I remember going there as a UMASS student in 2005-2007. This place has been around. And agreed; always disgusting. It sort of felt like the lot lizards for the truckers sleeping next to the diner were scoping out their prey.

2% interest rates may have been needed in areas of the country hit hard by Covid, but they destroyed the housing market in places like Massachusetts with serious housing shortages and high rents where most of the jobs kept right on trucking and just moved to work from home. There was a 2 fold effect. First off, since there aren’t now and haven’t been for years as many single family homes as there are people who want to buy them, the bidding wars we’ve been seeing on every decent house for the last 20 years spiked up because people could suddenly spend more money and keep the same monthly payment. And secondly with the housing market booming and rents remaining high it became almost a no brained for middle aged people with enough liquid retirement money to put down 20% to outbid young people trying to buy starter homes by offering “all cash” (they were actually taking out mortgages but had enough economic stability and extra funds available that they didn’t need mortgage contingencies on their offers) for the condos those young people should have been buying and then renting them back to the same people at rents so high they were making more money off that 20% down after paying their mortgage, any upkeep and hiring a property manager to take care of their tenants to do way better than they would have done if they left that money in stocks. It’s an awful situation that we will be feeling the effects of for a generation.

As someone who drives in Boston all day for work it’s not that everyone here is a bad driver. The problem is a handful of people out there drive like the world’s biggest assholes, weaving in and out of traffic, running lights and stop signs, blocking turn lanes, tailgating everyone, honking their stupid horns the split second every traffic light turns green, honking their stupid horns in traffic jams as though the problem is that people are doing it on purpose, double and triple parking leaving no room to get around them, and just generally making the activity of driving near them completely exhausting.

One of these assholes can, and does, ruin the afternoon of several other people every single time they sit their anti-social ass behind the wheel of their car (and by car I mean giant pickup truck that they will never do anything in that they couldn’t do in a sedan.

So for only 3 grand I can buy a stroller that will run off with my child? What a bargain!

It’s cheap because it’s inconvenient to get to. 24, 93 and especially 28 are brutal driving at rush hour and there is only one commuter rail stop and it’s at the edge of town so most people will need to drive there in traffic and pay to park.

All the other issues people are discussing (other than the chemical spill) are symptoms of the low desirability of the location and corresponding low home prices (and low taxes).