^ lots of committee, not much connection ; the “NIDC” meets at Boston Public Library

—- —- —- —- —-

Last night I attended a meeting of the so-called “Neighborhood Innovation District Committee,” a group of about 15 well-knowns who have been tasked with etablishing an “Innovation District,” as we now call technology research parks, in Roxbury. Unhappily, the meeting made the creation of such a district harder to achieve, not easier.

The committee couldn’t even define what “innovation” means without swerving well off the rails. Committee member Ed Glaeser — who has written brilliantly about Boston’s history and surely knows better — asserted that “innovation; should apply to all kinds of business enterprises : food stores, handicrafts, retail. This is nonsense, as was his assertion that what was wanted is “an innovation district with a heart.”

Dear Ed Glaeser : what an innovation district needs is a profit.

One…