The CT Mirror (https://ctmirror.org/author/tcondon/)
Danbury – once the Hat City – has parlayed a good location, population growth, a history of economic development efforts, a sturdy tax base and generally efficient administration into a city that is farther along in reinventing itself than a number of other Connecticut cities once dominated by single industries. Continue Reading →
At a May 22 town hall meeting on Hartford’s dire budget situation, a resident urged Mayor Luke Bronin not to file for bankruptcy, saying it would be a “death knell” for the city. Would it? Continue Reading →
The market is changing. Families are smaller. Young people are happy, at least for a time, to rent an apartment in a walkable, interesting city or town center. Many Boomers are looking to downsize. And for a quarter century, state officials have been trying to inject more affordable housing into more communities. Continue Reading →
While autonomous municipal government — home rule — is the norm and likely to remain so, regional cooperation has been inching ahead. Now with the state and several large cities facing severe fiscal challenges, mayors such as Hartford’s Luke Bronin and others, including the state’s major municipal advocacy group, are pushing for more regional sharing. Continue Reading →
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is backing $250 million in bonding to make the aged XL Center in Hartford “look and feel like an entirely new building.” Intended primarily as a venue for UConn sports, chatter about the possibility of the return of major league hockey picked up last week when Malloy and Mayor Luke Bronin issued a long-shot invitation to the NHL’s New York Islanders to play there. Whether the transformation moves ahead is now up to the General Assembly. Continue Reading →
In 2003 the city demolished a row of 19th century brick buildings along Main Street to make way for a major development that never happened, leaving a vacant 19-acre site with little more than a rusting grain elevator. Now city officials hope to create a new neighborhood “that will put Derby on the map.” Continue Reading →
For more than two decades, most of the new multi-use trails built in the state were almost entirely the work of local volunteers. In the past five years, however, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and his transportation commissioner, James Redeker, have turned that narrative on its head. The state is now including non-motorized trails in its planning efforts and making major investments in them. Continue Reading →
For decades, Connecticut residents have taken water for granted. But approval of a water bottling plant in Bloomfield, the coming of the state’s worst drought since the 1960s, and several other water controversies in recent years have put the spotlight on both the state’s lack of an overall water plan and questions about the transparency and accountability of the Metropolitan District Commission, the Hartford region’s big water and sewer agency. Continue Reading →
Congressman John Larson’s proposal to build massive highway tunnels under Hartford is breathtaking in scope. It has stirred the blood of some public officials and business leaders. But the concept is so vast, complex and potentially expensive that many doubt it can be realized. Continue Reading →
In towns all over Connecticut there is such interest in revitalizing historic industrial properties that the movement could be stalled by its own success. All of the fiscal 2017 tax credits under the state historic rehabilitation tax credit program, a key part of the financing of many mill projects, were claimed in the first quarter of the fiscal year. Continue Reading →
The graceful and handsome “meetinghouses,” many with soaring white steeples, may be the state’s most enduring image, both for their beauty and their significance. But though these quietly majestic edifices and the communities they represent seem timeless, alas they are not, and keeping them going in the 21st century is becoming a challenge. Continue Reading →
With Connecticut’s largest cities sliding slowly toward bankruptcy, will legislators move to correct Connecticut’s heavy reliance on an age-old property tax system? Continue Reading →
Conceived in the 1980s and completed in the mid-1990s, there were no more daring or comprehensive preservation projects in Connecticut than Ninth Square in New Haven. Now, two decades after its completion, Ninth Square is a vibrant urban neighborhood, a place for art, food, tech start-ups and street fun. Continue Reading →
Seaside in Waterford is one of the last great buildings designed by renowned architect Cass Gilbert, famous for the Woolworth Building, the U.S. Supreme Court and New Haven’s Union Station. Built by the sea as a tuberculosis sanitarium and later used as a facility for the intellectually disabled, the grand building is a deteriorating derelict after years of state indecision. Now the state is down to its last chance to save it. Continue Reading →
Would regional government save money for Connecticut taxpayers? How should the state attempt to close the educational achievement gap? When faced with major questions such as these, policymakers in some other states turn to their independent, nonpartisan public policy research center to study the issues. Continue Reading →