The American Spectator

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But today's modern port is the airport. Massachusetts has a good one in the midstate city of Worcester, now pretty much a gentle joke in Commonwealth affairs. A new runway or two and expanded terminal capacity in Worcester, located directly west of Boston about 50 miles down the Mass Pike, would create the edges to open up Massachusetts' Boston-centered Scrabble cluster. Extend the suburban rail links to Worcester, and the state could blossom.

Route 128, once the touted boom loop, now stalled, would boom again. Further out, Route 495 would begin to develop, too.

But it all goes against the grain here. Because what would open up Massachusetts is just what Massachusetts pols don't like: the free market, doing what it does.

Government has to be willing to invite development in. Not shut it out. Can Massachusetts do it? Sure. Will it? Probably not.

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