcomb: Downtowns as Amusement Parks; Quiet!! Office Life; Northeast Corridor Good News

Sunday, November 12, 2023

Robert Whitcomb, Columnist

 

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Robert Whitcomb, columnist

 

“You paused for a moment and I heard you smoking

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on the other end of the line.

I pictured your expression,

One eye screwed shut against the smoke….’’

-- From “Her News,’’ by Hugo Williams (born 1942), English poet and travel writer

Hit this link to read the whole poem:

 

 

 

“Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.’’

-- Henry Miller (1891-1980), American novelist and short-story writer

 

 

 

“The house was very quiet, and the fog -- we are in November now -- pressed against the windows like an excluded ghost.”

-- E.M. Forster (1879-1970), English author, in his novel Howards End

 

 

 

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PHOTO: GoLocal

Obviously, many jobs that have required being in a company’s office five days a week won’t be coming back, as remote work (whose adoption was rapidly accelerated by COVID) and artificial intelligence (which will probably destroy many millions of jobs) keep chomping away at them. This, of course, has presented a big challenge to city downtowns – some of which continue to report scary vacancy rates. But things aren’t as bad as has been presented, and indeed, some downtowns are rebounding.

 

And even as employers have cut back on office space, more and more are demanding that employees who have been entirely remote return to the office at least several days a week. This requires precision planning! Good companies know that many good ideas, especially for problem-solving, come from in-person collaboration.

 

Hit this link:

 

 

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Food Hall in Providence - scheduled to open in late 2024 RENDERING: Vision 3

City officials are coming to realize that thriving downtowns will depend much more on recreational visitors and new and old residents drawn to their conveniences and cultural and other nonwork-related attractions and activities, and much less on workplaces (except the work done by staff at such places as restaurants, performance venues, museums and so on).

 

The Providence Food Hall, scheduled to open next year in the old Union Station, is an example of the exciting attractions that will keep people coming downtown as visitors and get some to want to live there. It will build on Rhode Island’s reputation as a food center.

 

BUT, the success of the food hall will depend to no small degree on the city stopping the social chaos and crime, and fear of crime, that sometimes envelope Kennedy Plaza.
 

Hit this link for an update on the project:

 

Downtown Providence is better positioned than many places to thrive in cities’ brave new world because of its walkable compactness, its colleges, whose students and staffs patronize local business, and the fact that a middle-and-upper-class neighborhood abuts it.

 

 

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PHOTO: GoLocal

Leaf Blowers Beware!

 

Newport officials report:

 

“{T}he City of Newport is preparing to deploy a first of its kind smart enforcement system that will be capable of identifying and capturing noise violations in real-time.
 

“The system, which pairs the City’s existing traffic camera capabilities with new sound-detecting technology, is intended to help close an enforcement gap encountered by the City’s Police and Zoning officials while responding to suspected noise violations by providing the City with pinpointed real-time data on excessive and potentially harmful decibel levels.
 

“The innovative ‘noise camera’ system underwent extensive field testing over the course of five months earlier this year and is the latest in a series of steps that the City has taken to address what has become one of Newport’s most persistent quality of life issues.’’

 

Hit this link:

 

 

 

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PHOTO: GoLocal

Mitigating Loneliness

WeWork, the co-working company now under bankruptcy protection because of extreme mismanagement, especially its crazy over-expansion, has spoken to the desire of many people to avoid being isolated by just working at home in these (over-) computerized times. Better-run companies will snare many of WeWork’s customers.

 

Being in a setting where you can bounce off ideas, and socialize, with co-workers will remain an alure. Spending your work days in home solitary confinement can be deeply depressing. Artificial intelligence (AI) will probably make matters worse for those seeking at least a modicum of socialization. Even factories will have far fewer people as AI takes over more manufacturing.

 

For that matter, many folks even like taking the time to travel to work, as long as it’s, say, less than half an hour. The travel gives them a psychic break – in which, for example, to plan the day while heading for work and to unwind heading home.

 

I got a lot of ideas (and some jokes and tall tales) from schmoozing with fellow workers over 43 years as a wage slave before setting out on the minefield of freelancing.  Schmooze central was open offices, such as newsrooms. But my favorite open office was at a shipping company on the Boston waterfront, where I had a summer job for years while in school. A lot of the work was boring – I had to swim through multicolored bills of lading -- but the employees tried to be cheery and wry, and there were spectacular views of the harbor and Logan Airport, tinctured a few times with smoke from arsonists’ activities along the old docks. It was long before that part of “The Hub’’ was gentrified.

 

We got a lot of ideas for stories in the hustle-bustle of newsrooms. Sometimes just asking a colleague “How was your weekend?’’ brought forth a good topic.

 

Still, I was happy to get, in the fullness of time, my own private office. First was the one at the International Herald Tribune, in Neuilly, a Paris suburb, whose only drawback was that it had glass doors and so others could, unfortunately, see whom I was talking with. The other was a grand office with two doors, a sofa, carpeting and other signs of temporary power at the pre-implosion Providence Journal Co.; it was very good for confidential conversations and for sneaking in and out.

 

An entertaining attraction of being in a suite of offices was sometimes hearing loud, angry voices even through the thick doors, launching we listeners’ brains into wild speculation.

 

 

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Painting titled "Walking Shadows" Mazzoni

Unfortunately, a study says, Americans were walking less in the 2019-2022 period as COVID kept folks out of their workplaces:

 

We’ll see how much of that comes back. A fundamental problem is that America, in cities and elsewhere, prioritizes cars over pedestrians --- roads over walkways. Then there’s the substitution of home deliveries over Americans going to the store and encountering people, of all creatures, and at least walking a little, if only in a huge supermarket. In cities, many people actually walk to the stores. That’s why downtown residents are less fat than people who become obese in part because America’s sprawl-and-waste-based  land-use practices lead them to drive everywhere.

 

Walking is obviously good for you, physically and mentally (clearing your head). A good walk can help you resolve many a problem.

 

Interesting walkable places are often densely populated (consider downtown Boston and Midtown Manhattan). In any event, America needs much more  housing  (thus density) in order to bring down prices, but for that to happen states will have to curb localities’ zoning codes, and lawsuits, that effectively block most new housing, especially multi-family.

 

 

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PHOTO: Will Morgan

Train Triumph

Decades late, but happy news!

Amtrak will get nearly $10 billion in federal funds for 12 major projects along the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington, D.C. This is part of the Biden administration’s  $1.2 trillion infrastructure program. The White House likes to call it “bipartisan,’’ but the majority of congressional Republicans voted against it. Since it was enacted, however, many have tried to take credit for the projects coming to their states or districts.

 

Amtrak says the $10 billion will be used to “modernize critical infrastructure, improve stations and support future ridership growth” on the corridor.

 

“This historic funding comes at a critical time as [Northeast Corridor] ridership continues to rise, consistently exceeding pre-pandemic levels since early summer as Amtrak delivers a new era of passenger rail,’’ as highways become ever more crowded and drivers worse and worse.

 

The Amtrak program is great news for the southern New England economy.

 

However, in general, America’s passenger train service will remain embarrassingly bad compared to most developed nations.

 

Here are the projects:

 

 

So Long

Gerry Leonard,  the Republican candidate in the First Rhode Island Congressional District race, deserved to lose to Democrat Gabriel Amo just based on his refusal to answer whether he’d support Trump in 2024. Someone who leaves open the possibility that he’d support a traitor, thief, sexual assaulter, pathological liar, and all-around con man doesn’t deserve to be in the House. There are more than enough amoral enablers of that gangster and would-be fascist dictator in Congress already.

 

 

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This looked really bad. Former Rhode Island Congressman David Cicilline, now CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation, was scheduled to be the main speaker at a Democratic Party fundraiser for the state party. After GoLocal reported the plan, the event, scheduled for Nov. 10, was canceled.

 

Whatever you think of the Trump QAnon Republican Party, to have the leader of a nonprofit community organization, such as the Rhode Island Foundation,  with a broad public role speak at a politically partisan event is foolish. For one thing, doesn’t this put off some potential donors?

 

 

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The decline of the middle class has gone along with the decline of unions, which have helped bring us such things as the eight-hour workday, weekends off and employer-subsidized health care. Will the United Auto Workers’ recent success in its negotiations with Ford, GM, and Stellantis mark a major turning point, economically and politically?

 

 

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“Trump, as hollow as he is, without a single idea, positioned himself as this outlaw, questioner of institutions, challenger of the status quo. He has that brand that appeals to people’s grievance.”

-- California Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna in The New York Times.

 

Why doesn’t Biden get credit for an economy that all in all is at least as good as that on which Ronald Reagan won a second term by a landslide? (I followed the economics and politics of that election as a business editor.) I think that it’s mostly because Reagan, from his years as an actor, PR man, and politician, was simply a much better salesman, and had a better advertising staff than Biden has.

 

 

 

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson PHOTO: House Feed

The Speaker’s Mysterious Finances

The anti-gay-obsessed new U.S.  House speaker and far-right theocratic Trump cultist Mike Johnson’s last mandatory annual financial report, in 2022, listed no bank accounts, investment accounts (including for retirement),  money-market funds, individual stocks or bonds. Or even crypto! Indeed, none of his disclosures going back to 2016, when he was first elected to Congress, showed bank accounts.

 

Now, he says, he does have a bank account but that it’s not subject to disclosure rules because it does not bear any interest.

 

He has been  earning $174,000 a year as a member of Congress (now raised to $223,500 for being a speaker) and $30,000 a year for teaching at Liberty (for whom?)  “University.’’ And maybe other sources? His wife also has wage-paying jobs, but it’s unclear at this point how much they pay in total. No reporting.

 

The U.S. median household income was $74,580 in 2022.

 

What’s going on?

 

Where was/is Speaker Johnson’s congressional salary check being deposited? I assume that he’s not taking it in cash, small denominations, unmarked bills.

 

Overseas accounts? Sacks of cash in the cellar? Or, more likely, bad personal financial management? He apparently owes hundreds of thousands of dollars for his mortgage and other loans. Perhaps Republican donors will alleviate his financial challenges….Or have they already, as with Supreme Court “Justice” Clarence Thomas, who has happily taken whatever goodies his rich GOP pals offered him?

 

In any event, Louisiana, where the oil and gas industry is the most powerful force, and that has gone  from one-party Dixiecrat (the old racist Southern Democrats) to one-party far-right  Republican,  has long been infamous for colorful, unapologetic and often inventive corruption along with very low levels of education (that makes sense!) and health.

 

The public needs to know fast who, if anyone, is behind Mike Johnson or whether he’s just financially incompetent, which would make him an exciting person to have a position of such power over the federal budget and second in line to the presidency.

 

 

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The results of last Tuesday’s elections were, in general, a comforting triumph of issues over party.

 

 

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As I’ve noted here before, we’ll -- very unfortunately – have to depend on fossil fuels for decades to come, even as solar, wind, nuclear and other energy sources gradually increase their roles. So let’s hope for big advances in carbon-capture technologies by fossil-fuel companies, aided and abetted by government programs.

Hit this link:

 

 

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Rulers of far-right-run Texas say they hate “socialism,’’ but 65 percent of those voting in last Tuesday’s election backed creating a $10 billion “state energy fund’’ to build new plants and power lines and create microgrids to back up such critical facilities as hospitals.

 

The vote came after some disastrous power failures in recent years. Reality has been biting.

 

Hit this link:

Robert Whitcomb is a veteran editor and writer. Among his jobs, he has served as the finance editor of the International Herald Tribune, in Paris; as a vice president and the editorial-page editor of The Providence Journal; as an editor and writer in New York for The Wall Street Journal,  and as a writer for the Boston Herald Traveler (RIP). He has written newspaper and magazine essays and news stories for many years on a very wide range of topics for numerous publications, has edited several books and movie scripts and is the co-author of among other things, Cape Wind.


 

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