This made me laugh so hard 😆🤣

What do you suggest for those lazy people that drive tiny cars? They can’t seem to reach their roof either? /s🤷🏼‍♀️

Boot strap it like a true murican.

Plus there’s many homeless people begging when you come out, I hate it after dark

It's a lost cause, and has been for 30 years. Downtown Worcester will never thrive. The Canal District was doing okay, but then we built that fucking ballpark.

Also: Reminder that Batista is City Manager due to old-fashioned Worcester cronyism and nothing else.

i'm concerned about the city manager's impact on downtown.

Need higher paying jobs in downtown for young people in finance and (tech?) I guess .. even tho I believe there will be another tech bubble at some point

We don’t need a new law jus for people to have more respect for others and not be such lazy scumbags

Yes! It’s seriously shocking how little people care. In addition, get off your fucking phones. I swear to god everyone in this city has a death wish.

The problem really is that so few people work there to frequent these businesses. Multiple downtown malls and theaters have failed as a result. And honestly outdoor storefronts are more popular than malls these days, even in New England winter. So just constructing a new mall without considering other factors just seems set up for failure.

What downtown doesn't have in abundance are larger office buildings that would make it competitive with the business parks along 495. It would also help keep it competitive if there were a reduction of commercial taxes specifically in the downtown area.

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"Normal" for me is an office job 30-60 minutes of driving away in some suburb, and aside from the most disruptive months of the pandemic I never really left it (occasional WFH but never full remote). If there were tech jobs downtown that suited me it would have a tremendous impact on my carbon footprint, but there aren't and never have been.

Heck, if my workplace office could be downtown I'd be commuting by bus daily and my car would sit unused 99% of days. Urban downtown offices aren't the enemy of environmentalism nearly as much as business parks in the middle of nowhere (just in spots along highways, etc) are.

I dunno, I'd think just as many people would be staying in Worcester during the day because of their telecommuting as there would be keeping out of Worcester because of it, if not more. Worcester isn't exactly geared toward office jobs (even downtown), and there are plenty of workplaces in a half-hour radius of Worcester that do lend themselves to telecommuting. Downtown in particular may be struggling for other reasons (being less accessible than more spread out businesses, etc) but Worcester businesses as a whole should be seeing a net neutral effect from telecommuting.

Knew your post would chum the waters here. Lol!

They didn’t work out. The Mid Town Mall. Gone The Galleria. Gone The Greendale Mall. Gone Don’t get me started about Spags or the Movie Theaters that were in the City.

We really need to stop thinking things can 'go back to normal'. The old norm is how we got to the point were we have several impending climate, health, and societal crises with no effective organization or government to deal with them. Priorities and procedures need to radically shift in order to put environmental and societal sustainability before financial prosperity. If we don't change, then something's going to breakdown and if it's the environment or vital societal cooperation, then it's absolutely going to take the economy down with it.

This is like saying you're concerned about the automobile's impact on the trolley bus. Telecommuting has an impact on the amount of people entering downtown, but it isn't the root cause. Downtown is a pain in the ass. Parking is always difficult. If you're looking to open a business, services in downtown like banking are existent but poor.

Compare that to the biomed corridor running down Route 9. You're off the highway and pulling right into work. It's not telecommuting that's killing downtown, it's that downtown is an inconvenient place to do anything.

Just wanted to say I didn’t realize this stuff was so dangerous, I haven’t been driving the past two days so I didn’t see it but genuinely had no idea it could break a windshield 😬

Low income housing downtown sounds like the last thing downtown needs

I’ve nearly avoided several tractor trailer flying plywood sized sheets of ice, the swerve fest those cause in traffic… if I can get a damn 6’ ladder to clean my milk truck style van roof off at 6 am everyone should be.

Downtown Worcester needs a new indoor mall/food court like in kelly square. It gets cold here half the year. Make a good reason for people to go there to work and live.

Or convert the buildings there (Can they do it tastefully and be affordable?). I’m all about livable space.

Sounds like a convenient place to knock down some buildings and put up some low income housing.

Google screw or bolt in pizza. There are dozens of stories. Happens more than people think.