The City of Hartford’s budget is complicated – much more complicated than the budget of a typical municipality. Most Hartford residents, and many commentators, have only a vague sense of how money flows into and out of the City’s accounts. It is very difficult to have an effective conversation about spending when everyone has different perceptions about the numbers. The proposed baseball stadium is a perfect example. The rational way to approach this decision is
On February 10th, the City of Hartford was announced as one of three American cities participating in the federal Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2) Challenge. The program is a competition, looking for proposals from the general public with economic development ideas. More specifically, entrants are intended to be multidiscipline teams working to bring “new perspectives to an entrenched set of problems.” The winning team will “develop a transformative economic development plan — one that establishes
This is the current status of the Kane Street stop of the CTfastrak transit system that is under construction between Hartford and New Britain. Enough work has been completed to imagine what this station will be and how it will work. This stop will be a quick pull-off for the buses covering non-express routes, meaning they stop at each station. The shelter in the left foreground is for passengers on their way towards New Britain,
When you’re looking at a property, how much time do you spend outside looking at the surroundings? What are the adjacent properties? How do they look? Are you near a major road? Are there commercial or other non-residential parcels near you? Is there a farm or undeveloped land abutting or near the property? When we view homes with buyers we try to spend some time evaluating the adjoining and nearby spaces. This isn’t necessarily to
The first thing I learned about central Connecticut was that all roads lead to Hartford; literally. I was out at UConn Storrs for a summer program during college. When I looked at the map to try to figure out how to get somewhere, anywhere really, it appeared as though all the major roads radiated from the City of Hartford like the spokes of a wheel. The City itself is set up the same way –
