Tocqueville coined the word “individualism” to define a new form of life he saw emerging in North America in the 1830s. Here as never before in history it became possible for an individual, as long as he was white and male, to separate himself from his family background and decide his own socioeconomic destiny. In […]
Neal Dolan
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Bocce alone
In the North End, community grows by itself–but for how long? Five years ago, when I first told my Cambridge friends I was moving to Boston’s North End, they said I would be disappointed. My Italian grandmother notwithstanding, I wouldn’t find the sense of community and civic life I was looking for, they said, because […]
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Two views of suburbia
Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American DreamBy Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff SpeckNorth Point Press, New York, 2000, 256 pages Picture Windows: How the Suburbs HappenedBy Rosalyn Baxandall and Elizabeth Ewen Basic Books, New York, 2000, 298 pages. Cynthia Martin, née Fabiano, and all 13 of her siblings […]