How do we add up and subtract plusses and minuses from the decade about to vanish?
The past ten years here in Everett have been monumental.
The city has changed dramatically.
Old families continue to leave the city. Old-timers are dying off.
Newcomers arrive everyday from all over the world. Never before has the city been so mixed a place.
Housing prices have soared through a roof that appears to have no ceiling.
The public school population which began the decade with about 4500 students has shot up to over 7,000.
Development has changed the face of the city.
Large residential housing developments have changed the various neighborhoods, even creating new neighborhoods.
The casino and hotel – well – this is the event of the decade – the biggest commercial development of its kind in Massachusetts history right here in our city.
As the old decade ends and the new decade is about to begin, many of us ask ourselves, is life getting better in the city or is getting worse.
Are we better off now than we were at the beginning of the decade?
What might the new decade hold?
Many residents have questions and complaints about life in Everett today and in the future but many more are enjoying their time here, feeling safe and many becoming prosperous.
As much as the city has changed much of it has appeared to remain the same.
The geography never changes.
The politics has not morphed into anything new, except for the November municipal election, which has brought new faces into city government.
During the past ten years Everett Square and the city’s squares in general have not changed with the times.
The city continually spent more than it took in during the past decade.
For all its dramatic changes, the city has remained a closely knit community where everyone’s lives in more ways than one are intertwined.
Overall, the decade fading away and soon gone has been kind to the city.
What of the new decade that is upon us?
Only time will tell.