Stimulate This

Sometimes, I just can't help myself. Saturday's front page of the Boston Globe had two stories in juxtaposition that illustrate perfectly how screwed up we are. One article talked about a proposal to spend millions of our much-ballyhooed federal stimulus money for a footbridge across a highway to connect two parking lots operated by the multi-billionaire Kraft family, owners of the New England Patriots NFL football team and the new "Patriot Place," a collection of upscale shops,restaurants and entertainment establishments. The other article told how services for the homeless were being cut because of a budget crisis in the State House.

I fired off yet another letter to the Globe, but I needn't have bothered because it seems quite a few people were struck by the same irony and several letters were published today. Luckily, I know a blog that is very good about publishing my whinings. The "Tom" I mention is Tom Brady, star quarterback of the Patriots. The photos of the stadium and shopping areas were taken this morning as I biked by while doing my laundry delivery.

Here's the letter:


$9 Million for a Parking Lot?

On the same front page (Saturday, November 7, 2009) that presented a story about $9 million in federal stimulus money for elevators and a footbridge over Route 1 to an empty parking lot at Patriot Place in Foxboro (For the Krafts' Patriot Place, a golden gateway) was a headline about further cuts in beds and services for the most vulnerable among us (Budget trims lead homeless shelters across Mass. to cut services and beds). When will we have leaders with the vision and courage to take us into a brighter, more sensible future; a future where people and the environment matter and we stop worshiping personal automobiles? Patriot Place is a vast wasteland of asphalt and concrete. It's a billion-dollar shrine visited by those with the time and money to spend on idle entertainment, overeating and excess consumption. In no sense does Patriot Place contribute to a real community with real services like homes, schools and grocery shopping. It's not even close to any of those things. Virtually every visit to the mega-complex is made in a private car driven many miles.

It's time to spend our dwindling resources on living arrangements with a future. We are broke and running out of energy. It may not be fashionable to dismiss the work of Tom and the boys as anything but noble, and it may be difficult to admit that we don't need to buy more junk made in China, but do we really want to put our children and grandchildren into debt for the betterment of NFL Football and Christmas Tree Shops? We need to devote our efforts to building real communities where people can live, walk, bike and take public transportation to jobs that matter. We need to invest our shared resources in manufacturing, education, renewable energy, local food production and affordable housing. Let's build in a better world.

Praise For ZBA

Here's a letter I wrote to our little town newspaper about a proposed shopping mall in town that will destroy many acres of mature forest adjacent to a cranberry bog. I just e-mailed it in and, just as letters to my local representatives go unanswered, I suspect this will go unprinted, so I put it here:

I applaud the ZBA for sticking to its guns on requiring the developer of Sharon Commons to provide an irrevocable letter of credit before denuding many acres of forest in Sharon. We only have to look at a recent project on North Main Street to see what we are left with after the bulldozers scrape away thousands of years of natural and human history for yet another ill-conceived project.

Look around. Walpole Mall is expanding. Patriot Place in Foxboro is building a moonscape of asphalt and big-box stores. A new mall just opened in Mansfield. There are plans for a mega-development in Westwood. Store after store have just opened in Stoughton and Avon. Who on Earth is going to patronize all these malls? The chances of another mall in Sharon thriving are slim indeed.

The age of happy motoring to the mall is OVER. Gas just hit four bucks a gallon and the price of all energy has nowhere to go but up. We need developers with a new vision for a new century. We need communities where people can live, work and shop without constantly hopping into the car. We need architecture that lifts the spirit and is built for the ages, not just more flat-topped boxes with fake stucco exteriors and high fossil fuel inputs. We need community-based businesses, not just more giant corporate parasites who suck wealth from our home town by selling more of the same imported junk.

Sweeping changes to the "non-negotiable" American lifestyle are being negotiated right now by forces largely beyond our control. We'd better take a place at the table before it's too late.