All Quiet on the Western Front

Credit: The New Yorker

In the western suburbs of Boston, just outside of I-495, the roads are remarkably empty, town hall is eerily quiet, and the phone might ring once or twice a week as residents focus on other, more pressing matters of life. Here in Harvard, public life has necessarily ground to a screeching halt and public meetings, if they are held at all, have relocated to the Zoom room.

Juliette Kayyem writes in The Atlantic that "...a strange purgatory awaits us," as we slowly begin to emerge from this more acute stage of the crisis. We will find (or be presented with) new ways of participating in almost every element of public life such as shopping, eating out, going to work or school, and of course traveling. To those of us who tend to be more civic minded and responsible, the adjustment will be incorporated into our new routine without much protest. For those who tend to value personal freedoms above collective responsibility, reactions may range from mild annoyance to unmitigated rage. Trying to balance public policy and satisfy the full spectrum of these perspectives will be daunting and require strong and self-assured leaders and maybe interesting coalitions.

How will civic life change in other ways? At the local level, where I operate, I can envision a host of ways in which our antecedent life will be changing locally, particularly in the public policy realm. First, volunteerism and public participation may either rise or fall based on whether local government migrates back to physical presence meetings or holds some or all meetings virtually going forward. Reluctance to attend physical meetings in confined spaces, even with 6 foot social distancing and required face masks, could be significant. Hearing a sniffle or cough might empty a room quicker than a bomb threat. Can you imagine taking temperatures at the door for every in person public meeting? Don't rule that out, at least in the beginning.

As I pick my "pen" back up and continue writing this shelved piece begun in April, now in August we find some answers to these early questions but public meetings have still not returned and many of us are quite adept at the Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or other remote platforms that allow us to substitute our mundane home backgrounds with the Taj Mahal or Fenway Park. Municipal financial personnel continue to try to keep us all afloat while waiting seemingly in vain for some sort of federal help to compensate local and state government for shouldering the heavy burden of the costs of Covid and the domino effect of economic shrinkage. A list of the adaptations and safety-related actions include cleaning supplies or services, plexiglass barriers, signage and floor stickers, hand sanitizer, and most important for continued productivity, the new technologies--both hardware and software, to allow cities and towns to function by taking online applications and payments, holding public meetings, and so much more.

The Harvard Planning Board, with a brief interruption in meetings, has been hard at work on applications and other work such as bylaw amendments and long-range planning. Business as usual for the Board exemplifies the positive thinking that our members, new and established, have for the future, regardless of the ever present State of Emergency. The hope is that the vision and goals long established in local master plans will still be relevant going forward. Most of all, I am hoping to see everyone in person, safely, in good health, and ready for the challenges of climate change, public health, economy, racism, and more.