Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Business + Money

Changes to neighborhood conservation districts approved after lengthy conflict and negotiation

A debate begun before the Covid pandemic reached a landmark as Cambridge’s City Council accepted changes about the forming and running of Neighborhood Conservation Districts, boards that consider developments and reconstruction in architecturally significant neighborhoods.

Cambridge’s low tax rates see unusual uptick without relief from free cash vote seen in past

Unlike the past 18 years, most Cambridge homeowners’ tax bills won’t be going down in 2023, the result of a changing local economy and growing city councillor discontent with the practice. The city already had – and looks to still have – the lowest tax rates in the area.

News

There are dire predictions for oncoming hot days, but solutions are complex and look to residents

Cambridge is facing much higher and more dangerous temperatures, with predictions that the number of days above 90 degrees could almost triple by 2030 and might be the norm every day of summer by 2070.

Candidate event goes on despite protesting, supporters calling evidence political fakery

A celebration of City Council candidates endorsed by the Cambridge Citizens Coalition was interrupted Sunday by dozens of demonstrators who rallied outside.

Two candidates for City Council in Cambridge named as the focus of rally to ‘oppose bigotry’

A branch of the Democratic Socialists of America have organized a rally to express concerns about challengers Robert Winters and Carrie Pasquarello.

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Features

Cambridge’s Rotary Club marks (in chalk) service-filled century and Oktoberfest fun

To understand what Rotary is all about, you must go back to its founding. To support its mission you can come to its Chalk on the Walk fundraiser Sunday.

Opinion

A better way for Cambridge

Voters have a clear choice between City Council candidates schooled in practices that have sown division and distrust, and other candidates with experience in business, academia, civic institutions and government and who are committed to building trust, a shared sense of purpose and progress on our major challenges.

An elegy for the One Alewife parking lot

Public spaces play a crucial role in building strong communities. Some of the most vibrant public spaces come into being without any intention.

Group should look closely at endorsed candidates and consider the company that they are keeping

A civid group advertised an event to meet its “remarkable group of candidates.” While I don’t know the political leanings of all of them, some have views that certainly are “remarkable” for Cambridge, or really anywhere within a civil society.

Snack

A ramen Kong Dog

The Kong Dog shop in Somerville has 10 kinds of coatings atop five base options, including this excuse to eat fried ramen from the less-startling side of the menu.

A Sense of Place

Tenders of the soil: The urban farmers

The way some Texas places are “football towns” that pump out NFL stars, Cambridge could be known as a town of cultivators, where kids grow up at the forefront of an urban farming movement, the director of the nonprofit Green Cambridge says.

Wild Things

Not a bee nor a wasp you see, but a locust borer linked to trees loved and hated since the 1600s

The female locust borer feeds on goldenrod pollen in the morning and flies to lays eggs in black locust trees, which have a complicated history in Massachusetts.

Events ahead

A week of events in Cambridge and Somerville, from Science Festival’s end to the start of Honk!

In a look ahead at a week of Cambridge and Somerville events, there’s the Cambridge Science Festival and carnival, the start of the Honk! festival of activist street bands, Central Square Dumpling Festival and “Smoke This” Rib Fest, Ashley Judd for Ms. Magazine and Walter Isaacson for “Elon Musk” and much more.

Film Ahead

Hearing from silent with Buster Keaton’s ‘Ages,’ plus ‘Shutter Island’ and new ‘Megalomaniac’

These looks at what’s on screen in the coming week include the chilling new “Megalomaniac” from Belgium and thought-provoking “The Hole in the Fence” from Mexico, as well as repertory fare that includes Scorsese’s “Shutter Island” and silent films such as Buster Keaton’s “Three Ages.”

Food + Drink

Pantry is packed with facts in ‘Ways of Eating,’ encyclopedic collaboration by mother and son

There’s a lot to fit in a food history of fewer than 300 pages, but Merry White and Benjamin Wurgaft have done it in the newly released “Ways of Eating.”

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