I used to also leave a decent rock on my bin to weigh it down, the guys seemed to get the hint and put the rock back in my bin after they emptied it.

Goofy and imperfect, but definitely helped with the runaway bins.

We're going to need a truly working airport for that. It's been great to see ORH coming back to life, but will need far more flight selection and amenities there in order to bring business people quickly in and out of town.

Idk man google it.

I’m confused on the logic of spray paint = stolen. In what circumstances are catalytic converters usually turned in to be recycled? When a car is totaled? Why can’t those have painted Cats?

Answers in the title.

>Worcester

Specifically the fact no jobs are around here.

It doesn’t fully. Just a deterrent. Figured its better than nothing.

The interwebs state that a spray painted catalytic converter will be harder to sell because the spray paint indicates that stolen.

How does this stop theft?

my mom used to spy on the downstairs neighbors by sticking a bath hose down the parlor stove exhaust pipe. extremely creepy how well you can hear everything that way.

just a heads up. your neighbors could be spying on you.

honestly the lights are timed so idiotically that just sitting there makes you feel like a stooge.

10 pm, empty road, timed lights with fucking pedestrian crossing when there are no pedestrians. you bet your ass i'm blowing that light and the next 4 that are equally stupid. there needs to be way more flashing lights at night. why the fuck do we need to stop every 50 feet when the roads are empty?

don't worry, you won't get pulled over. the police won't do jack if they see you.

It would take less time to pick up said trash then what you spent typing that response.

the city will down a tree on your property, but if the tree on your neighbor's property is dropping limbs on pedestrians and your pooping dog, the city will shrug at you and make you do all the research of figuring out how to contact the absentee slumlord that owns the tree.

then one day a storm throws the tree into the slumlord's building and suddenly everyone gives a shit.

yes, we should all just pick up after others instead of raising the issue in a public forum and discussing solutions.

Lack in public transit and even walking in the city can be a issue. No dedicated bike lanes. Lack of food access most of the city is labeled as a food desert. Where most have to go way further then needed to find a grocery store. Massive gentrification. I have seen first hand those who grad from Worcester try to travel near hour every day each way. Because they can't get a proper one bed room apartment. Then leave after six months finding something closer to home.

the landlords should be fined for that shit. your tenants, your problem. my taxes should not subsidize picking up after trashy tenants of slumlords.

people have jobs, ya know. if the bins get emptied at 10am but the owner doesn't get home til 5, the bins will in fact blow away. they will blow into people's cars and onto their property. they will be stolen. they will get smashed by the wind.

the whole implementation of our recycling program is braindead. stupid suggestions by stupid people who only consider their personal experience and not the experiences of the city as a whole.

bins with lids. lol

you speak truth, but let's not pretend that careful packing is going to put a stop to full bins being literally picked up and tossed by the wind.

30mph wind gusts are not rare here. that's just a meteorological fact. i have had to comb my entire neighborhood numerous times looking for my bins because i committed the sin of being at work when they were emptied.

if the bins need to be coddled via special packing and coming home from lunch break to retrieve them from the neighbor's bushes, it's probably not a very good system for this particular city.

i continue to advocate for bags instead of bins. if bags are too stupid to get behind, then the recycling program should simply be declared a failure, because that's exactly what it is.

I wonder/hope the increase in remote work will help change this. I’d be much more willing to commute 1-2 a week than every day

Agreed. I’ve been looking for a job in worcester for 5 years, and the only way I can one is if I take a huge pay cut.

this seems like another one of those "easier to swallow than actual sweeping change" solutions.

i would absolutely love to see more housing options for people living on the streets, and i wouldn't fuss too much about a reasonable tax increase to fund it, either.

but you are correct that addiction and mental illness aren't going to go away just because people have a secure room.

mass dmh is stretched way thin and barely serves a fraction of the people who need services. in our zeal to put a stop to the abuse of the mentally ill, we let the pendulum swing a hair too far to the other side and the threshold for forcing treatment is very high.

the general public barely has a surface understanding of how laws and funding work and i don't see many voters clamoring for additional funding or law changes.

but this "build a bunch of rooms" idea gets traction because it seems like a simple magic bullet. not enough rooms so build more rooms! ta-da! we did something!

it's not near enough and without simultaneously addressing mental illness and addiction the results are going to be very lackluster.

Walking my dog around the neighborhood is treacherous.

Bingo. Worcester needs to figure out how to attract high paying jobs to it rather than watching all the jobs end up in Boston.

Arguably, the state should help with this through incentives but it doesn't.

This is exactly the issue. We have all these biotech companies (not as much as Boston) in worcester and the surrounding towns, but they either aren’t hiring ever, or they hire for crap pay and benefits. I don’t see it changing much for engineers and scientists. Nurses though, make a killing

I made a post on here about a year ago about the trash in Worcester. I've only lived here a little over a year but I come from a city that I felt was pretty similar to Worcester but with a higher population. The other city is nowhere near as trashy as Worcester - like it's a glaring difference. Our recycling bins were the exact same large bins with wheels and a flip top lid as our trash bins, just one was brown (trash) and one was green (recycling). Recycling only needed to be collected every other week because the bins were so big.

I loved the comments I got on my previous post though. Over 100 comments where 60% were people telling me "If you think this is bad, don't go to New York City!", 40% were people telling me if I don't like it I can clean it myself or leave, and about 10% of people agreeing. Hahaha

My favorite part about the random New York comments was that I responded to them by saying, "Yeah I don't plan on ever going to NYC." and then the other person would comment back, "Oh but you should! There's so much culture!" Haha you just told me not to go because of the immense trash everywhere...

I think those are all reasonable concerns. And I agree that this alone won’t end homelessness in Worcester. That said the homeless population in Worcester has increased dramatically (the Housing Authority states its gone up 60% since the pandemic began) and the cost of living continues to rise and we remain short on emergency shelter beds.

This type of proposal would give us another tool in the toolkit and make it easier for case managers to address the issues of the residents who need treatment or other social services.

Life long Worcester resident who moved to Boston 4 years ago. For context I am a college graduate now in my early 30s and make an above average salary. This is my opinion on the matter, not fact.

My move was 100% for work and lifestyle improvements. Worcester is great but it really doesn't compare to Boston for young professionals especially ones making a high salary in engineering or other fields. There are more jobs in quantity and almost more importantly, the jobs are with more prestigious company's that young professionals want to work for. These company's are the same ones that are going to WPI and other universities in the area and recruiting on campus so the students get internships or jobs through college so the natural progression is to move closer to work. They likely are also going to be making a high salary both due to their profession but also due to the Company's name and location which is most likely in or immediately outside of Boston which is considered a very HCOL area so they dont mind spending a little extra on rent due to the below:

There is simply more to do in Boston and more people in their demographic. I go out in Worcester on occasion with friends, there isnt one bar I've gone to that is comparable to the least crowded boston bar on a Friday. Hell a Tuesday at some of my local places are more filled than Funky Murphy's on a Friday. Combine that with the terrible commute and it makes sense why these individuals are willing to live with roommates or "downgrade" their living situations to make the move. They want to have more options for everything - shopping, dining, going out, entertainment, even the beaches are closer to boston than they are to Worcester.

Worcester is a great city, my fam and friends are largely still in the area and I will always love it and come back often but the lifestyle it is not really comparable to Boston in anyway and staying in Boston will usually lead to more advantageous career paths either through networking or the natural progression from working at prestigious companys.

IMO If worcester really wants to fix the problem one of the big things they need to do is attract more publicly traded company's to setup headquarters here. These Company's typically employ more people and have the brand name and other benefits to retain the students locally. A good example of this would be Unum. They were here for a couple of years and left, and that is a summary of why we cant keep student. This is not to say that private Companys cannot be good employers or employers of many people but simply an example. I am well aware that Hanover is public and is headquartered in the city and that Polar and company's like Math Works in Framingham are both private but seen as generally good employers.