Tom Keane

Power to the People? Not Always

Some things are best left to undemocratic bodies

Democracy is overrated.

Boston mayoral aspirant Sam Yoon learned that lesson recently. Outlining some ideas in his campaign announcement, Yoon said, "We need to talk about what it would mean to go back to an elected School Committee." From the reaction, you'd have thought Yoon had said he enjoyed abusing puppies. Both daily papers here thundered their disapproval. "Astonishing ignorance," editorialized the Herald. "Bury this bad idea," added the Globe. Yoon, stung and seemingly chastened, quickly backtracked, offering a mealy-mouthed explanation that he didn't really support an elected committee but that it should be "part of the discussion" -- whatever that means.

But really, what's so bad about electing school committees? Many cities and towns in Massachusetts do so, and they're popular around the country as well. Not in Boston, however. City residents used to elect their School Committee, but in 1992, Mayor Ray Flynn spearheaded an effort to take that power away from voters and put it in the hands of the mayor. That appointed School Committee -- now just seven members instead of its original 13 -- survived a referendum in 1996. The whole thing seemed settled, until Yoon (or at least Yoon, Version I) saw fit to challenge it.

The reason given then, and now, for abolishing the elected committee is that its members behaved, not surprisingly, like politicians. Observers compared them to the Three Stooges. Meetings were often off-point, some members were corrupt, education took a back seat to patronage, and the budget mostly ran at a deficit.

That certainly sounds terrible, until one considers that many of the same charges could be made against any elected body. Congress runs massive deficits, the last three speakers of the Massachusetts House have resigned under ethical clouds, and much of the agenda of the City Council is preoccupied with trivia. In fact, elected bodies at all levels are filled with members who are buffoonish, incompetent, and far more concerned with the perks of power than the public weal. So why not abolish them all? At least we'd save money on elections.

Perhaps we should. Here's the thing Yoon missed: We're not really the democratic nation we fancy ourselves to be. We often don't trust ourselves as voters, and we certainly don't trust the politicians we elect. Winston Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms," but he was only partly right. Results matter. Many times, democracy produces bad results, and when that happens, we are readily willing to get rid of it.

It's been this way from the very first. The US and Massachusetts Constitutions both are designed with mechanisms to thwart the will of voters. Take the judiciary, for example. Justices are appointed. Voters can't oust them, no matter how much they disagree with their decisions. And judges understand that one of their intended roles is to sometimes countermand the will of the majority. That happens most obviously in the case of civil rights. The Supreme Court abolished segregation even when the clear majority of those living in Jim Crow states favored the system. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court approved same-sex marriage, again despite the clear wishes of a majority at the time.

Anti-democratic? Absolutely. And if you're black or gay (or, for that matter, a female, immigrant, dissident, member of an unpopular religion, and so on), you're probably quite happy to see democracy trumped.

But our anti-democratic impulse goes well beyond issues of civil rights. The basic functioning of the US economy is controlled by the Federal Reserve Board. No one elects its members, and, indeed, because terms are staggered, even the president has limited influence. Closer to home, our state government is loaded with anti-democratic independent public authorities (Mass. Pike, Massport, and the like).

The logic for Boston's appointed School Committee is really the same one that underlies the creation of all these anti-democratic institutions. The existing system wasn't working. The messes of politics -- the compromises, the short-term thinking, the need to please constituents, the lack of accountability, and the battles for election -- were interfering with getting the job done. That may offend our cherished democratic sensibilities, but those who care about educating a kid couldn't care less.

Originally published in The Boston Globe Magazine, May 24, 2009.  Illustration by Heads of State.

In Fenway, Frustration Brews

A beer policy treats first-class fans like second-class citizens.

On a cool afternoon, the Red Sox are losing and it's enough to make me want to cry in my beer -- if I had one. But I don't and the prospects aren't looking good. I'm in the middle of a long row, even if I went the lines are long (behind or not, I still came to see a game), and the return trip would be fraught with the embarrassment of a misstep spilling suds on those around me. I gloomily contemplate my beer-less life when in front of me I see - can this be! - a man with a case of Heinekens on his head, hawking beer as if it were Coke. I wave, trying to attract his attention, but no luck. I'm in the grandstands, he's in a box section, and he won't come to me.

In fact, he can't. Those are the rules. Beer vendors at Fenway Park can ply their trade in the field boxes, the dugout seats, and up in the pavilions, areas where customers pay more for their tickets. Fans elsewhere have to fetch their own. Curious. Other Major League teams allow seatside beer sales throughout their parks. So too does Gillette Stadium. But Daniel Pokaski, chair of Boston's liquor licensing board, says he's not inclined to allow expanded seatside vending; he worries, for instance, about checking IDs. (Hmm, doesn't seem to be a problem in Foxborough.) Nor do the Red Sox want to push the matter, telling me, not very credibly, that more beer vendors would congest the aisles. (Come on, now. Congestion comes from those getting their beers. Seatside service would reduce that.) Moreover, says team spokeswoman Susan Goodenow, "fans don't mind getting up" to buy their beers. Right. If that were true, then why is seatside service considered such an amenity in the few areas where it's allowed?

What's really going on here? It's all about money. Not making it, but who has more of it. The beer polloi, those of us sitting in the (relatively) cheap seats, are out of luck. "It's elitist," Pokaski frankly admits. Indeed, it is, with the somewhat outrageous subtext being that only the rich can be trusted to hold their liquor.

Beer vendors used to roam Fenway Park until the 1970s, when increasingly drunk and rowdy fans provoked the team to put in place tough new rules: Beer would be served only at concession stands, patrons were limited to two beers with each purchase, and sales would stop after the seventh inning. Interestingly enough, those new rules didn't stop the misbehavior. In fact, things seemed to get worse (the early 1990s saw several cases of blowup sex dolls being batted around the stands). The Fenway we now think of as "family-friendly" emerged only when the team started strictly enforcing rules of behavior, tossing out patrons who got out of line (including even those who used profanity).

With the sale of the team to John Henry and company in 2002 (the Globe's corporate parent, the New York Times Co., also owns 17 percent of the club), the Sox moved to reintroduce limited seatside sales. The first attempt, in 2004, was greeted dismissively by city officials. (Boston mayor Thomas Menino fulminated that "Fenway Park is not a bar, it is not a pub, and the product in question is not simply a bag of peanuts.") But two World Series wins apparently softened hearts, and last year the Sox sold beer seatside for the first time in decades.

So far, the rowdiness hasn't returned. But that's not surprising. There are two schools of thought about how best to encourage appropriate public behavior. One, a prohibitionist approach, bans or regulates access to products (beer, guns, drugs) that are thought to cause misconduct. The second imposes consequences for misbehavior. I'm a believer in the latter, and the Sox experience seems to validate it.

But that applies to everyone, not just the rich. I understand the Sox taking the baby step of experimenting with seatside service in a few areas, but now they should be pressing to make it available to all. The excuses I get for not doing so just don't cut it, especially when other sports teams seem to make it work.

Granted, this is not the world's most momentous issue, but it is illustrative of a disturbing prejudice about those without wealth that runs though society. I don't mean to sound too much like a Marxist on this. It doesn't bother me that those with more money get to sit closer to the field. But to use wealth as a marker to deny beer sales to one's seat? Ridiculous. Beer drinkers of Red Sox Nation, unite! You have nothing to lose but your thirsts.

Originally published in The Boston Globe Magazine, May 10, 2009. 

The Way to Fight a Recession

One economic power steps boldly. Why can't Harvard?

I'm out one night and spotlights are shining on Newbury Street, attracting me and others like moths to a flame, the lure in this case being the grand opening of a store called Nespresso. It's a high-end coffee seller and I'm more a Dunkin' guy, but, still, there's free champagne and beautiful people (in jeans and a sweat shirt, I'm definitely not one), so I think, why not? I spend an evening noshing on exotic fare and listening to a young singing phenom who, I'm told, cost the promoters a bundle. It all seems very ancien regime, the kind of ostentation one saw before these grim and gray times, but this event is happening in the midst of layoffs, plummeting stocks, and empty storefronts. It is strikingly disconcerting. 

A few days later I'm standing along Western Avenue in Allston, construction site of Harvard University's much trumpeted science center. The new complex is just the first part of what has been promised to be an epic transformation of the area. Or at least, that was the hope. The tall red construction cranes are still busy clearing the area, but Drew Faust, Harvard's president, has just announced that the university is putting on the brakes. For the moment, work proceeds, but at the end of the year the school will reassess. This has come as a shock to many, especially Allston residents, who now fear they may be stuck indefinitely with what some call the Harvard Hole. And the rest of the projects? No one is saying, but things don't look good.

Both of these are recession stories, tales of two significant organizations (Harvard, America's oldest college, and Nespresso, a unit of Swiss food giant Nestle) with two different approaches to the economic crisis. One bulls forward. The other quails.

Frederic Levy, president of Nespresso's American operations, tells me the company plans to open 10 to 20 new locations in North America over the next two years. We're in the middle of a recession, I remind him, and he dismisses such thoughts. Recessions come and go, he says. Nespresso's plans are long-term, with an agenda of bringing its brand of coffee and coffee makers to all of America. He isn't going to let the vicissitudes of the day stop that.

Not so Harvard. A reported 30 percent drop in the value of its endowment seems to have thrown the university into a tizzy. Granted, that's a lot. But previous years had shown a dramatic rise in the value of the endowment, and the newest drop still leaves Harvard with around $24 billion -- about as much as it had in 2005 and almost double what the university had 10 years ago, when it first announced its expansion plans.

To each its own, I suppose. Yet there are consequences to the decisions of both Nespresso and Harvard.

Economies are strange things. Sophisticated computer modeling, Nobel Prizes, and great thinkers notwithstanding, no one can really explain how to make them grow or why they shrink. Presented with an illness, a group of doctors would pretty quickly figure out how to assess, diagnose, and treat. That's because medicine really is a science. Economics, pretensions otherwise, is not. Put 100 economists in a room, and the only sure thing you'd get would be 100 different theories. One can see this in today's throw-it-on-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach to economic policy making or in the profession's slippery language: consumer "confidence," "virtuous" circles, "giddy" (or "panicked") investors. There's an almost self-fulfilling, touchy-feely quality to this: If we believe things are going to be good, then they will be. If we believe otherwise, then they won't be.

So when a company such as Nespresso spends money and makes plans, it sends a message -- the bad times will end, growth will resume. If enough companies behaved the same way, then indeed, the economy would turn. Harvard, too, is sending a message. "If Harvard can't build, who can?" worried one construction industry publication. Perhaps, many will conclude, no one can, and, as a consequence, no one will.

This isn't to diminish Harvard's travails. But it's been around for 373 years and survived revolutions, wars, and other recessions. It's prominent and important enough that it needs to do more than play victim; it needs to be part of the solution. Nespresso, far newer to the scene, looks beyond today to the future. Harvard could learn something from the Swiss.

Originally published in The Boston Globe Magazine, April 12, 2009.  Illustration by Jean Francois Martin.

Flex Time

The best career choice today is no choice at all.

A word of advice to those of you trying to choose a career: Don't.

I know this counsel runs contrary to prevailing wisdom. We live in a world where those in college, even high school, are pummeled with the message that it is important to decide -- now -- what it is they wish to be. Indeed, perhaps not what they wish to be, but what they already are. Psychological tests and career counseling services such as the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, Career Maze, or the Motivational Appraisal of Personal Potential profess to reveal who you are and what job you should hold. (I take one and discover I'm "energetic, friendly, and outspoken." I take it again and I'm "quiet, reserved, and kind." My real personality? I cheat.) By these lights, careers are almost Calvinistic things (that would be the doctrine, not the cartoon), with our only challenge being to discover the nature of our predestination so that we might be happy the rest of our days.

Even if you don't buy this thinking (and I don't), the pressure to choose is ever-present. I see my kids going through it right now. It once was the case that colleges, liberal arts colleges in particular, were anti-careerist bastions that believed education was an end to itself, not merely a pathway to work. Today, students and parents don't seem to buy that as they once did, and instead want a return on their tuition that is measured in dollars, not brainpower. That explains why selecting a college major -- once merely an academic decision about concentrating on a particular field -- now is freighted with lifelong consequence. The College Majors Handbook With Real Career Paths and Payoffs is typical of this new attitude, promising readers it will reveal "which majors are the best investment, the job and salary prospects for specific majors, [and] the employment growth rates for particular majors." So much for the joys of intellectual self-discovery.

Yet, does picking a career early on really help, particularly if one understands a career to be more than those first few jobs after school and instead the sum total of one's working life? I think not.

People change -- arguably, more today than ever. The things we may like in our late teens and 20s might be vastly different a decade or two later. A century ago, lives were circumscribed by the limits of transportation, communication, and education. Today's smaller, interconnected world makes change omnipresent. You can see that in the way we work, flitting from job to job. (The US Bureau of Labor Statistics, for example, estimates that the youngest members of the baby boomer generation held an average of 10.8 jobs from ages 18 to 42. And that was before the recession.)

It's not only that we're changing jobs, but that jobs are changing, too. I look at a helpful career listing put out by the College Board. Many big categories, such as the environment and health technology, are almost brand new, encompassing technologies and desires that didn't exist a generation ago. A generation from now? Who knows? Meanwhile, long-established jobs are going away. As churchgoing diminishes, so, too, will the demand for ministers. And how about travel agents, TV repairmen, photo developers, secretaries, gas station attendants, farmers, and much of manufacturing? All are declining as well, due to changes in competition, technology, and tastes.

My point is simply this: When it comes to careers, you can't plan for the future. The best you can do is to prepare yourself for it. Part of doing that is to make sure you have the basic skills needed for any job: reading, writing, math, science, and, of course, a solid familiarity with computers. But this is the kind of stuff one learns in high school (or at least, should learn in high school). How about college? Higher ed should teach you to think, to solve complex problems, to communicate, to work with others, and to develop an open, flexible, and inquiring mind.

Those are the qualities employers say they look for in job candidates, according to a recent survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, and, interestingly enough, those are exactly the qualities a good liberal arts education is supposed to deliver. Those are also the same qualities that might make you a happier, more fulfilled person as well. It's an old-fashioned idea that is increasingly relevant today: Early on, it's better to expand one's options, not close them off.

Originally published in The Boston Globe Magazine, March 29, 2009.  Illustration by Mark Matcho.

A Case for American Dynasties

Sometimes, bestowing power on a family name makes sense

Caroline Kennedy won't be a senator from New York, but absent a few dozen "y'know"s, she very well could have gotten the nod -- and perhaps deservedly so. I don't say this because I think Kennedy some political savant; she clearly wasn't. Nor do I pretend she had the credentials (experience, political activism, public-policy wonkishness) we claim to want in our leaders. Indeed, Caroline Kennedy's qualification for the job was solely -- merely -- that she had the right parents. In our meritocratic world, it may seem outrageous to pick our leaders based on some accident of birth. But rather than dismiss those who do it as deluded fools, consider this: They might be right. Maybe choosing someone because of who they are really is the smart thing to do.

We do it all the time. Senator Ted Kennedy -- who got his job because of his last name -- will at some point be vacating his seat, and there is a long list of those salivating to succeed him. But should someone named Kennedy -- Joe, Victoria, or even Caroline herself (residency in these cases being a meaningless formality) -- want the job, that person would instantly rise to the status of front-runner. Just ask the many candidates who saw their hopes upended when Joe Kennedy decided to enter the 1986 race for the Eighth Congressional District seat to succeed Tip O'Neill.

This isn't just about the Kennedys. There are family dynasties all across America -- they're our home-grown version of the aristocracy. Prescott Bush begat George Herbert Walker who begat George W. and -- a likely future presidential nominee if he wants it -- Florida's Jeb. Bill Clinton gave us Hillary. Add to that list Udalls, Bayhs, and Daleys or, here in Boston, Flahertys, Connollys, and Hennigans.

Much of this has to do with celebrity. Becoming a credible candidate requires name recognition, and even with money in hand, that's a hard thing to achieve. The celebrity that comes from sports and media is one way of breaking through the clutter (although these days, Al Franken notwithstanding, such fame seems to translate less well to the political stage).  Another, better way is to be part of a well-known political family.

Here's why. The most difficult challenge every voter faces is taking a risk on an unknown. Position papers, debates, or experiences in another field are all well and good, but at the end of most campaigns, much about the candidates is still a mystery. Questions remain about their character, about how deeply felt are their positions, about how they will perform in office, or about how they might react when facing complex new problems.

Families help answer those questions. As standoffish as she was during her short-lived "campaign," Caroline Kennedy didn't need to issue any position papers for us to already know the kind of liberalism she would offer -- the same kind we've gotten from her uncles and cousins. To a degree, that's true of all the other family brand names out there. We already have experience dealing with their predecessors, which makes our decisions about their sons, daughters, spouses, or cousins far, far easier. Moreover, we have some assurance that the family will make any newly elected member toe the line, delivering as anticipated and not veering too far away from the family's (and hence our) expectations.

On top of that, in the same way we figure that the son of a carpenter knows his way around a workshop, we believe -- and, I think, quite accurately -- that the members of political families have been raised steeped in discussions of public policy, are familiar with the tactics of legislating and governing, and are imbued with the ethos of public service.

To be sure, family names don't guarantee electoral success (Patricia White, daughter of longtime Boston mayor Kevin White, failed twice in her quest to become a city councilor). And voters sometimes do take chances on the unknown (Barack Obama is proof of that).

But, in general, we voters will -- quite sensibly -- give an edge to even neophyte wannabe pols if they bear the right family names. I choke a bit to realize this, but I know I behave this way, too. If the last names are familiar, I'll pay extra attention. I may not vote for them, but I'll at least hear them out.

Originally published in The Boston Globe Magazine, March 1, 2009.

Invading New Hampshire

How the Bay State transformed its northern neighbor.

Veni, vidi, voti. I came, I saw, I voted. That's how -- 267 years after it broke away from our embrace -- Massachusetts ended up reconquering New Hampshire. The elections are long over, the winners are comfortably ensconced in their new offices, and it's now undeniably clear: The onetime anti-tax, anti-government, reddest-of-the-red states has now turned thoroughly Bay State blue. It's a victory that was a long time coming.

For decades, William Loeb, owner of the Manchester Union Leader, cracked the conservative whip, demanding that anyone with the temerity to run for office sign on to an ironclad no-taxes pledge. Democrats were scarce creatures. During the entire 20th century, Republicans held both US Senate seats 82 percent of the time.

The state's First Congressional District was Republican for 78 out of 100 years; the Second District was Republican for all but six of those years. Governors hailed from the GOP 80 percent of the time. The Legislature was comfortably Republican; indeed, one would have to go back to 1874 to find a time when both houses were controlled by Democrats. And, of course, the state was mostly Republican when it came to presidential races. In the 25 elections held in the 20th century, its voters chose the GOP nominee 18 times.

These red-solid results reflected the state's political ethos. The state motto, "Live Free or Die," was less a demand for liberty than it was an insistence that government get out of the way. And get out of the way it did. Even in 2004, according to the US Census Bureau, per-capita state and local spending in New Hampshire was a miserly $5,811 -- 35th of all the states. Massachusetts, by contrast, ranked fourth, at $7,561. Moreover, New Hampshire is one of only six states with a truly part-time legislature, paying state representatives $200 annually and senators an even more paltry $100. And why not? The hard-bitten residents of the land of the Old Man of the Mountain didn't need government. They were fine all by themselves, thank you.

How things have changed. Today, the governor is a Democrat. Both congressional representatives are Democrats. Republican John Sununu lost his Senate seat to Democrat Jeanne Shaheen in November. Both houses of the Legislature are now solidly Democratic, and more than half the state voted for Barack Obama. Indeed, the only Republican politician of any note is three-term US senator Judd Gregg, who right now must be feeling awfully lonely.

There's a reason for all of this: New Hampshire now is Massachusetts. Loeb must be rolling in his grave.

For years, the folks in the Granite State would chortle about how alluring their brand of low-tax living must be to Massachusetts residents. In fact, it seems, it was. From 2000 to 2006, even as Massachusetts's population remained stagnant, New Hampshire grew by 6.4 percent, according to a 2008 report from UNH's Carsey Institute. Most of that population increase was due to migration from other states, and the number one contributor was metropolitan Boston. During that time, New Hampshire had a net gain of 44,000 from this region.

And why the rush to move north? A Globe poll from 2006 found that most who left Massachusetts did so because of our high cost of living. Another 30 percent cited taxes and a good chunk -- more than 10 percent -- named the state's liberal politics and political leadership.

How deliciously ironic. All of those emigres may have thought they had abandoned Massachusetts, but it appears many carried its politics with them. On the streets of Nashua and Manchester, they're now building their own little Bay States. Why are they re-creating the very thing they left behind?

My guess is that while it's easy to complain about state government in general, when it comes to specifics, people like having the government take care of them. Onetime Massachusetts residents are still in thrall to the lures of well-funded schools, decent roads, and readily available healthcare. That's what they were promised by the Democrats in Massachusetts, and that's why they're now voting Democratic in New Hampshire. Is all of this a good thing or bad? Well, we've seen this story before: A Democratic hegemony. The slow death of the Republican Party. How much longer until New Hampshire's own version of the Big Dig?

Originally published in The Boston Globe Magazine, February 15, 2009.

The 'Myth' of the Good Recession

A flat-lining economy doesn't make us better people.

We're so lucky to be in a recession. Frugal living is healthier. Hard times are forcing us to cut back on restaurants and late-night entertainment for the simpler pleasures of home-cooked meals and evenings with friends. Instead of shopping as a way of life, we're learning to appreciate the goods we already have. The recession is helping us rediscover our roots and focus on the things that matter most: our families, friends, and communities. And recessions are green, to boot: less consumption will be less damaging to the environment.

These sentiments can be found everywhere. The recession is "good for the soul" according to some bloggers. It's a "corrective balance to the profligacy of the past decade," says the Globe's own editorial page. Commentators call it a necessary purgative for lives that have become spiritually bankrupt and for a culture marked by mindless consumerism. Unemployment, homelessness, and insecurity may be painful, but ultimately, we're told, they'll make us better people and the world a better place.

Nonsense. Recessions don't make us better people; they make us worse. An economic downturn won't be good for the environment; it will hurt it. If we really want to save the world, strengthen communities and families, and elevate people's souls, the best thing we could do is to get the bulls running again.

To some, the Great Depression has become a time of gauzy nostalgia, misremembered as the good old days when people cared for one another and placed their faith in God and country. Certainly there are heartwarming stories of folks who rose to the challenges of adversity. But anecdotes notwithstanding, it was a miserable time for most. Worldwide, slack economic conditions helped plant the seeds for the discontent that led to World War II. Those same conditions gave rise to fascism and anti-Semitism in the United States. People starved, 1.5 million families broke up as men left to seek work, and more than 200,000 children became vagrants.

So much for the salutary effects of recessions on family life and communities.

Recessions don't make us healthier. Morbidity and mortality figures, for instance, track closely with incomes. The richer you are, the longer you live and the less often you get sick. Recessions don't strengthen neighborhoods. Crime, for one, is far higher in areas where incomes are lower. Nor do recessions help kids. The brains of poor children, according to a University of California study released in December, are fundamentally different, "similar to someone who actually had damage in the frontal lobe as an adult." And frankly, unless your solution to environmental degradation is to wipe people off the face of the earth, the only way to clean up the planet is to have a strong economy. Whether it's wastewater treatment systems, smokestack scrubbers, or renewable energy, green living requires spending money on research and new technologies. Booming economies can generate such resources; those mired in recession cannot.

One can grant all this, however, and still wonder whether our wealth has somehow caused us to become morally impoverished. I understand the critique, typified by Carrie Bradshaw's Manolo Blahnik obsession. But Sex and the City was television, and TV is not real life. I would dare say the critics damning rampant consumerism would not level the critique at themselves. It's always everyone else they deem crass and shallow, yet I have no idea who those people really are. Up until the market crash, for example, charities were predicting the largest infusion of giving ever from the high-income baby boom generation. That's hardly selfish. Yes, people with extra cash like to buy things, but they also spend more on education and other opportunities for their kids. Again, that's not selfish.

Decades ago, psychologist Abraham Maslow argued there are "hierarchies" of human needs, ranging from the basic (such as food) to the exalted (such as art). It was only when people had comfortably achieved those basics -- when they knew they had housing, safe communities, etc. -- that most could then begin to realize higher needs such as love, self-esteem, and eventually self-actualization. If Maslow is right, recessions could rarely make us better people. During them, we're too preoccupied with simply getting by. It's only during the good times, when economies are humming, that we can ever become fully human.

Originally published in The Boston Globe Magazine, February 1, 2009.

A Shameful Endorsement

It's time politicians realized that when they back a colleague, it speaks volumes -- about their own character.

What is one to make of the slew of politicians who endorsed now-disgraced state Senator Dianne Wilkerson in September's Democratic primary? An 18-month FBI investigation found Wilkerson allegedly taking cash bribes in exchange for political favors.

But well before then it was obvious something was amiss. Seemingly the entire political establishment -- the governor, Boston's mayor, the leaders of the House and Senate, six state reps, and six Boston city councilors -- backed Wilkerson against challenger Sonia Chang-Diaz. Yet at the time they endorsed her, Wilkerson had compiled quite the sordid record. In 1987, she defaulted on her federal student loans. In 1997, she was under house arrest for not paying $51,000 in income taxes. In 1998, she spent 30 days at a halfway house for violating probation. In 2001, the state Ethics Commission fined her $1,000 for lobbying for the Boston Bank of Commerce, which had paid her $20,000 as a "consultant." In 2005, she allegedly perjured herself at a hearing at the Suffolk Superior Court (the matter is still pending). And this year, the attorney general fined her $10,000 for various campaign violations.

Shouldn't that have been enough? Indeed, Chang-Diaz's campaign against Wilkerson was all about these transgressions (the two had no fundamental ideological or policy disagreements), and ultimately a majority of voters in the district chose Chang-Diaz, a clear message that they found Wilkerson ethically unworthy for office.

But our political leaders did not have the same qualms, and one has to wonder why. I asked. Most ignored me. But a number responded, and their answers are revealing. City Councilor Michael Ross said he endorsed Wilkerson "because of the leadership role she played in Boston's black community." State Representative Martin Walsh said, "We had worked on many issues together." She "consistently helped the people of her district," Councilor John Connolly said.

In other words, it was sufficient that she did her job. Ethical failings and lawbreaking were largely irrelevant. She "has always been a staunch advocate for her community and, in my opinion, before these recent charges, that is what mattered most," Councilor Stephen Murphy told me. "When it comes to deeply moral failings -- at a human level -- it is not for me to judge," said at-large Councilor Sam Yoon. Another city councilor, Chuck Turner, offered up the everyone-does-it defense. "From an ethical standpoint," he said, "I don't think the vast majority of Congress should be allowed to sit." (Turner went on to lecture me about my naivete: "I'm surprised, Tom. I didn't think you were in denial of the reality of the moral depravity of this country.")

I guess I understand what's really going on. Governor Deval Patrick told reporters he endorsed Wilkerson because she had earlier supported him. That's the way it works. Little gets done in politics without the support of one's colleagues, and it becomes quite natural to do whatever is needed to gain their good will. Endorsements are an easy, mostly risk-free way to do this.

As I said, I understand it. That doesn't mean I accept it. There is another way to view endorsements, one with which I think most regular citizens would agree: as an affirmative statement by one politician about the character and ethics of those who serve in public office. Remember last January, when Senator Ted Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama, praising his "extraordinary gifts of leadership and character"? That was not mere logrolling done to curry favor. It was Kennedy's personal vouchsafing of Obama's moral fiber.

Contrast that with those recent endorsements of Wilkerson. Perhaps, by endorsing her, local pols were telling us -- a la Chuck Turner -- that all politicians are corrupt. Or perhaps they were saying it didn't matter. Either way, they communicated a distressing message, one that breeds public cynicism.

I do have this Pollyannish belief that politics is a higher calling. But it's hard to keep the faith when our politicians don't seem to believe it themselves. State Representative Linda Dorcena Forry is chastened. "This experience will certainly serve as a lesson to me in the future," she said. One hopes that, post-Wilkerson, the rest learn as well: The endorsements they make say far more about themselves than they do of the candidates they back.

Originally published in The Boston Globe Magazine, November 23, 2008. Illustration by Katherine Streeter.

Pop!

Why are we such suckers time and again for real estate bubbles? It's simple, really.

For years I greedily tracked the value of my home. A small condo in downtown Boston, it had doubled in value just five years after my wife and I bought it in 1994, according to Zillow.com, the website built for the hard-core real estate voyeur. Two years after that it had tripled. By 2005, just 11 years after the home's purchase, it had nearly quadrupled in value. I was rich! Rich, rich, rich!

Three years later, I'm not so rich. And a few months -- maybe even weeks? -- from now, I expect I may be poorer still. 

What was I thinking? It wasn't as if demand for Boston homes had suddenly shot up. During that time, in fact, the city's population remained relatively flat. Nor did the cost of construction suddenly jump dramatically. And, yes, while we had put some money into the place, the sad fact was that by 2005, the home was looking a bit bedraggled. Yet, for some reason, I happily fell into the delusion that I was set for retirement.

I wasn't alone in this thinking. We were all deluded. In 1999, the median home price in Boston was under $200,000. Six years later (again, according to Zillow.com), it was $444,000. The same happened throughout Massachusetts. In 1999, the median home in the Commonwealth fetched $165,000. In 2005: $377,000.

How ludicrous was this? Worse than you may think. Yale economics professor Robert J. Shiller created an index tracking "real" housing prices for the nation (that is, adjusted for inflation) back to 1890. The index started at 100. Except for the Great Depression and a few other wobbles, for a century the index floated somewhere between 100 and 120. Beginning in 1997, however, the index began to spike upward, shooting from 110 to nearly 200 in nine years. Remember, these are "real," inflation-adjusted values, meaning that somehow the intrinsic worth of housing nearly doubled in less than a decade.

In retrospect, that's absurd. But we believed it (and by "we," I mean almost everyone: buyers, sellers, developers, lenders, investors, tax collectors, government officials, and so on). No more, of course. Now, instead of glorying in a boom market, we're pointing fingers. The Federal Reserve pushed interest rates to historic lows. The deductibility of interest made borrowing cheaper. Lenders lost control of their standards. Buyers lost control of their senses. Government policy encouraging homeownership went overboard. Newfangled mortgage-backed securities obscured risk. Regulators were asleep at the wheel.

Whatever. To me, the troubling question is not the causes of the bubble -- that seems fodder for endless political argument -- but rather why almost all of us blindly bought into it.

Economists don't really understand why bubbles like this occur. The first documented case was in the 1600s in Holland, when a mania for tulips for a time drove the price of some bulbs to more than the annual income of a well-off citizen. There have been bubbles aplenty since: Beanie Babies, Internet stocks, and, of late, oil. There have also been real estate bubbles: one in the 1970s, a second in the 1980s (the latter brought down the revered Bank of New England). It's easy to say we should learn our lesson. But history suggests we don't.

Here's why: Bubbles are a great opportunity to make money. Let's say you had been a skeptic and, even as housing prices started to climb in the late 1990s, you refused to play the game. You might now seem a prophet, but you'd also have missed out. True, right now people are losing money as real estate values drop. But during the years the bubble was inflating, lots of people made lots of money (indeed, even now, housing prices are far above historic norms).

Yes, in the long run, bubbles are crazy. And in the long run, they eventually burst. But in the short run, when everyone else is making money, they're hard to resist. If we expect our homes -- or any other assets that are part of a bubble -- to be worth more tomorrow than they are today, then why not buy, why not borrow? That's why, chastened as we may be by the current collapse of the credit markets, someday soon something new will come along -- a new kind of tulip bulb, perhaps, or just a resurgence of the housing market -- and we'll all merrily plunge right in. It's the rational response to an irrational world.

Originally published in The Boston Globe Magazine, October 26, 2008. Illustration by Emiliano Ponzi.

Our Population Puzzle

White flight doesn't seem to be happening after all. What, if anything, does this say about Boston?

Something funny is happening to Boston's new status as a "majority-minority" city - that is, as a place with more nonwhite residents than white. It might not last long. After the 2000 Census documented a white population that had dropped to 49.5 percent, it seemed inevitable that Boston would follow the path blazed by some other US cities, becoming more dominated by blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and other minorities.

Instead, in what seemed a stunning demographic turn of events, 2006 data from the US Census Bureau showed the percentage of whites in the city had actually increased to an estimated 50.2 percent. So is Boston now "majority-majority" again? Nope. New 2007 data released recently showed that the number of whites in the city had risen by almost 14,000 since 2000, but Boston's population had grown, too, sending the percentage of whites back down to 49.8.

 So what are we to make of all this? One thing's certain: There is no flood of whites from the city. The expectation in 2000 was the shift from a white population to a nonwhite one would continue apace. Clearly, that's not happening. Moreover, a similar reversal is occurring in other US cities. The populations of Atlanta and Washington, D.C., for instance, have for years been largely African-American. Yet new data suggest that, in a few years, blacks in both cities will - numerically - be in a minority. Looking at the data, The Wall Street Journal billed the phenomenon the "end of white flight."

The results of the 2000 Census had provoked much discussion here about white flight, immigration, the future of the city, and political power (e.g., when will Boston finally have a nonwhite mayor?). These latest figures suggest something very different is occurring. But why?

One explanation is that cities have simply become better places in which to live. Since 1993, the hallmark of the Menino administration has been a focus on the nitty-gritty of urban living: better trash collection, cleaner parks, improved schools. Has this attention to quality-of-life issues kept whites from leaving? (Whites generally have higher incomes than blacks and hence have an easier time choosing where they want to live.) Similarly, the dramatic drop in urban crime, in Boston and elsewhere, has made city living remarkably safer. (That's true even now: There are far fewer serious crimes in Boston this year than there were in 2007.) If fear drives people out, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume its absence might bring them in?

Alternatively, perhaps we're seeing a shift in culture and sensibility. Bored suburbanites - especially empty nesters and the younger crowd - increasingly see cities as adult playgrounds, chock-full of restaurants, theaters, and nightclubs. They leave their McMansions and move in, a phenomenon some academics call "demographic inversion" (which is really just a fancy name for gentrification writ large). There are worrisome downsides to this. As wealthy whites move in, prices go up and poorer minorities can be forced out. There's concern that the influx of whites into cities might portend the decline of historically minority institutions such as black churches. There's also fear that black and other minority populations pushed out of cities would become diff use and lose the political power they had gained in urban areas.

I think both of these explanations - safety and fun - have merit. Boston today is a more hospitable and far less intimidating place than it once was. It is also an exciting place, filled with opportunities for people with large disposable incomes to spend their money.

Still, Tom Menino didn't invent the notion of clean streets or crime control. And cities have always been more hip than suburbs. Something else is at play, and it may have to do with the racial antagonism that was behind the largely segregated housing patterns that for so long defined American life. Many have speculated that racism - while certainly still with us - is, at long last, losing its power. They point to Barack Obama's candidacy as proof. Perhaps proof can also be seen in the apparent willingness of whites to move back into cities. Without question, these demographic changes will pose real challenges over the next few years. Still, any lessening of racial and ethnic segregation ultimately has to be seen as a good thing. Maybe we really are learning to get along.

Originally published in The Boston Globe Magazine, October 12, 2008. Illustration by Michelle Thompson.