Are you sure these weren't students wandering home from the bar...?

Pretty uncommon for prostitutes to hang out in front of Clark, not a ton of johns, lots of police attention. Perhaps when the Massachusetts Republican Convention was in Worcester, that was a busy weekend for sex workers.

That section of Worcester is not the most desirable section, but the Clark campus is quite safe. If it's late at night, I wouldn't stray far from the campus, at least East or South, but for the most part it's just hard working people and then some substance abuse and petty crime issues.

I've walked home many, many times from the bars in and around Clark, I've walked from bars on the other side of town through the neighborhoods adjacent to Clark, and walked around there before the areas had improved. I'm not hanging around those areas late at night, I'm walking through them and doing it in a determined way, but I've never felt unsafe. ... Just keeping to myself and moving. I think the biggest risk is probably folks struggling with substance abuse.

I suspect biggest risk might be petty crime, lock your car doors, etc.

I feel the same way in Central MA, I remember playing in 6" of snow on Thanksgiving morning one year. But, that could also be me remembering a specific single storm and then sort of applying that to "every year of my childhood" type thing too.

Sucks for the ski areas.

Curious, why do you think that there's only 5 more inches of snow, max, for Worcester or any area in this season?

Some of our biggest, most consistent winter storms come after January. I remember back in ~2010, we got very little snow before the end of January, and then from January 28 - mid march we got a massive snow storm every weekend for like 6 straight weeks, and it was some of the most snow I'd ever seen in my life. We had a 7' high lamp in my front yard near the driveway that was completely covered from snow blowing and didn't see the sun for weeks into March or April.

Likely high cost of living and low relative replacement rate.

Those are the Worcester hills you've heard so much about!

Dear out of touch or uninformed boomer, of all of the major generations still alive, millennials comprise the largest working demographic in America, contribute most to the American tax base, take the least, and subsidize the take-not-make/borrow-don't-pay mentality of older Americans. The Americans most likely to have not gone back to work since 2020 -- "The Great Resignation" as they like to call it -- are 65+.

[Or, more likely, you don't know what "millennial" means, which is generally someone born between ~1980 and ~1995, basically prime working/earning age and the primary accelerant of the American economy]

Anything West of Quabbin Reservoir, which correlates pretty strongly to 413 area code. New Salem might be right on the line of 978/508/413, but let's be honest, of the 50 people who live there there's only like 10 have phones.

I think this map gets it pretty right:

https://www.orangesmile.com/common/img_city_maps/massachusetts-map-1.jpg

A lot of roads were really bad last night. First snow of the year is usually one of the worst. I had trouble getting our Mazda 3 up a street that was barely inclined, just had no traction. Main roads were in good shape near me.

Cool thought experiment, but not viable or feasible or ... imaginable.

Realistically this single train might take 24 hours to complete this route with all of the stops and turns and speed issues going through densely settled urban and suburban towns. The elevation changes would be dramatic for any train line. That Gardner -> Worcester leg goes just about straight over Wachusett Mountain and the whole valley there, it'd be a very dramatic change in elevation, or a very, very expensive tunnelling through a mountain, for an area that is already pretty well served by state highways. And I just can't imagine anybody would want to go from Gloucester to Plymouth by way of Worcester, pretty close to a hundred miles out of the way.

He wouldn't win a single Republican primary state and would be utterly irrelevant nationally.

Charlie Baker didn't run for governor in Massachusetts, where he's enjoyed a 74% approval rating, because he was going to get primaried by Diehl and would have to spend a fortune winning a GOP primary that his own state party endorses his opponent for. He'd probably end up losing that primary even though Baker has consistently been the most popular state-wide elected official in America.

If Baker doesn't get a post as an ambassador or something, Baker is going to cash in as an advisor and board member. He's done with electoral politics. He's unelectable in Republican politics.

The Republican party has moved so far into wacko territory, that if you're identifying as a libertarian you have to really be nuts beyond the pale.

"The GOP is TOO mainstream for me!"

Yes, Hyde Park is safe. There are working class blocks in Hyde Park, just like any section of any urban city, but nobody is going to pull you out of your mustang and jack your car. Violent crime is well below the state average, but just like any city there can be car break-ins or petty crime. There are some affluent blocks and homes in the area go for ~$700,000. 20+ years ago these neighborhoods were rougher than they are today, and some people are intimidated living around working class people or in diverse communities. Nice golf course, supermarket, good walkability, some good restaurants in the center there.

Agreed, wastes everyone's time. Every time a recruiter messages me about a job I might be interested in I ask them straight up what the pay range is for a qualified candidate. Those who don't provide one I usually ghost.

This is likely correlation, not causation.

Dept of Labor published wage growth from March 2021 to March 2022, and while the Dept of Labor pegs Colorado at 8.8% for that period, other states exceed Colorado's growth like Wyoming (11.2%), Arkansas (10.9%), Indiana (9.8%), Nebraska (9.2%), both Carolinas (9.2%), Florida (10.8%), Maine (10.3%), Connecticut (9.2%)... And as far as I know none of those states implemented any new wage transparency laws. Another thing to consider is the relationship between wage growth and price inflation.

Wage transparency is probably a good thing, but probably not the cause of wage growth in Colorado. I think where Wage Transparency helps the most is in wage equity across sex and race, but that it's probably not a significant influence on wage growth and given the relationship between wage growth and inflation we should be cautious of linking transparency and wage growth.