(Run.)
Greetings, bright-tailed and bushy-eyed scholars just arrived to our erstwhile “Hub of the Universe!”
Pleasantries thus dispensed with, let’s get to the point: Boston sucks like every other American burg in this era.
True, it’s a so-called “global city” with a passing resemblance to a third-rate European capital if you squint just right. There is some nice architecture among many dull structures, after all. Some fashionable restaurants and shops. Some teams that win at sportsball.
But Boston’s also a structurally segregated and racist city despite having a “majority-minority” population and quite a few notables of color. And growing economic desperation is driving working people either deeper into crumbling disenfranchised neighborhoods or out of town entirely—into distant impoverished burbs with exactly the same malls and highways that those of you who hail from elsewhere in the states will be intimately familiar with.
Though most of you will never see the sometimes invisible lines of race and class that chop up the city proper (and the region around it) into “good” and “bad” areas, whatever your genetic heritage, because the leaders of most of your schools typically ignore the neighborhoods they haven’t yet managed to help gentrify. So most of your college experience will be designed to steer you away from ever visiting most parts of the metropolis you’re spending some considerable chunk of your life in.
Public transportation, totally underfunded and messed up though it is, exists (though less of it in the aforementioned “bad” areas than in the “good” ones). There are sidewalks in most places you’d want to go, so Boston is “walkable.” There are lines painted on more streets than ever; so it’s also “bikeable”—although the growing cyclist death toll should give urban bike fans pause. Which does indeed make us the rare American city that doesn’t require using a car to travel, like, anywhere outside the home. But Europe we are not.
Happily, we have more colleges within 15 miles of city center than most anywhere on the planet; so there will be thousands of new arrivals just like you making the rounds of the obvious tourist spots this month: our better parks, our temples of sport, and of course simulacra of genuine points of interest like the bad mall in brick low-rises that is Faneuil Hall. At least you needn’t be lonely as you tick off all available opportunities to take location selfies proving you’re really here now.
Our politics are terrible. Something else that most of you will find familiar, except there’s a twist. You see both Boston and Massachusetts are completely dominated by the Democrats (which polls show too many of you will be way too excited about). But most of our politicians are actually conservatives that differ from typical Republicans mainly in not being outright racists or sexists or heterosexists. But almost all of them are firmly in the pocket of the major corporations and wealthy families that actually run the state—which should make you all feel at home immediately.
As for our news media … what can one say? It should be doing a far better job of covering that sad state of affairs than it does and it’s increasingly thin on the ground as the journalism industry collapses nationwide. But, in general, if you want to find out what’s going on and don’t think that local subreddits and Facebook groups are giving you what you need, do not look to the largest media outlets to help you—because they’re effectively controlled by the same elites that run the state (badly). Look to smaller, community outlets like Universal Hub, Dorchester Reporter, Bay State Banner, Vanyaland, Arts Fuse, Boston Hassle, Boston Compass, Fenway News, and, yes, my nonprofit’s HorizonMass to help you figure out what’s up and what’s what.
Our cultural institutions are neither the best nor the worst. Because the arts and culture scenes that sparkled decades back are now in decline. And while the wages you’ll receive for the gigs you’ll almost certainly have to work to make ends meet tend to be higher here than elsewhere, everything one might purchase is insanely expensive—from rent to groceries to what passes for fun these days (which is the case even if you’re on a visa that doesn’t allow you to work). So you will swiftly come to understand why artists and performers have been leaving the area in droves for many years. And those that remain have fewer and fewer venues in which to ply their craft since most would-be club, theater, studio, and gallery impresarios cannot raise the scratch needed to sign commercial leases. Even as there are fewer and fewer usable spaces to lease. But, hey, at least we have a Hard Rock Cafe (oh no, wait, we don’t …)!
Speaking of money, your future degree from a Boston-area college may well be the most expensive thing you buy in your life. If you’re rich–and some of you definitely are–you won’t notice the outrageous sticker price of your schooling. But the vast majority of you will realize that you and your family are taking one hell of a gamble sending you here for your higher education. Given that the debt you’re about to take on will likely be more than you can possibly afford without the best scholarships (which vanishingly few of you will get) … and your chance of going bankrupt while being forced to pay it off, in a nation with a government that refuses to cover your tuition and fees, gets higher the more time you spend getting degrees. Unless you’re from a more forward-thinking nation that will pay for your fancy American education.
And, sure, if you’re a PhD candidate, you’ll probably get paid to go to school, but even unionized grad students (and there are many who will never be unionized) still end up in debt simply soaking up the ever-rising cost of living in and around Boston. Those of you who join the military to be able to afford your education will also be somewhat better off than other students financially. But you will soon run the risk of being shipped off to fight in one of America’s endless proxy wars in the service of multinational corporations and feral neocon ideologues desperate to keep the US in the “global hegemon” seat for, you know, reasons. So good luck with all that.
Anyhow, if you don’t mind navigating all of the drama above plus the remnant pandemic that’s not a pandemic plus cowardly college administrations currently laboring mightily to crush the last vestiges of free speech on campus (for fear of pissing off the billionaires that our federal government has encouraged to cash in on higher ed for decades while pretending to be “philanthropists”), then welcome to Boston!
Have a super school year.
Apparent Horizon—an award-winning political column—is syndicated by the MassWire news service of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism.
