Remembering the Lowell Shallot Era

Earlier this week, a friend sent me a text referencing The Lowell Shallot. If you’re unfamiliar, it was a local political blog that played a role during a bygone media era. I revisited the site this week and it was an amazing time capsule of a moment in time. Mainly, I was struck by how much the city’s political climate—and the way it’s covered—has changed since 2009–10. (See for yourself: incredibly, you can still find it online).

The Shallot was one of several great Lowell blogs from that era. Like a comet, it burned bright—from April 2009 to November 2010—and then disappeared. It consisted of anonymous posts by someone who was clearly paying attention and who had very strong opinions about what they were seeing.

You could argue that the author was a coward who hid behind a moniker. You could also argue that anonymity was precisely what allowed the blog to “name names” and lob bombs. Bombs that were clearly noted and got under the skin of elected officials. I didn’t always agree with style or content (the author was kind of an asshole to a lot of people), but it was always a must-read.

One post featured a sprawling chart mapping Lowell’s power players. It was absurdly detailed and complex. It required deep institutional knowledge and an enormous amount of time. ChatGPT didn’t make this bad boy. I’m not even sure anyone could make it today. Moreover, I’m fairly certain that the kind of fixation on power networks that drove someone to do that in 2009 has largely faded from civic life.

Which brings me (finally) to my premise and what I see as one of the stranger developments in Lowell over the past fifteen or so years:

Our local government systems seem to be getting more civil, open, and responsive—yet the public seems less interested.

Other than voter turnout numbers, I have zero data on any of this. I’ve read no studies, taken no polls, and did not survey key stakeholders or downtown business owners. This is largely vibes-based.

But rereading the Shallot reminded me how different local politics felt back then. In the years following the 2008 financial crisis, things were messy. Council meetings were tense. Personalities clashed openly. Institutions were widely mistrusted. That volatility (for all its downsides) seemed to draw people in.

The distrust was amplified by a sense of cronyism and corruption. Indeed, around this time, the FBI was investigating City Hall, a sitting City Councilor was involved in various scandals, and a former State Senator was convicted of fraud for attempting to sell political influence.

Against this backdrop, the Shallot represented a public that was angry and suspicious that decisions were being made behind the scenes and merely ratified on Tuesday nights.

I can’t pinpoint when that era would have ended, but Lowell feels calmer now.

This runs counter to the national trend, where politics has become more personal, more strident, and more all-consuming. Civility gets weaker by the day. And yet, in Lowell, the opposite seems to be happening. Council meetings are polite and dry – and have been for a long time. Public fights and personal attacks are rare. Fewer people seem to follow local government closely, and voter turnout continues to decline.

The national political scene offers endless spectacle and an illusion of participation, while quietly sucking attention from the places where power is actually exercised over daily life.

Sure, in Lowell, some discussion flares up – briefly – around isolated issues—a development project, the location of a high school, or a councilor’s criminal case—and then disappears. What’s missing is sustained attention to broader questions of governance and power.

The Lowell Shallot was obsessed with those questions. It fixated on systems—who held power and whose interests were served. What’s striking today is not that those questions have been resolved, but that fewer people seem interested in asking them.

In many respects, our system has improved (more money, fewer scandals, neighborhood representation, Council satisfaction with the Manager, etc.). However, I wonder if that improvement has made civic attention feel unnecessary?

The Shallot certainly didn’t feel that civil attention was unnecessary. It yelled. It lobbed bombs. It adopted a scorched-earth, punk sensibility because civility itself was treated as part of the problem. Its tone was abrasive and often unfair.

But it was undeniably engaging.