The future of Boston’s Government Center complex—the hottest topic in New England architecture in decades—was the subject of a May Boston Sunday Globe editorial by School of Architecture director George Thrush, who argued forcefully for a new "series of city blocks with occasional towers, active ground floors, and life around the clock…reconnect[ing] at least four distinct neighborhoods by reestablishing active, permeable street-fronts."

Thrush’s proposal comes after Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s proposal to raze City Hall and move the civic center to the South Boston waterfront spawned debate over whether or not to preserve the existing building, considered a model of progressive urban design in the 1960s. Thrush argues that to not revitalize the neighborhood would result in "cold, dark public buildings on barren, wind-swept plazas." As he puts it, "The real choice must be made between an image of progressivism…and the stark fact that Government Center fails at many of its most critical urban tasks."