Overall our city has been blessed.

I would love to see the city do the right thing on so many fronts but I have to remind myself that our city has been very lucky.

Lucky to have a bevy of concerned citizens.

There are a lot of towns and cities in which the majority of the residents do not become involved in politics.     In fact, most do worse – refuse to educate themselves as to what is actually going on in their community and to take the next step, participate.

And you can tell by the way their places are screwed up.     Politicians doing their own thing including conducting a little graft on the side; bureaucrats thinking up the latest stupid idea that becomes apparent years later; or the whole place following the usual pop culture idea of reality and truth.

But it didn’t happen here.

Picture suburban sprawl interspersed with factories from Low Street to Route 95 – all the way down Scotland Road with rectangular ‘replicated’ marsh lands that look like the midwest’s idea of ‘lakes’. (i.e. square or rectangular).     A high speed lane replacing High Street much like you see in Danvers and Everett. (Horrors) or blacktop all the way to the water like Lynn.    An ugly, dying center of town after all the culture has been ripped out and shiny, cold buildings put in like Haverhill.       Or a beautiful, modern downtown with nothing on the ground floor but homeless in the allies and criminals roaming the neighborhoods like so many USA cities.

We’re lucky because we have citizens, carpetbaggers and townies, natives and newcomers – who really care.     

Yes, it’s messy but as I travel down to Boston thru so many failed communities – it is well worth it.

It’s exhausting Newburyporters, going to all these meetings and doing your homework when you have families and jobs;  but I beg you – don’t give up on our city.

The sacrifice of talent and time will have a great reward – our high quality of life.     

-P. Preservationist
www.ppreservationist.com

PS.  Demolition Ordinances, Historic Preservation, Master Plan, Harbor Master, Schools and the Waterfront and not forgetting everything in between.