Jamaica Plain is a commons place

The seating area and community bulletin boards in the front of the Whole Foods?

*runs away*

JP really is fantastic with its libraries and places to walk, unlike say most other neighborhoods in the city which only have libraries and other places to walk. I'd love to know what 'sidewalk life' means- does it mean people walking down the street in general or the pan handlers outside the convenience store specifically?

Don't be snarky bitches. JP has an awesome sense of community unlike many other places in Boston.

Unfortunately this WF thing is a bit out of control, but it seems to be a tiny segment of the population screaming the loudest - most people don't agree.

Re: crime - Boston in general has a low crime rate, JP has issues here and there but it's not a cesspool of crime. Look at real stats all over the city before you make that statement.

We need a "movement" to inform us when to pick up trash off the sidewalk or plant flowers to make something look pretty?

"that certain things belong to everybody." You mean socialism? Yeah, there have been socialists in JP for a long time.

This seems a very bourgeois use of the term "commons". The commons was always about economic uses. The classic example was the common use of land where everyone was allowed to harvest resources from it such as collecting firewood or grazing livestock.

Michael Rawson has a good discussion in his excellent environmental history of Boston "Eden on the Charles". Boston Common was originally a commons in the more traditional sense and was a site for BOTH work and leisure. People would go there to enjoy some time off but all to graze their cattle or clean their rugs or do other things which were economically productive. The militia would drill there and I think there was even an industrial concern of some sort located there. In the 19th century wealthier Bostonians became concerned about the mixing of work space and leisure space and led a movement which resulted in the Common turning into what it is now: a space almost entirely devoted to leisure where you're supposed to walk around and contemplate nature. With the exception of Mr Nut Roaster and his like there's almost no economic activity going on on the Common. And in fact we've seen movements to ban less than bourgeois usages of the Common, such as the homeless people who use it as a place to sleep.

This article surprised me when also considering that JP is also home to Whose Food, a group which advocates keeping middle class families from moving to JP. How does pitting one population against another create community?

I'm also surprised their incredibly anti-Semitic skit this past Saturday didn't get more coverage. Children on stage with the caricature of a Jewish shopkeeper snatching money while klemzer music plays in the background and the crowd boos him?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpDzYpF9j54

“We hear in the media, all our problems can be solved by the free market. That’s not true

The people in all those million dollar homes seem to be doing pretty good by the free market. The free market paid for the Arboretum - I never hear of any dizzy socialists refusing to take advantage of it. Funny this isn't happening in Hyde Park, where there are no million dollar homes.

show up on my UH page? Lots of google traffic regarding WH?

So in this home of diversity, how many black or hispanic people will show up at this thing?

Sheesh - this is so JP!

People in all communities band together as they have for generations to achieve common goals. Public Libraries, Community Theaters, Churches, Schools, Little League, the list goes on and on.

Despite a tone and hyperbolic language that suggests that these things were invented in Jamaica Plain or that somehow these transplanted, over-educated, Super Virtuous folk invented these things.

Diversity? If you went to any manufacturing town in New England, you found neighborhoods or even streets where folks who had emigrated from many different nations to work in factories, educate their children and support each other in a foreign land.

Talk about euphemistic language? "We treasure...blossomed...deep community" Could the author of these words find more superlative words? This surely must be paradise!

I suspect that many of these folks, grew up in sterile, white-bread suburbs that generated the income for their liberal arts degrees and when they moved to a city neighborhood discovered that there were actually different people who lived near them.

The giddiness of this discovery along with a degree of affluence, usually not enjoyed by those different people, allowed a new found degree of self satisfaction, often confused with civic virtue.

Indeed it is this degree of affluence which is bringing Whole Foods to JP. If they really were interested in the diversity represented by Hi-Lo by shopping there. Support local businesses, perhaps Flanagan's market would still be there? However, I imagine those places were a little too grungy, a little too worn.

See you all at the Whole Food's opening :)

I have some small concern with the way you've framed this piece, Adam - to wit:

The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports...

In fact, the web-only article you linked to is explicitly an opinion piece, not reportage, and was written by someone who is apparently not a Gazette staff member.

Given the level of heat and noise surrounding this issue already, I think that making such distinctions very clear is vital.

Not sure how 'awesome' JP can be when so many of the residents publicly proclaim their hatred toward so many groups of people... hipsters, yuppies, people who have jobs that earn more than lower tier income pay, people who shop at Whole Foods, people who aren't of ethnic backgrounds on the 'JP=preferred' list, etc. etc. This kind of exclusivity sounds pretty crappy to me.

Wait - isn't this piece just all about some guy's book? A book about 'the commons movement' that happens to use Jamaica Plain as an example?

Is the article really about how self-important, self-righteous, and self-congratulating JPers are? I didn't read that part. I thought it was about an urban development phenomenon.

I have lived in 5 distinctly different neighborhoods in Boston, including JP. Each offered its own, unique and very clear character.

Presently I like JP's the most due to its characteristics. What are they? One is its parks. To me, more than anything else, JP signature characteristic are its parks. Everything else is at least influenced, if not actually shaped by that feature. Everything else is either complementary or bluntly contrasting against the parks. This includes the sheer luxury of so much open space offered by the parks. The parks also act as historical evidence of 19th century city building that parks represent. Finally the parks contain within them evidence of the natural history as seen in JP Pond, the puddingstone outcroppings in Franklin Park and Franklin Park itself.

Second is its architecture. JP is full of architectural variety and richness. The obvious age of the buildings also communicates a sense of time that exists beyond anyone person. The buildings in the neighborhood which oldest communicate to an age where one day equals obsolete that some things only get better as they get older.

The trees in JP. Living beings that have have stood longer than most people in the neighborhood are alive. If only the trees could talk....

I don't consider JP any better than any other neighborhood in the Boston area. But it does possess characteristics that by themselves are of great value.