smart growth in malden Archives

Bike, Zip and More: How Malden can share the road for smarter transportation

June 13, 2018 karenbuckmalden 1

This is another in a series exploring the future of development in Malden. Read part one, two and three here. By Karen Buck Can the United States break its addiction to automobiles? Many Americans have, in part by turning to that trusty two-wheel vehicle — the bicycle. The Boston area, in fact, has been in love with biking since 1877 [Lorenz J. Finison, Boston’s Cycling Craze, 1880-1900: A Story of Race, Sport, and Society (2014).] Today, many cities, particularly in Europe, have made a push for bike-friendly communities. Some areas are turning to bike-sharing programs and some even see this as a great investment opportunity. During the fall of 2017, the City of Malden instituted a pilot bike share program by allowing two bike share companies, LimeBike and Ofo, to trial their bike-system in Malden. Shortly thereafter, our city was punctuated by 200 lime green and 200 yellow bikes. Why a bike share? Many Malden residents don’t own bicycles due to lack of storage or the ability to maintain personal bikes. Many bike share programs, such as Hubway Bikeshare in […]

Could “Smart Growth” guide Malden’s development?

April 16, 2018 NeighborhoodView 2

By the staff of Neighborhood View The second in a series exploring the future of development in Malden. See part one here. Today we have many “trigger” words to avoid in certain places, and apparently the word “growth” is one of them at Malden City Council meetings. That’s according to councilor Steve Winslow, with a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor. The use of the word “growth” has been contentious in Malden ever since a November 2015 vote to approve a one-year moratorium on multi-family development of more than 5 units outside the Central Business District. In January 2017, the city council extended the moratorium through the end of June to allow for additional study and expanded it to include the Central Business District. Yet, a growing cadre of Malden residents is pushing for the city to consider an approach called “Smart Growth” and Winslow counts himself among its proponents. Indeed, he said, “What we have on the Council right now is a few advocates for smart growth vs. no growth at all.” But what is Smart Growth? […]

Is “Smart Growth” the future for Malden?

April 5, 2018 NeighborhoodView 7

Should Malden stop regarding growth as a problem and instead see it as an opportunity? By the staff of Neighborhood View, the first in a series exploring the future of development in Malden . In its 350-year-plus history, Malden has transformed itself over and over again. Today, the city is in the midst of another transformation that may chart its history for decades to come. Let’s start with a little history. In the 18th and 19th century, Malden was mostly farmland and dairy farms, amid hills and woodlands north of the Mystic River. By the early 1900s, it was a bustling urban area with five movie theaters, a popular Jordan Marsh department store, and a growing population of both immigrants and those who had settled here centuries before. Much of the city’s housing stock dates to the 1920s and the city steadily grew and prospered until the 1950s. The population started to decline in the 1960s and by the 1970s, Malden was mired in an economic malaise that affected much of New England. In the 1980s, the […]