I couldn’t resist this one. According to GreatGreenWall.org, Newton is off the charts in health, happiness, and prosperity compared to, well, everywhere else.
So sit back and revel in our collective well-being. Ain’t it grand.?
Crazy Divers: Men be like...
drivers man be like
Let’s try and keep it that way.
For instance, don’t over-densify and crowd our city by intimidation from the State and MBTA. Any funding the City may forfeit by not adding the additional 15,000+ soles to our terrain is less than the additional City expense, crowding and despoiling of our local environment the added development would bring.
We do have a better chance of living to 100 these days, and that could be a good thing.
But before we do the usual smug self-congratulation that we usually do, we should think about this: yes, we may live to 100. But will our good health make it to 100? Our financial ability to take care of ourselves once we retire and have to live off our retirement savings in a high cost place? Getting good health care with so much volatility? So many questions that no one has a good answer for, at least for now.
And yes I know Jerry’s post is kind of tongue in cheek.
Ted, I would expand on your comments to add, “what are we as a community doing to make life at, up to, and beyond 100 great to live?”
Community extends and enhances life. Loneliness shortens and saddens it.
Newton residents are proximate to the greatest healthcare on earth, and many have access to it (though too many don’t). Quite a few Newton residents have the financial means and fiscal stability to take care of themselves (though too many don’t).
Yet community is no small part of what defines a life worth living, living long, and living well. Culture, art, social opportunities, places and events that bring chance encounters with people and ideas both familiar and unexpected. Connections to neighbors and beyond. Traditions old and new. Caring through sharing. Surprises. Fun. FUN!
For our society, the pandemic marked a retreat inward. Our return to a healthy community must reverse that. The antidote to today’s social divisions is a clean rinse in the stream of the inherent goodness of ordinary people, joining together as community in many ways big and small.
A long life, and a life worth living. Together. All of us. That’s what makes a place great. (And in the long term, a lot more than all the stuff we get bent into knots about.)
@Mike Halle – Amen!