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Citizen complaint of the day: Students
By adamg on Mon, 09/02/2013 - 9:44am
A concerned citizen files an elegantly simple Student Move-In Issues complaint about 1999 Comm. Ave. in Brighton.
General douchbaggery.
No doubt the city will get right on that.
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Comments
General Douchebaggery
Isn't there a statue of General Douchebaggery (correct spelling) somewhere on Commonwealth Ave? One of the heroes of 2nd Bull Run, if Wikipedia is to be trusted.
No, but there might be in Georgia
Or Virginia. The rebels were the douche bags, remember?
Good one though.
General Hooker entrance
"Isn't there a statue of General Douchebaggery (correct spelling) somewhere on Commonwealth Ave?"
I don't know about General Douchebaggery, but there's a "General Hooker entrance" at the State House. For real. I wonder if the exclusive hookers have a better entrance than the general hookers?
No statues, but plenty of
No statues, but plenty of ongoing performance art.
"What is that? It sounds like, well it sounds like someone hitting a piano with a sledgehammer."
And that is what it was. 3 brodudes, 1 sledgehammer, and many piece of the out of tune piano they could not fit in their apartment.
Piano demolition
Heh. Don't forget the baseball bat.
Speaking of local performance art, we would have appreciated some advance warning about the 20+ person film crew (complete with great big REALLY BRIGHT lights) working directly in front of our house until 2 AM on Saturday. They were clearly operating on the principle that it's better to go ahead and do something potentially disruptive rather than ask if it's okay, in case the answer comes back "no."
General Hooker entrance
For real, dude? General Hooker is a name (note the capitalization). Perhaps you were trying to be clever. Fail!
Citywide douchbaggery
These colleges that pay no real estate taxes to the city, cost the City more than they are worth in money, quality of life issues for its residents and yes "general douchebaggery".
Non-Profits do make Payments
Non-Profits do make Payments In Lieu of Taxes and have been for decades. The City does send them out tax bills.
According to the BRA, Colleges & Unv. produced a $4.8 billion
economic impact - $3.8 billion in direct and $951
million in indirect spending. Student spending
alone contributed $773 million to the economy.
I have seen students driving Bentleys, Jaguars, BMWs, buying condo's, paying $2000 and $3000 a month for apartments in Dorchester. Just check out Newbury St on weekend afternoon.
I'm taking this as a serious post
Your statement is false. Let me put it like this.
1. The universities do pay PILOT - Payment in Lieu of Taxes.**
2. The universities employ a lot people in Boston. Sheer number of employees would leave big hole if the schools never existed.
3. The students themselves patronize a lot of businesses and I have to argue that many of those businesses that provide livelihood and/or employment to many Bostonians would not exist if the students done come here either.
4. Finally, you have to ask, look at the past industries that rose after the decline of the textile and heavy industries: Health Care, Finance, Computer Technology, and now Biotechnology. If the schools wasn't here, would you think those industries would have still risen without many of the possible founders and employees brought here from the schools?
**You may counter-argue PILOT is not equivalent to the tax that would have been paid if it regular property. And you would be right. Except the three other reasons shows that would said land even remain that valuable in alternate universe where Boston did not have the student's patronage and the people's employment. And I doubt we would have been the other industries existing in the form we know today.
Yes Yes and Yes
Thank you RhoninFire for correcting the myths that seem to never go away. Take the schools away from Boston and you're on your way to becoming Detroit. A huge percentage of Boston is employed either by a school or by a business which serves the students and staff of one. Don't forget all the major hospitals are also run by or affiliated with the local schools.
You think Google, Microsoft, Biogen, etc all set up shop in Cambridge because of low taxes and nice weather?!? Get real. They are here because they hire kids out college (Grad School) and they'd leave if the schools left.
The ripple effects of having Boston be America's premiere college town are huge. I don't love the stupid freshmen either but they represent the reason Boston's economy is as strong as it is. Most cities in the US would love to have Boston's problems.
I'm not sure people realize how tenuous our position is
compared to the the cities competing with us. Once upon a time, 10 years or so ago, there were high tech manufacturers around here that did something called "kitting". When a manufacturer (HP, IBM, et al) needed a CPU, instead of putting 10,000 little do-dads together, they went to "kitters" who had already assembled 10 sub-assemblies with 1,000 do-dads in each of them. The actual computer assembly then became something of an anticlimax. Then, something strange happened: high speed internet access. Suddenly, the industries in places like Norwood and Nashua doing the kitting could source that laundry list of do-dads from Singapore or China. Dozens of plants went away virtually overnight. The work could be performed in cheap labor venues with "just in time inventories" of raw materials.
Now let's say you're a parent trying to afford college. And some enterprising college in South Carolina or Texas figures out a way to provide a web enabled education, using professors from BU, Tufts and BC for less money with no New England winters. How long would it take these educational "kitters" to pack up and move out of Boston? I don't think these people have a clue how much potential trouble they are looking at. We are Lechmere Sales and in the distance, we can see Amazon approaching.
You're Right
It's true and the schools know it. In 5-10 years the idea of going online to get a BA will become much more accepted for students out of high school. But I don't think it's going to change Boston or education as radically as it sounds. You can only learn so much Biology before you need to get your hands wet. For anything beyond basic electronics you start needing tools you can't simply order online. (They cost too much.)
I think we'll see hybrids were students learn online for the first few years and in labs at schools for the next few years. It's going to change places like Allston (slightly) but it isn't going to make dramatically reduce the desirability of coming to Boston for an education.
Yes and no
Online degrees might replace some current in-person degrees, such as those offered by commuter schools or lower tier residential colleges.
They're not going to replace ivy league degrees.
The same companies that exclusively hire from top-tier colleges and the ivy league today will continue to do so, and those institutions will continue to restrict the supply of their graduates. Their distinction will only become greater.
I agree.
That's all I have to say.
Spot-on, Rhoninfire
Plus - check the city assessor's website - a lot of them DO pay taxes in addition to PILOT.
Myth busted, though there are always truthers out there ... and they always attack the eds and meds, which make up about 2% of Boston's land mass. (You wanna attack a non-taxpaying entity with a massive footprint? I'm not gonna say the name, but it rhymes with smarchdiocese.)
And even if you dismiss the park and neighborhood cleanups, baseball coaching, etc., done by college kids as trivial, consider at least this: Boston's colleges are heavily invested in the public schools, providing grant money, teacher training, afterschool programs, science fairs, etc. Now think of BPS minus tens of millions of dollars of programs. And think of all the university land in Boston filled instead with apartments full of small kids who attend those public schools ... oh, the humanity.
You are equating good paying factory jobs
with service sector jobs...why? Boston lost a ton of industrial jobs because factory owners found out that they could raise their profits by moving operations overseas. Then you talk about health care, finance, computer technology, and biotech like that's a substitute? That is ridiculous. The former was a huge employer for average people with little to moderate education, and the latter caters to graduates from elite or expensive universities.
What the majority of long-time Boston residents have gotten over the past 20 years is displacement due to skyrocketing rents, and low-paying, unskilled service jobs. Granted, if you wanted to leave the city and cash in on a triple-decker that you bought for 10 grand and flip it for 600 grand then yeah, sweet deal. But if not, the colleges aren't doing much for you.
Equaivancy
Because the history of Boston is a history where we went from an economy of heavy industry to our current industries. Where would Boston be right now if none of the new industries spawn here? Low rents is nice, but I would also bet Boston would be a lot of closer to being Detroit. I don't think anyone from any background want that alternative history.
Thus it is equatable. Because it the new industries is what keeping Boston as a bustling city. The old industries is what fueled it before and now we have these industries. They are equatable as in economy engine replacement to the city's prosperity.
But I can see your point. Is it the same inhabitants? It is just a replacement of the original population or a successful transition. I can't answer that without numbers. But we can see self-evidently that Boston is doing well as a city. And a big part of that reason is the school and almost all the other industries are spawned by the schools (The big exception is tourism).
City's response
"status: Closed. Case Invalid."
How does one differentiate?
What is the difference between douchebaggery and masshollery?
And don't massholes think anybody "in my special masshole way at any time for any reason" is douchebaggery?
1. Residence status
The frat boy from Long Island with the Natty Light? Blocking traffic with his UHaul? Douchebag?
The guy with the Bruins license plates and Dunkies honking behind him? Possibly a masshole.
2. No, they don't. You're probably driving like a douchebag if you're encountering a lot of massholerey on the road.
The difference between
Good question Swirly,
The difference between douchebaggery and Masshollery?
Anyone can be a douchebag. However a Masshole, if not born and bred here certainly is steeped in local douchebag traditions to exhibit a certain panache and flair in his/her douchebaggery.
Massholery (yes, I capitalize Massholery) should be if not celebrated, at least more formerly acknowledged. I am in the process of planning specific Masshole Duck Tours.
Love the tour idea Peter!
I hope the driver won't just point out Masshole behavior but live it.
You know, banging U-eys with the bus, double parking at Dunks. When tour starts mdrver will obviously have to leave a space saver in his parking spot.
College-boy douchebaggery is the absolute WORST.
Never have I encountered so many people, who were given so much, act in such a wholly disrespectful way as college students do in Boston. They are the lowest, most vile subset of douchebags to ever exist on Earth.
This.
At the same time, people who live in Boston should be used to it/expect it. If not, move away. That's what I did! Moved to the Berkshires, closer to New York City than Boston now, never looking back.
I respect my city too much to
I respect my city too much to move away and let it turn into Amherst/Northhampton.
College students have become much worse in recent years. They act like children, even though they are.
This 30-is-the-new-20 attitude makes it so much worse. It's a shame there isn't some form of military style leadership and followership training new college kids would have to take before entering an institution. The attitudes would improve drastically.
Seriously?
I'm sorry - but people screaming at other people to teach them NOT to think for themselves and do what they are told for a couple of weeks is NOT going to solve the bad judgement, bad choices and immaturity problem.
Most Catholic school kids are horrible brats because they can't seem to control themselves because they have been raised in this sort of environment with this sort of thinking.
I take it you never did basic training.
but seriously, what is a
but seriously, what is a douche bag?
STUNADO!
STUNADO!
1999 Comm Ave
My first home in Boston after graduating college. Nothing changes but the seasons.
Cash Grab/Ticket Generator
I saw an ISD guy in a car, trolling around my neighborhood (Jones Hill) snapping photos on a phone.
A day later received a ticket for not "bringing in" recycling barrels from sidewalk as well as three of my neighbors.
I know "citizens" do very well connect, so I connected with my neighbors and found out all of them had seen the ISD guy as well. Looked on the website and there it was, with an "everyday person's account" of the very photo he had taken.
I don't believe it anymore.