Readers: What should be Boston’s focus in 2024?
Housing, education, and climate change are top of mind for Mayor Michelle Wu.
In her second annual State of the City address Tuesday evening, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu expressed hope for the city’s future despite the challenges it faces and reviewed the myriad of accomplishments made in the past year.
Accomplishments both big and small were highlighted, ranging from filling 7,000 potholes and extending hours at 21 libraries, to doubling down on Mass. and Cass encampments and the opioid crisis, restructuring the Boston Planning and Development Association, lessening gun violence, and more.
She also touched on recent initiatives such as an office-to-residential conversion program and plans to continue her work to ban fossil fuels in new city buildings by introducing zero net carbon zoning. This move would “make Boston the greenest city in the country,” she said.
She added that Boston, in partnership with National Grid, will launch the city’s first-ever networked geothermal system to deliver energy to the Franklin Field community in Dorchester.
Housing remains top-of-mind for Wu as she embarks on the third year of a four-year term.
“The state of our city is strong,” Wu said. “Not because the challenges that remain are simple or small. But because they’re big, and they matter, and we are rising to meet them. And that starts with housing, because home is the place where everything starts.”
Last year, the city permitted the highest ratio of affordable housing in over a decade and approved nearly 7,400 housing units for future development, she said.
Wu said she will continue to identify locations for nearly 3,000 new public housing units to be built over the next decade. The federal government will provide more than $100 million a year to maintain them.
She also announced the launch of a fund to keep apartment buildings permanently affordable and away from being bought by private investors. The goal is to use the fund to protect 400 more families citywide, up from the 114 families kept in their homes in East Boston last year, she said.
We want to hear your thoughts on the State of the City address.
What did you think about the State of the City speech? Do you agree or disagree with Wu that the state of the city is strong? What citywide and neighborhood issues do you want Wu to address this year?
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