Boston's
WCVB has an evening show called Chronicle. It is well done and
the subjects are wide ranging, but always something to do with New
England. Sometimes it's new business or medical advances pioneered
regionally.
Often,
it is a destination that one from their metro Boston coverage area
might want to visit. Last evening, it was Pittsfield.
Pittsfield
was a one industry small city in the Massachusetts Berkshires.
General Electric dominated the town until they bugged out. As
usual, when the big employer left, hard times ensued.
Chambers
of commerce and civic boosters always try different tactics to bring
about a hoped for renaissance. Sometimes it works, as when a
community college satellite campus can be brought in. No one in
Massachusetts ever calls for a state prison as the new job provider,
but in a few places there is the call for a casino.
Sometimes
it just happens. It helps if there is a surplus of low cost real
estate that is not derelict and in a beautiful spot.
And,
it happened in Pittsfield.
The
co-hosts waxed poetic about all the new shops and eateries that have
opened up, and they are all attractive venues. The food prepared at
Eat on North looked looked to be a pleasant dining experience.
All
the residents and entrepreneurs and artists featured look youngish or
at least well preserved and, shall we say it hip. Oh, and shall we
say it, white
Should
that matter. As a live and let live type, not to me. The folks on
the Chronicle episode all appear to be people who could be
trustafarians. They may not be, but the meticulous casualness of
their bad clothes seems to betray that.
There
is one other aspect of all these cool folks, I don't think there was
one African-American among them. Usually, that seems to bother
people. There was not a peep of protest from anyone on the staff or
townspeople.
It
would cause an emergency insertion of a pacemaker if Pittsfield were
a hotbed Trumpism.
It
would be the perfect place for black brunch to show up. Ain't
happening in that whitopia.
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