On May 15, I will begin my annual economic development survey of 70 cities. This is the fourth year, and I plan to make one more trip in 2027. I first took the trip in May 2021, when the Lockdown was winding down.

The commonwealth has released a new plan for housing and housing affordability.  The Housing Action Plan is comprehensive and offers scenarios under several headings.

It creates a system to manage tangled titled properties. Clarifying ownership of inherited properties has always been difficult in neighborhood development. Houses sometimes remain vacant for long periods, systems break down, squatters move in — you name it. It’s hard to predict what will happen to a housing unit that could otherwise be rented. The three main points to address this issue are:

Semiquincentennial: A combination of “semi” (half), “quin” (five), and “centennial” (hundred), meaning half of 500 years, or 250 years. This plateau reminds me that 50 years ago, I produced one of the largest Bicentennial celebrations on the East Coast — the “ill-fated” Baltimore County Fair.

In my early 20s, I continued to have my pick of good jobs and began my career as one of the first “Job Hoppers.” While others worked for the same company for 30 years, I was on my third job in less than five years.

As an active participant in downtown revitalization, I often read downtown plans and sometimes wonder if they are just part of a mass-produced document where the town name is changed. The word “quaint” appears often in many of these plans. 

Like many of you, I have used Artificial Intelligence and thought I would ask it what 'quaint' actually means, because I thought I might be missing something. It told me the following: