If there still is one widely held truism among professional campaign operatives it is that Democratic voters need more, um, encouragement to get to the voting booth than their republican counterparts. While Democratic voters outnumber Republicans, it is almost as if divine intervention has c…
Zack Barowitz is a flâneur. You can view his meanderings at zacharybarowitz.com
A friend — I’ll call her Florence — would have represented her country in the 1956 Olympics were it not for the psycho-physical phenomenon known as optical flow.
The emergency homeless shelter relocation question is a LULU of an issue (which, in city planning-speak, stands for Locally Unwanted Land Use).
Can you name the campaign manager for Lucas St. Clair’s District 1 congressional campaign? How about the Maine Northern District Organizing Director for Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid? Or the manager of Ed Suslovic’s City Council comeback in 2010? Or the campaign manager of Portland City…
Public space is enjoying something of a revival. From food truck parks to in-street bicycle corrals, people from multiple generations are discovering that there is more to city life than strip malls and drive-through doughnut shops.
Like the picture of Dorian Gray, Portland’s Bayside area represents a dark flipside to the cutesiness of the touristy Old Port.
Zack Barowitz is a flâneur. You can view his meanderings at zacharybarowitz.com
We interrupt the teeth-gnashing over Munjoy Hill condo heights to take you to the post-railway wilderness of Libbytown, where Maine Medical Center’s 96-foot tall, 500-foot long, 2,500-stall employee parking garage is moving through the planning process.
Local real estate junkies who are fond of the “sort by highest price” function on websites like Zillow are sure to notice the twenty-acre parcel listed as “37 Ballfield, Peaks Island” going for $2,390,000. What people may not be aware of, is that the City of Portland Tax Assessor site lists …
Generationally, we are on something of a losing streak. The Baby Boomers are a bust; Gen X’ers are living up to our low expectations, and the Millennials have been bashed enough without me joining in. Right now the next Generation, “Z” (those born after the year 2000), are having their first…
Most folks these days find Cold War culture rather quaint. Civil defense, Khrushchev’s shoe, and fall-out shelters are consanguine with beehive hairdos, mini-skirts, and the hula-hoop. But thanks to the big button on the President’s desk, fear of nuclear war is making a comeback.
I met Steve Hirshon for coffee one day and, being that the weather was nice, we took our drinks to go and milled about Monument Square. In the course of our 20-minute walk Steve must have said hello to over 60 people. It was an impressive display even by Portland standards, but it wasn’t sur…
The establishment ran the table in council races and citizen questions, but the four school bond sailed. Ho-hum? Hardly. Here’s what it all means.
You can’t fight City Hall, but you can make up a ballot referendum to throw a wrench into its works. That is the past, present and likely future history of how citizens deal with land use policies that that they do not like.
Though a clerical error almost made the rent stabilization conversation moot before the debate could even begin, housing activists should mark their calendars for September 6th. That’s when the Portland City Council is set to vote on amendments to the inclusive zoning provision of the city code.
About the nicest thing one can say about winters in Maine is that you don’t need to travel too far south to find warmer weather. Spring, though, is somewhat more fickle. There can be glorious warm weather from late April to late June, or there could be cold black rain running just short of I…