[JGBigGreen]

When I lived in Connecticut, I spent quite a bit of time in the UK and never had any issue with people not knowing where New Haven was located. They didn't know Wallingford but the cities- New Haven and Hartford anyways- were usually recognized by most people.



And, as I'm sure you know, it isn't just CT news sites that might not be accessible when you are overseas. This has nothing to do with Connecticut- or other states- and everything to do with the news companies not wanting to comply with GDPR.

Originally Posted by mdovell

Some of it I also think just goes back to a lack of identity and recognition. When I travel and people ask where I'm from forget about saying Connecticut. They won't know it. You have to say the largest nearest city so it's pretty much NYC or Boston. Just say you are two or three hours away. They aren't going to know small town America. Some don't think it exists largely due to the media. One of the issues with this is GDPR. I was just in Italy last month and there's a number of CT news sites you can't get there because of it.

The population of any place is based on birth rate, immigration rate and domestic migration. If we want more we have to encourage more. Take a look at what policies are preventing or slowing this that can be solved on a local or state level. With a birth rate can we have tax incentives to having more kids? Maybe. Immigration can we have maybe a state program for free language training for state and local employees? Maybe can we create tax incentives to move here or move jobs here? Maybe. I'm not a fan of TIF's because they tend to cut and run afterward so I'd think if it was direct to an employee rather than employer it would help.

[CTREInvestor]

Originally Posted by BobNJ1960

Outside of Stamford, Ct cities are living in the 20th century, with no ability , nor willingness to pivot to the 21st century. When the manufacturers closed, a transformation to an information based economy did not occur in these cities, due to a population base ill suited in such cities to transform to it.

They left polluted land behind; providing added reasons for developers to seek suburbs to build in, and avoid the cities.

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/bo...ymassachusetts

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/pi...typennsylvania


https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/br...ityconnecticut

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/ha...ityconnecticut

Boston has a population where 52% have a bachelor's degree or higher level of education. Pittsburgh, even more industry dependent in the 20th century than Ct, is at 45.7%.

Bridgeport is at 20.1% Bachelors or higher. Hartford's rate is 16.7%.

I mostly look at Bridgeport and Hartford as blank slates.

[BHW2436]

I’m on my phone so too annoying to post links but college students that go to school in the Northeast (NY/NJ/ME/NH/VT/MA/RI/CT) end up getting their first job in NYC then Boston in terms of number 1/number 2 spots. Makes sense.

I just found this website, it might not be legit and might be old, but a lot of it seems to make sense:

https://joinhandshake.com/blog/emplo...they-graduate/

Their geographic definition of Northeast is NC/VA/part of OH and up and says that 76% of college grads in this area stay in this area and Boson is number two in terms of where grads want to go. Although, they also have Cambridge MA listed number 9 which for practical purposes I would still call Boston. Not sure why that’s separate, seems odd.

Boston is number 5 overall in the country based on job applications behind NYC/Chicago/San Fran/Atlanta

I’m sure someone will be quick to say how outdated or flawed this info is, but it does seem logical

[CTREInvestor]

Originally Posted by BHW2436

I’m on my phone so too annoying to post links but college students that go to school in the Northeast (NY/NJ/ME/NH/VT/MA/RI/CT) end up getting their first job in NYC then Boston in terms of number 1/number 2 spots. Makes sense.

I just found this website, it might not be legit and might be old, but a lot of it seems to make sense:

https://joinhandshake.com/blog/emplo...they-graduate/

Their geographic definition of Northeast is NC/VA/part of OH and up and says that 76% of college grads in this area stay in this area and Boson is number two in terms of where grads want to go. Although, they also have Cambridge MA listed number 9 which for practical purposes I would still call Boston. Not sure why that’s separate, seems odd.

Boston is number 5 overall in the country based on job applications behind NYC/Chicago/San Fran/Atlanta

I’m sure someone will be quick to say how outdated or flawed this info is, but it does seem logical

I think I need to spend a lot of weekends in Boston and see for myself.

I actually haven't been dismissing Boston. I think we in Connecticut can learn a lot from Boston.

[JayCT]

Originally Posted by CTREInvestor

Define "fine". If subjectively derived from citizens, at least describe your source.

You are the one saying it isn’t fine. You give your source for this claim.

I’ll point to the Annual Town Report. There is nothing in it to indicate any problems with the town. Not sure why you think there is. Jay

https://www.unionconnecticut.org/wp-...port-20-21.pdf

[mdovell]

Originally Posted by JayCT

You are the one saying it isn’t fine. You give your source for this claim.

I’ll point to the Annual Town Report. There is nothing in it to indicate any problems with the town. Not sure why you think there is. Jay

https://www.unionconnecticut.org/wp-...port-20-21.pdf

I just want to make it clear that I'm not saying that there's any problems with the Town of Union. However if you live within the area much of the time they lump Union into Stafford it's almost to the point where you almost think it's a neighborhood of Stafford. It isn't that surprising given that Stafford is about 14 times the size of Union. People don't always know small towns, Union is more apt to be called a village in other parts of the country

[mdovell]

I'm still thinking the Lego move might be just a scam to have taxes lowered.

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/eco...ban-doom-loop/

"At the end of 2022, the office vacancy rate in Boston stood at 17.6 percent, “the highest on record,” said Jeffrey Myers, research director in the Boston office of the real estate firm Colliers. That figure masks an even bigger problem in Class B office space, where the vacancy rate was a whopping 23.6 percent. In more desirable Class A space, generally in newer towers with higher-end amenities, the vacancy rate stood at 15.5 percent.

If downtown Boston’s streets remain eerily quiet it’s because the amount of vacant space on the market represents only a fraction of the office suites that are actually empty in buildings.

Occupancy rates on any given day in Boston office buildings are just 30 to 50 percent, said Tyler McGrail, executive managing director of the Boston office of the commercial real estate firm Newmark, during a market forecast presentation last month sponsored by NAIOP. A recent city report said downtown foot traffic is 55 percent below its pre-pandemic levels."

On top of this today Hubspot announced layoffs (7% 500 total). So if Lego wants to tap into some market that's fine but I don't think they really did their research. They only just started talking to boston in the past month. This might have made sense precovid. So far no property owner has publicly said they are working with lego, no real estate developer has said the same and neither mass nor boston is providing tax incentives. But they did say this would be in 2025 which quite a bit can change.

[okbymeman]

Originally Posted by mdovell

I'm still thinking the Lego move might be just a scam to have taxes lowered.

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/eco...ban-doom-loop/

"At the end of 2022, the office vacancy rate in Boston stood at 17.6 percent, “the highest on record,” said Jeffrey Myers, research director in the Boston office of the real estate firm Colliers. That figure masks an even bigger problem in Class B office space, where the vacancy rate was a whopping 23.6 percent. In more desirable Class A space, generally in newer towers with higher-end amenities, the vacancy rate stood at 15.5 percent.

If downtown Boston’s streets remain eerily quiet it’s because the amount of vacant space on the market represents only a fraction of the office suites that are actually empty in buildings.

Occupancy rates on any given day in Boston office buildings are just 30 to 50 percent, said Tyler McGrail, executive managing director of the Boston office of the commercial real estate firm Newmark, during a market forecast presentation last month sponsored by NAIOP. A recent city report said downtown foot traffic is 55 percent below its pre-pandemic levels."

On top of this today Hubspot announced layoffs (7% 500 total). So if Lego wants to tap into some market that's fine but I don't think they really did their research. They only just started talking to boston in the past month. This might have made sense precovid. So far no property owner has publicly said they are working with lego, no real estate developer has said the same and neither mass nor boston is providing tax incentives. But they did say this would be in 2025 which quite a bit can change.

No, this is just wishful thinking. You can’t attract young college grads to Enfield, that’s the big issue here. Even New Haven would be much harder than Boston for attracting talent.

[SteveM85]

Originally Posted by mdovell

I'm still thinking the Lego move might be just a scam to have taxes lowered.

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/eco...ban-doom-loop/

"At the end of 2022, the office vacancy rate in Boston stood at 17.6 percent, “the highest on record,” said Jeffrey Myers, research director in the Boston office of the real estate firm Colliers. That figure masks an even bigger problem in Class B office space, where the vacancy rate was a whopping 23.6 percent. In more desirable Class A space, generally in newer towers with higher-end amenities, the vacancy rate stood at 15.5 percent.

If downtown Boston’s streets remain eerily quiet it’s because the amount of vacant space on the market represents only a fraction of the office suites that are actually empty in buildings.

Occupancy rates on any given day in Boston office buildings are just 30 to 50 percent, said Tyler McGrail, executive managing director of the Boston office of the commercial real estate firm Newmark, during a market forecast presentation last month sponsored by NAIOP. A recent city report said downtown foot traffic is 55 percent below its pre-pandemic levels."

On top of this today Hubspot announced layoffs (7% 500 total). So if Lego wants to tap into some market that's fine but I don't think they really did their research. They only just started talking to boston in the past month. This might have made sense precovid. So far no property owner has publicly said they are working with lego, no real estate developer has said the same and neither mass nor boston is providing tax incentives. But they did say this would be in 2025 which quite a bit can change.

Great points. The Boston parishioners are going to have a field day with this one. Get the popcorn ready.
Everyone knows you couldn't attract any age grad to Enfield or the MA/CT border. Like, in forever, but somehow they managed to do so for all these years.

Good work. Keep it up.

[BHW2436]

Originally Posted by SteveM85

Great points. The Boston parishioners are going to have a field day with this one. Get the popcorn ready.
Everyone knows you couldn't attract any age grad to Enfield or the MA/CT border. Like, in forever, but somehow they managed to do so for all these years.

Good work. Keep it up.

No, they didn’t manage to do it. They attracted some outside talent, not much. As stated many times, most of Legos current workforce in Enfield is local and has been. The rest of it has actually been imported from Europe. The European workers from London, Germany and Denmark come over and don’t care about Enfield. Being 1.5 hrs from Boston and 2.5 from NYC is all they care about.

Lego doesn’t care about the tax bill.

As also stated multiple times, this wasn’t a surprise to people who already worked in Lego Enfield. In 2018 when they did their “simplify to grow” and laid off 25% of employees, the speculation then was it was time to move to Boston, and the employees know deep down why that makes sense