Boston Bar Buzz-Kill
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Boston Bar Buzz-Kill
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Re: Boston Bar Buzz-Kill
#2Extending bar and club hours doesn't even make my list of things Boston could do to improve the entrepreneurial environment.
Re: Boston Bar Buzz-Kill
#3Extending bar and club hours doesn't even make my list of things Boston could do to improve the entrepreneurial environment.
I'd really like to know what your top 3 would be.
Re: Boston Bar Buzz-Kill
#4but what he ought to be thinking about is bars.
No. What he really ought to be thinking about is housing. In Boston—like Silicon Valley—virtually no one can afford housing: http://www.wbur.org/2009/10/26/housing-report (for Boston) and http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/face... (for Silicon Valley). Part of the way Boston needs to compete is through housing policy, and especially allowing much denser development that will help alleviate the extreme housing shortage. Bars are nice, and I'm not opposed to them, but the biggest weakness of many areas that are appealing to tech people, and people in their 20s and 30s more generally, is the cost of housing, which has largely become a consumer good.
Re: Boston Bar Buzz-Kill
#5Extending bar and club hours doesn't even make my list of things Boston could do to improve the entrepreneurial environment.
I'd really like to know what your top 3 would be.
1. Keep The T open until three or four, so busy entrepreneurs can get home for a few hours of sleep.
2. Get nonlocal VCs and Angels to come to Boston to make deals, and show the locals how it's done.
3. Encourage school to offer indefinite stop out programs. Too many students stash their ideas and suspend their leave of absence lest they lose financial aide or have to reapply to college.
Re: Boston Bar Buzz-Kill
#6but what he ought to be thinking about is bars. No. What he really ought to be thinking about is housing. In Boston—like Silicon Valley—virtually no one can afford housing: http://www.wbur.org/2009/10/26/housing-report (for Boston) and http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/face... (for Silicon Valley). Part of the way Boston needs to compete is through housing policy, and especially allowing much de…
If we take that Silicon Valley is the undisputed Mecca of technology, then your argument falls through. Like you said, Silicon Valley is also expensive, and yet they still manage to attract more and more people every year. New York, another city who is one of the most expensive in the US, is managing to pass Boston as the tech center of the East Cost.
We need to take a look at things where Boston is substantially different from the Valley. We can't change the weather and make Boston sunny year round, but we can provide an atmosphere that is more friendly to recent-grads.
Re: Boston Bar Buzz-Kill
#7Nightlife/bars in Boston are absolutely not the issue here. Compared to Boston, everything in San Francisco closes much earlier and public transport is inferior to boot. Yet people still flock there.
Re: Boston Bar Buzz-Kill
#8Nightlife/bars in Boston are absolutely not the issue here. Compared to Boston, everything in San Francisco closes much earlier and public transport is inferior to boot. Yet people still flock there.
Public transportation is a million times better in San Francisco. Not once have I ever felt like a car was necessary in the ~5 years I've lived here. In the 7 years I spent in Boston, at no point did I have a commute that was less than 3x as long with public transportation compared to just driving. The only time public transportation works in Boston is if you don't have to diverge off the red line.
Re: Boston Bar Buzz-Kill
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd really like to know what your top 3 would be.
1. Keep The T open until three or four, so busy entrepreneurs can get home for a few hours of sleep. 2. Get nonlocal VCs and Angels to come to Boston to make deals, and show the locals how it's done. 3. Encourage school to offer indefinite stop out programs. Too many students stash their ideas and suspend their leave of absence lest they lose financial aide or have to reapply to college.
> Keep The T open until three or four, so busy entrepreneurs can get home for a few hours of sleep.
Not gonna happen for the rail transit modes, the down time is necessary so maintenance and track inspection can happen (the T isn't like NYC transit where local service can be shunted to express tracks during shutdowns). I suppose the T could substitute buses during those hours, but that will require a lot of money the T doesn't have to move very few people.
Re: Boston Bar Buzz-Kill
#10Nightlife/bars in Boston are absolutely not the issue here. Compared to Boston, everything in San Francisco closes much earlier and public transport is inferior to boot. Yet people still flock there.
Public transportation is a million times better in San Francisco. Not once have I ever felt like a car was necessary in the ~5 years I've lived here. In the 7 years I spent in Boston, at no point did I have a commute that was less than 3x as long with public transportation compared to just driving. The only time public transportation works in Boston is if you don't have to diverge off the red line.
(Anecdotally,) I disagree: I didn't discover many of the best parts of SF until I started driving around here. It feels like SF geography is really designed to keep you out of certain neighborhoods unless you're driving there to see friends.
In Boston, though, even when I had a car, I didn't feel like I was hanging out in better places than when I was riding the T everywhere I went.
Again, just an anecdote, but one shared by several friends.