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A quick look at the City Data site will show you that Springfield has about twice the unemployment and twice the crime of the rest of the state. Once a city gets to that point, it's hard to attract great new employers and highly employable people - both of whom have lots of other options.
I don't think it's doomed to be forever like that, but it's going to take great leadership, creative and pragmatic thinking and a lot of hard work to turn it around.
A quick look at the City Data site will show you that Springfield has about twice the unemployment and twice the crime of the rest of the state. Once a city gets to that point, it's hard to attract great new employers and highly employable people - both of whom have lots of other options.
I don't think it's doomed to be forever like that, but it's going to take great leadership, creative and pragmatic thinking and a lot of hard work to turn it around.
Springfield is at 5.1% unemployment Last year it was 8.3% Last month it was 6.3%
Mass unemployment is at 3.3%. Springfields is still higher than the state but the gap between them has shrank dramatically. We're no longer talking double digits. Relative to other communities it would be the 4th highest in the state, Lawrence is higher for urban areas (ptown is season anyway). As a unemployment rate keeps dropping eventually you get wage inflation. Once you get wage inflation eventually they might start looking at other areas to expand.
The rate is dropping because pretty much every major project is now coming online. MGM, the rail plant, union station and the list goes on and on from the link I provided showing 3.3 billion worth of investment since 2011.
"Property taxes are less in Western MA than closer to Boston, but they are still high compared to the rest of the nation."
"Has nothing to do with the fact that our state (especially our community) colleges, are not training our workforce in relevant skills desired by these industries."
Uh no. That's going on right now in springfield since there is a vocational school and one of the only technical community colleges.
"It will never be Boston, but it needs to compete better with Worcester, Manchester, Hartford, Albany and Rochester, NY than it is right now."
Hartford is pretty easy given it will probably file for bankruptcy in FY 18. NY is pretty hard to compete with given some of the tax incentives. Albany's SUNY campus is gigantic to say the least. Worcester is mostly higher ed but the differences in population are significant. I think New Haven would be a fair comparison.
"It's completely tied to the natural gas pipeline capacity problem and lack of competition with gas pipelines. Thank the NIMBY and global warming people for that. "
Kinda sorta maybe. Springfield is mostly on natural gas now. I love it. I get instant hot water at any time with little if any noise. I can practically make soup/coffee/tea right from the tap. It can get that hot instantly. I grew up with oil and pretty much hate it. Keep in mind though the issue is also local. Local municipal organizations have been frozen from expanding since the 1920's. Holyoke has it's own power from water. It didn't even lose power in the black of '65. Holyoke, Chicopee, South Hadley and Westfield all have their own. There's been arguments of lifting this cap which would easily allow for more hiring. Lexington would spark up one in a minute if they were legally allowed to. http://users.rcn.com/patrick.mehr/Ma...ors%20only.GIF
Right now Smith and Wesson is putting on some massive solar panels. Might sound odd for a gun to be "green" but if it helps them win contracts all the better. The negative about gas is to be frank there are significant leaks many of which can kill trees. I'm all for expanding but fix the leaks.
"The 495 belt long ago achieved critical mass for high skill jobs that create intellectual property. Big Pharma and high tech pay a big salary and commercial real estate premium to get access to that labor pool."
So why is Pfizer in Andover with a bigger location than Cambridge? Intellectual property is nice as a concept but is largely invalid today. Open source eradicated the needs of software suites. Ubuntu can replace an older OS on a laptop. Creative commons license and ability to download files worldwide 24/7 changed that.
"Springfield has more in common with the decaying rust belt cities. At best, a semi-skilled labor force that is unable to compete very well in the global economy. Employers looking for that kind of labor force don't located in Springfield. They locate in more business and labor-friendly regions. You're not going to put an automobile plant in Springfield. You're going to put it in the south where unit labor costs and business costs are lower."
Right but with self made cars another 10 years away the likelihood of any new car plant in the country are slim to none (unless it is self driving). Making a product that sits 95% of the time is not exactly productive.If it wasn't competing well then how did CRRC decide to build the rail plant here? The largest rail company in the world is building the plant to make the MBTA cars and is looking at NY, Philly and DC. Rail cars are supposed to have a life of 25 years at most. Moving to a place for cheaper labor (overseas) minimizes the most controllable costs (labor) but it also maximizes the UNcontrollable costs (foreign taxes, translations, time zones, foreign fuel costs, foreign regulations etc) Manufacturing in China is much more than it was in 2000 when it was 50 cents an hour. Now it's $4.50. Show me a union that received a NINE fold increase in wages in 16 years. In major eastern cities it is $14.50/hr for manufacturing. Contract laws are totally different in other countries and they might not really bend to a US based company. Twenty to thirty years ago sure but now you have to get in line like everyone else. It's an auction now. Got Guanxi? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKKsRc5O5eo
"Springfield really has nothing going for it other than that geographical proximity to NYC and Boston. The problem is people and companies want to be in or near those two cities, not halfway between them."
Again I'd encourage people if they really want to see and judge Springfield come on down I'll gladly show you the sights. Crime decreased, finances improved. We wouldn't see Manhattan money coming in to build apartments. I wouldn't see people from boston coming here to "party on the cheap" during beer and music festivals. Natural gas access, city wide free wifi, commuter rail to Hartford and New Haven, rail to a lesser point further north, nearest airport now has flights to Europe (aer lingus), traffic is much less and next week the announcement for the I-91 redesign. I like seeing things backed up with data because without data then it is just another opinion. I see development all around the city and region.
If what was said about the city being that bad then what's preventing Baystate Health and Mercy from merging with Mass General or Tufts? Why isn't Mass Mutual, a company that manages almost a half trillion dollars moving to Boston or Smith & Wesson? Why didn't the Big E move to Boston? Why are there eight institutions of higher learning in the city? Look Boston is nice don't get me wrong but it is not a monopoly of all economic activity in Mass, let alone New England. If Boston neglects other areas of the state they'll simply gravitate towards other areas. Bristol County is pretty much connected to RI, Springfield along I-91, Berkshires to a point with Hudson and Albany NY, north eastern Mass to south east NH etc
Springfield is at 5.1% unemployment Last year it was 8.3% Last month it was 6.3%
Mass unemployment is at 3.3%. Springfields is still higher than the state but the gap between them has shrank dramatically.
You know the difference between U3 (unemployed for less than 6 months where you are collecting unemployment insurance) and U6?
The city of Springfield total employment has been flat for the last 20 years. At the bottom of the Great Recession, total employment was 54,000. In September, it was 58,000. Before the Great Recession, total employment was up around 60,000 for 15 years since 1990.
Springfield is not adding jobs in any meaningful way. Instead, people are no longer participating in the labor force after they collect for their 6 months. The headline U3 unemployment rate stops counting them.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,936 posts, read 36,962,945 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mdovell
Intellectual property is nice as a concept but is largely invalid today.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdovell
I wouldn't see people from boston coming here to "party on the cheap" during beer and music festivals.
You don't see much of this either, at least for the beer. There isn't much going on in Springfield. Springfield On Tap? Crappy, doesn't even have the best two from Massachusetts, and none of the top 20 from New England. Worthy Brew Fest? Significantly better, but really only Tree House as a draw. Completely outshined by the brewfests like Extreme Brew Fest in Boston.
So why is Pfizer in Andover with a bigger location than Cambridge? Intellectual property is nice as a concept but is largely invalid today. Open source eradicated the needs of software suites. Ubuntu can replace an older OS on a laptop. Creative commons license and ability to download files worldwide 24/7 changed that.
"
I think if you looked at IP from more than just a computer science perspective you would quickly understand just how important it is to a functioning economy.
You know the difference between U3 (unemployed for less than 6 months where you are collecting unemployment insurance) and U6?
The city of Springfield total employment has been flat for the last 20 years. At the bottom of the Great Recession, total employment was 54,000. In September, it was 58,000. Before the Great Recession, total employment was up around 60,000 for 15 years since 1990.
Springfield is not adding jobs in any meaningful way. Instead, people are no longer participating in the labor force after they collect for their 6 months. The headline U3 unemployment rate stops counting them.
Yes I do but if you are playing the tactic of "Those are just people falling off unemployment" well that doesn't fit. I used to downplay the economy belieing that years ago but the fact of the matter is the job market is pretty hot everywhere. I'm not going to go on some political rant praising anyone but I think that much of this was really based on the 10,000 baby boomers retiring. Someone has a high end job and retires and the person below gets promoted and then there's another vacancy etc. In government I've seen this happen albeit in slow motion. Sometimes you can predict a job opening six months ahead of time.
The labor participation rate is what you are implying and yes it generally is about 60-70% but that's the same state and national trend. You cannot realistically expect that everyone that is able bodied would be working because that would ignore retirements, those in prison, those sick and those that are in higher ed. It has been argued that the national level has declined due to disability claims but that'st a pandoras box. Technically there's more than 94 million people in the country that are not working. Does this mean that the unemployment rate should be 33%? No of course not.
sites like this ---> 94,184,000 Not In Labor Force; Labor Force Participation Rises; Unemployment Rate Ticks up to 5.0 try to imply that but it isn't true.
"Nothing could be further from the truth. "
Between standard versions being good enough, open source and piracy it can be argued it is. Open systems always win over closed systems in the long run. Short run there can be standards with a closed system that are better but with time an open system always improves. LibreOffice today is about 99% of what MS office is. Ubuntu and other linux distribution can satisfy most computer users (certain fields like video production and GIS aside)
"You don't see much of this either, at least for the beer. There isn't much going on in Springfield. Springfield On Tap? Crappy, doesn't even have the best two from Massachusetts, and none of the top 20 from New England. Worthy Brew Fest? Significantly better, but really only Tree House as a draw. Completely outshined by the brewfests like Extreme Brew Fest in Boston."
Right so you define what the "best" beer is? That is called an opinion my friend. There's another message board I know of where they've been arguing on what is the best Bloody Mary mix. The argument has gone on now for SIX YEARS! If there's two words that get people out in the Pioneer Valley it's "Craft beer". Artifact Cidar and White Lion are the major ones in the city but there are others in the region. Valley fest was pretty big. Valley Brew Fest - White Lion Brewing Company hosts Valley FestValley Brew Fest | White Lion Brewing Company hosts Valley Fest For more music the green river festival further up in Greenfield is pretty big. I'm not big into live music except an orchestra but if that's your think it lasts three days. THE GREEN RIVER FESTIVAL 2016 We don't have a deficit of music, craft beer and clubs. Valley Advocate publishes these on a weekly basis. It's like the Boston Phoenix circa 1999 The Valley Advocate it also is free in paper on pretty much every other block in Springfield. I'd also note that the rail line to new haven will pretty much be 12 trips a day. That opens up quite a bit with Yale alone and various brewfests. Not to promote being drunk in public but public transit is better than private in this regard.
"I think if you looked at IP from more than just a computer science perspective you would quickly understand just how important it is to a functioning economy."
yeah actually I do. But you also have to understand from a logical perspective this also doesn't make sense in the long run. We live in a global world and frankly US law doesn't apply in China just as Canadian law doesn't apply in India. Knockoffs happen. Much of what Amazon sells on their 3rd parties is no official. I recent bought some electronic toothbrush heads and although it looks 100% the same the name on it isn't. Amazon's Chinese counterfeit problem is getting worse
I have worked in a few companies that did have propriety systems. Often times these were made between the 1970's up to the 1990's. Either a small firm or some of their own invented them and if it isn't broke don't fix it. It does what it is supposed to do. Well the trouble is often times keeping up with the times and regulations means you have to update. In one case one of them had to take the old system onto windows and run in emulation. Nice in theory but doesn't always work. Another had a system do so much that making a new one would be so massive that they simply broke up the tasks it did and tried smaller replacement systems to the point where you wouldn't need old one....it's been EIGHT years and they STILL have it. There are companies that rather not use software and apps used by others because they are training you in a skill that has a value somewhere else. Entire industries use proprietary software. Certainly there is a shift to cloud based. I use Tyler Technologies MUNIS all the time. It's a great program but at the same point there's only so much we can control. Ultimately with the right programmers you can develop your own, it is simply the bandwidth and scale. There's plenty of specifically catered niche software out there. At the same point gradually more becomes open source. ArcGIS is a very high end GIS system. I'm not saying they'll go bankrupt tomorrow but when Google dropped Google Earth Pro from $400 to free that was a signal.
Patents, trademarks and copyrights are used as forms of economic rents for a reason. They put in the time, money and energy to create "something" and which to protect that so it does not become a sunk cost or worse yet a loss. Having said that though there are not that many ways to realistically protect a product. If you make music sampling is pretty much the name of the game. Now I'm not saying that it isn't an art but eventually you can hear inspiration, lyrics and beats even without sample. Just see Discover Music via Samples, Cover Songs and Remixes | WhoSampled and type some artists in. The most sampled band in human history is Kraftwerk. Trans Europe Express sampled about 70 times and The Robots 32 times. Some have made more modern comparisons between Blade Runner and Apocalypse Now.
the other thing to keep in mind though is the USA has a first to patent rather than first to invent process. There is nothing in the form of a legal bond or requirement for a patent holder to actually do anything with it. So innovation on paper can occur. Then they just sue organizations and become patent trolls. Some patents are so obscure that it becomes open ended. There are companies that claim in the late 1970's they had GUI's and go after tech companies. Think about this for a moment. Is a company going to honestly go though each and every patent, copyright and trademark before they attempt to innovate and invent?
Originality as stated earlier is more of a myth. The reason being is frankly much of what exists simply is just copied and slightly modified. This is basic human history. Westside Story is Romeo and Juliet, Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare was impressive because literacy rates were pretty low then) was Pyramus and Thisbe. Star Wars was the Magnificent Seven which came from the Seven samurai. Sitcoms? Where do I start. Recycling much of the same content since the 1950's. The Monkees in the 1960's was recycled in the UK as The Young Ones twenty years later. Any story of "the journey home" is Homer's Odyssey. Sure things might seem "new" "young" "exciting" and "fresh" but the reality is they haven't experienced the older versions so of course they think that way. Facebook is pretty much AOL but without the $20 a month charge it can even date back further - chat is IRC, IM dates back to ICQ, message boards from BBS's. Movies? You mean the sequel/remake/reboot factory. I used to be into comics and thought comic movies would be a good idea but at this point enough is enough.
Apple? Where do I start. The real Apple kinda died out when Steve Jobs came back. Apple has never really made their own operating system or hardware. In the 1980's computers were pretty much the Motorola 68000 family and Intel's 286 and 386. If you want to make an argument about Z-80's and 6502's that was earlier. By the 1990's Apple moved to Power PC chip which was jointly run by Apple, Motorola and IBM. By around 2006 they moved to Intel processors. OS X came from Job's NeXT OS which itself came from Linux's Free BSD Discover Music via Samples, Cover Songs and Remixes | WhoSampled The design of the products was largely from Frog Design (now frog). Sometimes originality just wraps itself around and becomes retro like watching tv with an antenna, LP records, dr etc. That's hipster material, not really original.
The other problem ultimately with IP is that if they cannot control the products themselves they can control who made the products themselves. In other words non disclosure agreements and non competitive agreements. I have a friend in the pharma industry and if he leaves to another he can't go back for two years. How innovative is it to *NOT* compete? What would happen if companies agreed to simply not hire each others employees and outright depress wages? Well actually that DID happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-T...ust_Litigation Adobe, Apple, Pixar, Google, Lucasfilm, Ebay etc all made these agreements. Then they might sue each other Apple suing Samsung, Samsung suing Apple over designs. One might lead to an injunction to not sell a product. Who wins in this other than the shareholders? There's no greater freedom then the freedom of choice. IP is not innovation but rather litigation as ween but the actions of the companies. EMC seems to be the real holdout in Mass on non competes. Oddly I have a friend that left there for Microsoft.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,936 posts, read 36,962,945 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mdovell;46372894
Right so you define what the "best" beer is? That is called an opinion my friend. There's another message board I know of where they've been arguing on what is the best Bloody Mary mix. The argument has gone on now for SIX YEARS! :eek: If there's two words that get people out in the Pioneer Valley it's "Craft beer". Artifact Cidar and White Lion are the major ones in the city but there are others in the region. Valley fest was pretty big. [url=http://valleybrewfest.com
Valley Brew Fest - White Lion Brewing Company hosts Valley FestValley Brew Fest | White Lion Brewing Company hosts Valley Fest[/url] For more music the green river festival further up in Greenfield is pretty big. I'm not big into live music except an orchestra but if that's your think it lasts three days. THE GREEN RIVER FESTIVAL 2016 We don't have a deficit of music, craft beer and clubs. Valley Advocate publishes these on a weekly basis. It's like the Boston Phoenix circa 1999 The Valley Advocate it also is free in paper on pretty much every other block in Springfield. I'd also note that the rail line to new haven will pretty much be 12 trips a day. That opens up quite a bit with Yale alone and various brewfests. Not to promote being drunk in public but public transit is better than private in this regard.
A, it is not my opinion. Look at the ratings. Just like art, and music, good and bad beer isn't entirely subjective. Glass Bottom, interesting stuff, but not that great. Big Elm, garbage, don't know a single person that bought anything there after samples. Not well rated. Wandering Star, nice brewery cat, forgettable beer. The "berkshire brewery trail" is a bit of a running joke, actually, and the point is more to run away from it and go to Monson.
B, cider /= beer. And Greenfield area has a good meadery, and Fin and Feather is right next to it, but it is far from Springfield. Greenfield has nothing to do with Springfield.
Pioneer Valley is not known for craft beer. Portland ME is. Waterbury/Stowe/Burlington is. Pioneer valley is not.
BBC is probably the best known of the ones out there, and it has a good tour, but is a middling brewery. Also, it is Deerfield, very far from Springfield.
The only really well respected brewery at Valley Fest was Jacks Abbey, because they're one of the few doing craft lagers. Their sour game stinks.
People into beer do not travel to these events. People who drink beer might. Big difference.
And you seem to be focused on software when considering IP, which is only a small portion of it. Not a very significant portion. Tell the biotech field that IP doesn't matter.
I pointed you to real data that shows that Springfield hasn't added jobs and has been stagnant at around 60K jobs for decades. There hasn't been some "Springfield miracle". After 6 months, people roll off of the unemployment rolls and are no longer counted. Like any failed city, the labor participation rate in Springfield is awful.
Furthermore, other than health care which pays pretty well even in the worst basket case cities in the country, Springfield has practically no "good" jobs. There is a little pocket of affluence in Longmeadow where the professional people live and the rest of the immediate Springfield area is sketchy with lousy school systems.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,936 posts, read 36,962,945 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GeoffD
I pointed you to real data that shows that Springfield hasn't added jobs and has been stagnant at around 60K jobs for decades. There hasn't been some "Springfield miracle". After 6 months, people roll off of the unemployment rolls and are no longer counted. Like any failed city, the labor participation rate in Springfield is awful.
One correction here. It is a complete myth that once people run out of unemployment benefits that they are no longer counted in unemployment numbers. That is not how unemployment numbers are counted. That is mainly done through the community population survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
I pointed you to real data that shows that Springfield hasn't added jobs and has been stagnant at around 60K jobs for decades. There hasn't been some "Springfield miracle". After 6 months, people roll off of the unemployment rolls and are no longer counted. Like any failed city, the labor participation rate in Springfield is awful.
Furthermore, other than health care which pays pretty well even in the worst basket case cities in the country, Springfield has practically no "good" jobs. There is a little pocket of affluence in Longmeadow where the professional people live and the rest of the immediate Springfield area is sketchy with lousy school systems.
Well, there ARE educated people, just not living in Springfield. The educated people are in Longmeadow, East Longmeadow, Hamden, Wilbraham, the Northampton area. There aren't enough jobs for them so, very often, they move away.
The Pioneer Valley is a wonderful place to retire or be a student. There are also good jobs if you are a college professor. Of course, the omnipresent trust babies seem to thrive there too.
The jobs really are not in Springfield. I just got back from a visit with friends in Easthampton and they started talking about Springfield. They said there are shootings and stabbings every day! They said some people do go there to work but they do not stay around after they get out of work. It's too dangerous.
I've seen that city go from a great place to a dump in my life time. I don't see a casino as the way up. It's a shame because the talented workforce IS nearby and close enough to commute--if there were any jobs. People graduate every year from the Five Colleges, they often want to stay around, but after practically starving for a few years, they have to move on. There's all kinds of untapped talent but no jobs.
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If there's two words that get people out in the Pioneer Valley it's "Craft beer". Artifact Cidar and White Lion are the major ones in the city but there are others in the region. Valley fest was pretty big. 
