Sen. Eric Lesser of Longmeadow, one of the members on the panel that wrote the Senate’s final version, and Christopher English, policy analyst and project manager for the city of Boston who was appointed by Mayor Marty Walsh to chair the Taxi Advisory Commission overseeing changes in regulations, joined The Codcast to discuss the shifting landscape in the ride-for-hire industry.

Crunch time for ride-hailing bills

As you pore over the bids for Amazon’s second headquarters, put your headphones on, call up The Codcast, and listen to Shirley Leung and Chris Dempsey talk about what’s at stake.

Leung, a pro-growth columnist for the Boston Globe, and Dempsey, the director of Transportation for Massachusetts and one of the leaders of the No Boston Olympics campaign, find more common ground than you might think. But they also have some fundamental differences, which makes the conversation both entertaining and enlightening.

Llyr's Album

Do we need an Amazon kick in the pants?

With regulations only just released last week, opportunity zones have excited developers, policymakers, and growth advocates alike. But what sort of opportunities do they really offer the Gateway Cities? Will development continue to focus on Boston and Cambridge’s “tier-one” markets, or will real estate investors be incentivized to build in cities far outside the Boston bubble?

We asked Christopher Coes of Smart Growth America and Elijah Plymesser of LOCUS to find out.

Tune in to the most recent episode of Gateways, where co-hosts Ben Forman and Aimee Weeden chat about the potential effects of the opportunity zones in our Gateway Cities, the newly bipartisan mindset of transit-oriented development policy, and the state of fine dining along the waterfront in their most recently-visited Gateway City: New Bedford.

Episode 2: Christopher Coes and Elijah Plymesser

Alan Berube of the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program chats with Ben about facilitating growth in small and mid-size cities, while Aimee chats with Hugh Dunn, Executive Director of the South Coast Development Partnership.

Episode 3: Alan Berube and Hugh Dunn

Tune into spirited debate, local stories, and insightful analyses with The Codcast. Hosted each week by a CommonWealth Beacon reporter, the half-hour policy podcast delves into the heart of Massachusetts’s most pressing and intriguing topics. Hear newsmakers, historians, and policy experts tackle statewide housing struggles, immigration policies, little-known histories, surprising political fights, and even take to the sea to visit rising offshore wind turbines.

Do we need an Amazon kick in the pants?

CommonWealth Beacon

Related tracks