Episode Information

WWL: State of our Cities, Eddie Perez
Where We Live - with John Dankosky
Aired:
01/26/2009
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In this episode:

The city of Hartford had a tough 2008

 

Host:
John Dankosky
Guest(s):
Contributor(s):
Catie Talarski
Episode Audio

48:39 minutes (23.36 MB)
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National attention for a shocking hit and run. More gun violence. The closure of a historic hotel. This bad news, compounded by the savage beating of Nick Carbone -- a former city official -- an ongoing grand jury investigation into the mayors' office, and the loss of former mayor, and city champion Mike Peters.

But despite the news, city officials remain optimistic. Especially about the changing state of the school system - long one of the nation's worst. New buildings are going up, improving the high school experience for thousands of students and a new science center downtown has hopes of attracting new visitors.

Today, Where We Live, we continue our "State of the Cities" series and talk with Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez about city life, relationships with the surrounding suburbs, and how they're working with the state during this budget crisis.

Join the conversation!  Add your suggestions, questions and comments below.


 
Related Content:
Links for this Episode:
City of Hartford
WWL Interview with Jeff Cohen from Hartford Courant

Listener Email from Justin

Submitted by ctalarski on January 26, 2009 - 12:31pm.

We keep hearing local politicians mention improvment to the newhaven sprigfield line. As a twenty something living in Connecticut, I would love to be able to travel to Boston or New York via train. Will this happen before I become a thirty or forty something?

Colleges can make a big difference in a city. There are several colleges in and around Hartford. Are there any plans to encourage these schools to expand outside their campus walls and tale advantage oh our "brown field" buildings and bring new life to our Capitol city?

Thanks,
Justin from Hartford.
 

Listener Email from Maryellen

Submitted by ctalarski on January 26, 2009 - 12:30pm.

I taught for 20 years in public secondary schools in Columbus, Ohio.  There the biggest differences I saw in low performing  schools vs. high performing schools were the high absentee rate, high drop out rate and low graduation rate in the "inner-city" schools and overall instability of families. Unless kids come to school and families are involved and encourage and support their children, we can't educate them to their potential no matter how much we spend per student.  How are these issues being addressed?
 
Raising the minimum wage and CT having the highest minimum wage is a good start, but the disparity between the "haves" and "have nots" is still disheartening.
 
From a "have some",
 
Mary