One of the first things they do is start whining to administrators that their $50,000 a year should buy them common areas where the couches aren't haphazardly arranged, the Globe's Sarah Schweitzer informs us, in another of her exposes on the seamy underbelly of the overclass.

In her ongoing front-page series on the travails of rich white people, the Globe's Sarah Schweitzer today gives us a sensitive, caring look at Duxbury residents desperately trying to prevent their scions from taking the wrong path in life, by paying up to $80 an hour for etiquette lessons at the Duxbury Yacht Club. I think the following sentence sums up the rough road ahead for them:

"So many of these children had never seen two forks," Tunnicliffe said.

The Globe today really puts the news in context. A front page story declaring the worst recession since World War II sits right atop crack investigative reporter Sarah Schweitzer's expose on rich white parents in the South End: South End getting (a lot) younger.

Yes, shocking: Rich white people are taking time out from accumulating wealth to pop out babies!

What has changed, residents say, is that affluent young professionals who once moved away when they planned to have children began about five years ago to stay. Some now are upgrading from smaller, couple-size condos to four-bedroom units that can cost $2 million.

So, hold on, all you yuppies moving to the Natick Mall: Ms. Schweitzer now declares there is life in the old city yet.

However, the story really only continues Schweitzer's - and the Globe's - odd compulsion to turn every little anecdote-based story into some sweeping declaration of a "trend." Is the South End really getting younger? The most recent demographic data on the neighborhood is from the 2000 federal census - in other words, from two years before her alleged trend started.

As Adam Reilly of the Phoenix points out (in e-mail to me, since he can't post to his blog for some reason), there could be another explanation for Schweitzer's anecdotes: Rich white parents (and the stores that cater to them) are displacing poor brown parents in the neighborhood:

In other words, she can't conclusively state that there are more kids than there used to be. But because there are a lot of new upscale options catering to parents with disposable income...QED?

What Schweitzer ignores, obviously, is the possibility that, with the flight of lower- and middle-income families, the neighborhood may have no more kids than it used to, or even less.

Icky poor people? Please. They're Herald readers; we'll have none of that in the New Globe.

It's good to know that, even in the midst of rapidly declining readership, an endless series of staff buyouts and a fast-shrinking news hole, the Boston Globe has found one area in which it can beef up its coverage: Spotting the trends that matter to the Boston area's rich. Because Lord knows this is a group that has been sadly neglected in the past.

Thankfully, the Globe made the right choice in assigning the local Robb Report beat to Sarah Schweitzer,

Yesterday, the Globe gave us an insightful front-page look at those modern-day pioneers forsaking their six-figure financial-services salaries and Back Bay condos to become Vermont cheesemakers. Today, the Globe once again awakens us from our complacency with a front-page expose on the travails of another breed of pioneers: People buying million-dollar condos at the Natick Mall:

... "You just don't see malls like this," said Kellie DuGally, 37, owner of an online sales company in Hudson, who plans to convert one of the penthouse's three bedrooms into a closet for her clothing and shoes. ...