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[The Voice of Reason]

As a region, are you more interested in greater Hartford expanding North, South, East or West?

I know you are asking yourself expansion? but the fact of the matter is that the metro is gorwing.

I think all of us here agree a tighter concentration closer to the CBD would be ideal, but since the outer endges continue to spread, and because the secondary office markets continue to gorw, what is your opinion as to wich direction is best for Hartford?

For starters, I will say that I tend to be kind of pleased when I hear about a company moving from Avon and into Windsor, so for me it has to be North.

I do not know why I like it when a company moves to Windsor, but to me it seems the 2nd best location for a company to move outside of the CBD. Puttin jobs in Windsor to me pulls Springfield closer to hartford, and I am actually hoping that someday Springfield will be part of the Hartford CMSA. Not that it will change anything, but I would rather have the world see 2.2 million people in the CMSA rather than 1.3 in the MSA. I feel like it will help the city attract certain businesses. Also, all things being equal, I prefer Eastern expansion over Western. There is a much greater capacity for transportation to the East than the West. And I prefer to pair with Springfield than New haven and New york.

So, North and West for me.

anyone else have any thoughts?

here is the news that sparked this thought

http://www.courant.com/business/hcu-webswi...,0,223065.story

Swiss Reinsurance Co. is moving its regional offices to Windsor from Avon, relocating about 95 employees, according to brokers involved in the deal.

[Theophrastus Bombastus]

As a region, are you more interested in greater Hartford expanding North, South, East or West?

I know you are asking yourself expansion? but the fact of the matter is that the metro is gorwing.

I think all of us here agree a tighter concentration closer to the CBD would be ideal, but since the outer endges continue to spread, and because the secondary office markets continue to gorw, what is your opinion as to wich direction is best for Hartford?

For starters, I will say that I tend to be kind of pleased when I hear about a company moving from Avon and into Windsor, so for me it has to be North.

I do not know why I like it when a company moves to Windsor, but to me it seems the 2nd best location for a company to move outside of the CBD. Puttin jobs in Windsor to me pulls Springfield closer to hartford, and I am actually hoping that someday Springfield will be part of the Hartford CMSA. Not that it will change anything, but I would rather have the world see 2.2 million people in the CMSA rather than 1.3 in the MSA. I feel like it will help the city attract certain businesses. Also, all things being equal, I prefer Eastern expansion over Western. There is a much greater capacity for transportation to the East than the West. And I prefer to pair with Springfield than New haven and New york.

So, North and West for me.

anyone else have any thoughts?

here is the news that sparked this thought

http://www.courant.com/business/hcu-webswi...,0,223065.story

Swiss Reinsurance Co. is moving its regional offices to Windsor from Avon, relocating about 95 employees, according to brokers involved in the deal.

[HartfordTycoon]

VOR, I agree with you about Windsor. Very much so. I think there is real potential for it to become a fully blown edge city to Hartford. I also share your opinion that North is one of the best ways for us to grow as it potentially would allow our CSMA to absorb the Springfield MSA eventually, which I think would have some positive implications. I think that East is already pretty much maxed out as far as extending Hartford Metro. I honestly would love to see the New Haven MSA absorbed into the Hartford CMSA, so I say that north and south along I 91 are the key directions we should be trying to grow in. I believe that Waterbury is already included in New Haven MSA and Hartford MSA is pretty fully developed headed West, so If it develops more headed south, there is a chance that all of New Haven County including Greater New Haven and Greater Waterbury could be part of the Hartford CSMA one day as well as Springfield. Ideally, it should really be the Hartford-New Haven-Springfield CSMA. Then our region would be clearly defined and the only major part of our state that is not included would be Fairfield, which I think rightly is lumped in with NYC CMSA. I think even SE CT could be lumped into an expanded Hartford-New Haven-Springfield CSMA and that would make us look very different to the feds and the corporate scouts.

[MichaelQReilly]

As matters of geography and existing infrastructure, north and south an definitely better than west or east.

[Lowerdeck]

North or south works fine with me. There's always been that sort of connection with the river and now I-91. I think it would help Hartford if it expanded to Springfield and New Haven since... well, these areas are already built up to an extent anyway. You head too far east or west, you go out into the woods.

Living far east of the river, it's quite nice how quickly the metro area disappears by Exits 66/67. A lot of towns past maybe 20 miles are really small and undeveloped, so why wreck a good thing for the sake of Hartford sprawling out? Granted I don't like living in the small, rural town... but I at least want people to have that option to live in one if they choose.

[JimSawhill]

As a region, are you more interested in greater Hartford expanding North, South, East or West?

If you mean should the city itself expand --the ANSWER is HELL NO!! If you mean should the Greater Hartford expand, I would say yes - both ways. The GH area should partner with springfield and New Haven areas (and the Waterbury and Windham areas) to promote commuter rail. Just think if we could create the Connecticut & Western Mass Commuter Rail with commuter rail on a few lines (amtrak from New Haven to Springfield (hubs in New Haven for SLE, MN and even a commuter rail from Portland, Hartford (commuter rail from Middletown, Waterbury, Bradley, Longmeadow, Mass and Willimantic) and Springfield (Commuter rail from Brattleboro VT, Palmer, Mass Pittsfield, Mass and MBTA to Boston.).

[The Voice of Reason]

I think if the waterbury-hartford line were to get built, Waterbury could quickly become part of the HARTFORD MSA.

not that it means much, but as it is right now Waterbury is not really that strongly part of any MSA.

the key numbers come down like this

Waterbury has workers heading to many surrounding towns. wich ever has the most is the community Waterbury is linked to on a MSA level. If waterbury is linked to Meriden and Meriden is linked to New Haven, New Haven wins. make sense? this is vaguely how MSA works.

Watertown 2604

Cheshire 1797

Naugatuck 1449

Southbury 1349

New Haven 1380

Wolcott 1080

Danbury 773

Meriden 729

Hartford 696

Putting the Waterbury Hartford rail link in would make it much easier to get to hartford (20 minutes rather than 45 minutes to an hour)

people from Waterbury would more likely work along that corridore and bring the connection that much closer.

all it would take would be maybe 2000 people working in hartford and Waterbury would switch over.

Move the Webster bank HQ and its a done deal

ok so I know that means nothing.

I like seeing transportation spread east west and North, and I like to see Businesses connect us more to the North than south.

[MadVlad]

South, Hartford and New Haven should be the same everything. That being said, I've always been an advocate that Springfield should be considered the same market as Hartford, so I basically have no idea. Next!!