Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Chris Lovett @clovettboston.bsky.social · 20h

You're right about the housing, even if it also adapts to the economy at-large. Boston has a growing share of high-earners without kids, but developers get more ROI from units to fit those households, which incentivizes (or forces) those with kids to move or stay out.

1 1 3

Chris Lovett @clovettboston.bsky.social · 21h

Via @dotnews.bsky.social: Boston's "middle" has been shrinking for decades, which affects housing costs, school choices, even election results. Then something changed with the pandemic and its aftermath. Numbers have consequences. dotnews.com/2025/numbers...

Numbers say it: Greater Boston is more diverse, more divided | Dorchester Reporter

New studies show a Greater Boston population becoming more racially diverse, but also more disconnected by income, and by shifting educational choices following the Covid-19 pandemic. As multiple figu...

dotnews.com

3 7

Reposted by Chris Lovett

DotNews @dotnews.bsky.social · 3d

Company owned by former BRA director Tom O'Brien hired to plan re-development of shuttered Carney Hospital campus in Dorchester
www.dotnews.com/2025/former-...

A box truck is shown outside the main entrance of Carney Hospital in Sept. 2024, days after it closed. Seth Daniel photo

2 5 6

Reposted by Chris Lovett

DotNews @dotnews.bsky.social · 28d

On Wednesday, Yawu Miller and Bill Forry discussed the Boston election results and the path forward for Josh Kraft with DotLife podcast host Erin Caldwell.

youtu.be/1Ma0dGPAbhA?...

News of the Week: 9/12/25

YouTube video by DotLife Podcast

youtu.be

2 2

Reposted by Chris Lovett

DotNews @dotnews.bsky.social · 26d

Analysis from veteran Boston journalist Chris Lovett: Incumbency, Trump’s shadow, and Michelle Wu’s blockbuster win
www.dotnews.com/2025/news-an...

Boston mayor Michelle Wu that the press on City Hall Plaza on September 10, 2025 in front of an array of political allies from City Hall and Beacon Hill. Christopher Lovett photo.

2 2

Reposted by Chris Lovett

DotNews @dotnews.bsky.social · 29d

About one-fifth of #Boston’s registered voters chose eight finalists on Tuesday to compete for four at-large city council seats in November.

Ruthzee Louijeune, the current council president, was the top vote-getter in the citywide council race.

Full story: dotnews.com/2025/louijeu...

Ruthzee Louijeune, the Boston City Council president, was the top vote-getter in Tuesday's preliminary election for at-large council. Last night (above) she introduced a victorious Mayor Wu at her rally in Roslindale's Adams Park. Chris Lovett photo

1 2

Chris Lovett @clovettboston.bsky.social · 29d

@dotnews.bsky.social Pro-Kraft spending blitz no match for @wutrain.bsky.social ground game--capitalizing on incumbent advantage, grassroots motivation, "our city" messaging. dotnews.com/2025/wu-has-...

Wu sacks Kraft in 49-point blowout | Dorchester Reporter

Unofficial tally gives mayor 72 percent as challenger lags badly Mayor Michelle Wu surged to a resounding victory on Tuesday over Josh Kraft with a 49-point margin in a preliminary election turnout th...

dotnews.com

1 2

Chris Lovett @clovettboston.bsky.social · Sep 10

Addressing supporters in Roslindale Village, @mayorwu.boston.gov celebrates first-place finish in yesterday’s preliminary election. As of early this morning, with 69.82% of the vote reported, @wutrain.bsky.social had 70% of the vote, with co-finalist @joshforboston.bsky.social receiving almost 25%.

2

Reposted by Chris Lovett

DotNews @dotnews.bsky.social · Sep 10

Here we go w/ first-in results. Josh Kraft scores his first precinct victory of the day over Michelle Wu at Dorchester Florian Hall's 16-12— 298-101.

4 3 4

Chris Lovett @clovettboston.bsky.social · Sep 10

In November 2024, Trump/Vance in this precinct got only 35.6% of the vote, so the result here today isn’t just “pro-Trump.”

Chris Lovett @clovettboston.bsky.social · Sep 10

In November 2024, Trump/Vance carried this precinct by 4.5 points.

1

Chris Lovett @clovettboston.bsky.social · Sep 10

Last November, Trump/Vance carried this precinct—by one vote.

1

Reposted by Chris Lovett

DotNews @dotnews.bsky.social · Sep 10

Adams Street Library's 16-9 precinct goes Kraft over Wu, 251-132 #Dorchester

1 1 1

Reposted by Chris Lovett

DotNews @dotnews.bsky.social · Sep 10

Michelle Wu leads Josh Kraft at Dorchester's 16-5 and 16-2 Murphy School on Pope's Hill/Neponset; also a look at at-large

1 3 9

Reposted by Chris Lovett

DotNews @dotnews.bsky.social · Sep 10

Boys And Girls Club of Boston - Yawkey Club of Roxbury, 115 Warren Street (Ward 12-p4) goes for Michelle Wu over Josh Kraft, 110-20

7 16

Chris Lovett @clovettboston.bsky.social · Aug 28

Via @dotnews.bsky.social: as part of a series on mayoral candidates, this week's profile of @wutrain.bsky.social. #bospoli dotnews.com/2025/tracing...

Reposted by Chris Lovett

CommonWealth Beacon @cwbeacon.bsky.social · Aug 2

ICYMI: The Trump administration has expanded the main federal program that provides tax incentives to build affordable housing, but it’s looking to cut the federal rental assistance that low-income tenants depend on to live in that housing.

Trump policies offer mixed messages on affordable housing - CommonWealth Beacon

“There is just no way to subsidize housing development processes enough” to be affordable to the lowest income residents, said Matt Noyes of CHAPA, “without affordable rental assistance."

buff.ly

1

Chris Lovett @clovettboston.bsky.social · Jul 22

Housing policies are always up for debate, especially when underlying fundamentals change. Last week's @mahahome.bsky.social forum with @mayorwu.boston.gov and @joshforboston.bsky.social illustrated how much policy is anchored and driven by community engagement.

DotNews @dotnews.bsky.social · Jul 22

Mayoral candidates Wu and Kraft grapple on housing policy at Mass Affordable Housing Alliance forum that drew hundreds to Reggie Lewis Center www.dotnews.com/2025/mayoral...

Acia Adams-Heath, a lifelong Dorchester resident and member of MAHA’s board of directors since 2003, spoke (at right) during a July 15 forum at the Reggie Lewis Center that featured Mayor Wu and her challenger Josh Kraft, shown seated at left. Chris Lovett photo

1 2 2

Chris Lovett @clovettboston.bsky.social · Jul 19

Yes, even to Ivan Urgant.
youtu.be/zWnVV3-0wgw?...

Stephen Makes His Debut On Russia's 'Evening Urgant'

YouTube video by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

youtu.be

Chris Lovett @clovettboston.bsky.social · Jul 19

From another perspective, the parallel is not just what's imposed by a regime, but the changing chemistry of the general population, even if both are dysfunctional in their own way. One insightful piece on this was posted by Novaya Gazeta in March 2022: novayagazeta.ru/articles/202...

Русская эволюция: от «поколения П» к «поколению Z». Как государством услышан и обработан запрос масс на нематериальные ценности. О природе эйфории — Новая газета

Лет тридцать назад Виктор Пелевин написал « Generation «П », — энциклопедию русской жизни 90-х. И не устаревала эта энциклопедия долго. Ее концепты и герои с блистательным успехом развернулись в нулев...

novayagazeta.ru

Chris Lovett @clovettboston.bsky.social · Jul 19

From my visits to "Peter" (up to 2019), I detect parallels between the transition from post-Soviet to neo-Monarchist and the ongoing "очищение" in the US, from procedural state to military-corporate absolutism, anchored in pseudo-religious "народность" + servility not squeezed from our veins.

1 2

Reposted by Chris Lovett

DotNews @dotnews.bsky.social · Jul 17

The city's top health official has declared #Boston’s efforts to resolve the drug-use problem in its South End neighborhood a failure— and a Dorchester city councillor wants to create a regional fund and approach to address the crisis
dotnews.com/2025/regiona...

City Councillor John FitzGerald of District 3— “For too long, the city has shouldered the burden of the region and, to a greater degree, the state’s substance abuse and mental health issues,” he argued at the meeting. “We have a concentration of services, the majority in a single city neighborhood that other cities and towns get to dump their issues on, and at no cost to them. The majority of folks at ‘Mass. and Cass’ are not even Boston residents, as we know.” Chris Lovett photo

2 2

Chris Lovett @clovettboston.bsky.social · Jul 2

Exam schools are a micro of a larger problem: how a steeper income divide makes the "best" education even more exclusionary. While Boston tries to recalibrate, the federal government has other ideas. dotnews.com/2025/policy-...

Chris Lovett @clovettboston.bsky.social · Jul 2

The capital was "intended" as an objet d'art, an ikon of power, as lasting as Pushkin's bronze. Every tap on the cell phone is a genuflection. Militarization also declares crisis, replacing rule of order with rule of power. I now apply this lens to the US.

Chris Lovett @clovettboston.bsky.social · Jul 2

"All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war" (Walter Benjamin). So it appeared in 2019 from the Hermitage annex in the "General Staff Building," as I trained my cell phone on the spectacle on the former site of an uprising in Palace Square.

1