Another Reason To Like Cambridge

While much of metro Boston had to boil its drinking water the past three days because of a broken pipe in one of the system's small towns, here in Cambridge it was cooking, drinking and cleaning as usual. The city has its own water source, Fresh Pond, that it's managed responsibly and successfully, which is a simple but impressive feat in municipal government.

Ripping the elitist, liberal culture and politics of Cambridge, with its snooty universities, biotech companies and haughty populace, is easy. So is holding it up as an example of a place that's lost touch with the mainstream. But actually, the country could probably use more places like Cambridge if it were interested in creating a lively, relatively urban society. The streets are active, the shopping and restaurants are attractive, the culture is rich, the housing is varied and generally of good quality, the parks are abundant, the tree canopy is plentiful, the schools are good for a (semi-)urban city, the public transit is extensive enough that one doesn't need to own a car to get around. That it's so expensive to own housing is burdensome, but it's not a coincidence that a place defined by these characteristics is expensive.

Shouldn't others catch on or is it better that they prefer not to join?