cautious progress in quincy center

The Streetworks Company has teamed up with the Beal Corporation, according to an article in today's Boston Globe. I hope this project goes forward and I can appreciate the cautious pace at which the various groups are moving, because, after all, the population growth in the greater Boston area can't justify the speculative insanity that characterizes development in other parts of the world.

The city of Quincy, with the help of some federal stimulus funds, continues to undertake infrastructure improvements,  which from my personal experience, still leaves a lot to be desired. Everyone's heart is in the right place, at least from the point of view of following the rules in the New Urbanist/Modernist/American playbook. The effort to create a 24 hour community, that will also serve as a desitination for out of town shoppers, seems like a nice idea when compared to the shopping mall built near an interstate cloverleaf.

Architecturally, I don't think there will be anything out of the box. Construction quality will be a bit lower than what you would find in Boston, at least in the materials and details department. Square footage will be equivalent, and parking will be better, but that advantage will be offset by the fact that the public transportation network simply isn't as robust.

We'll see how this turns out. I wish I was involved with it.