Organizations like the Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement, B.U.’s Evergreen Program, Beacon Hill Village and Beacon Hill Seminars provide intellectual stimulation, exercise, companionship and a chance to get out of the house.

With all these advantages for older folks, downtown Boston has become a NORC, or naturally occurring retirement community.

Let’s look at some data. In most downtown neighborhoods the over-60 population is between 16 and 18 percent, about the same as the 40- to 60-year-old population even though, in theory, people in the older group should be dying off. The senior population’s numbers are much greater than the child population, which is about five percent until you hit the over-18 college kids.

The biggest demographic in downtown Boston is, of course, the 20- to 35-year-old age group, the group Mayor Menino targets in his “innovation” district, with its diminutive apartments and trendy work spaces. Almost half of downtown Boston is populated by this group—fancy free, for the most part, unencumbered with children, mortgages and, in some people’s minds, community responsibility.

I have nothing against that age group, since I was once in it. And I’ve got nothing against the growing numbers of old people. My grandfather was one. My parents became old. Now my friends, my husband and even I have little tread left on the tires. You may be old yourself. But I ask you: Are we good for Boston?

The evidence is spotty.

The Boston Foundation recently sounded an alarm about the situation. In its Boston Indicators report this year, this philanthropy identified a possible trend of “an influx of wealthy retirees, decline in public school students.” Such a city, they posit, would price out local workers who would be forced to commute long distances. It wouldn’t be as healthy economically or as appealing.

Such a scenario is easy to imagine given the growth of America’s senior population, which grew 20 percent between 2000 and 2010 and is expected to grow 55 percent in this decade.

Having a lot of seniors brings problems. They aren’t necessarily good for the liveliness of our streets. They patronize restaurants, cultural events, pharmacies and Red Sox games, but don’t really do much for the shops. They already have all the clothing, rugs, bedding and hammers that they need.

They tend to be more politically conservative, although maybe not in Massachusetts. (You’ll notice I consider being conservative to be a detriment to all of us.) Some want parks kept up at the expense of schools. According to Atlantic Cities, a web site run by Atlantic magazine, older people, even in walkable cities like Boston, drive more than do younger people, thus polluting the air and cluttering the streets.

Having a lot of elderly people can contribute to a kind of Balkanization where older folks are holed up together in splendor in a de facto nursing home with the rest of the population on the outside.

Such a cluster exists at the Mandarin Oriental, where someone

will bring you meals, walk your dog and do your laundry. The property tax records for that address do not give people’s ages, but we all can figure out how old property owner Herb Chambers is. Looking at the list of his building mates you find that those you know or whose names you recognize are in their dotage. It’s easy to see that this building is a high-rise Fox Hill with even better services. Many other downtown buildings have similar residents.

There are, however, reasons to be grateful for old folks in the center of Boston. A lot of them are rich. The old folks at the Mandarin Oriental sometimes pay $70,000 or $80,000 annually in property taxes. This goes a long way toward keeping up our streets and sidewalks, and we should thank them. And unless they have tendencies like Bernie Madoff, seniors tend to commit few crimes.

So how can we keep the seniors without becoming increasingly overwhelmed by them?

The answer lies at the other end of the age group. Census figures show that at age 35, a lot of Bostonians leave the city. That’s because they’ve had kids—whose numbers are about the same as the number of people over the age of 85.

Having a lot of seniors in Boston works for me, but only as long as families with kids stay here too. Right now city policies in housing construction and the location and condition of our schools work against families. If we would require builders of housing to incorporate 3 or more bedrooms in their mix, and if we would build more schools downtown, the families and the kids will come. It would be a city everyone will want to live in.

After a lengthy process four entities have presented plans. A comment period lasts until June 3, after which MassDOT, which owns the Big Dig parcel, will designate someone to build on it.

The guidelines say the building “should be compatible in character with the existing structures present in the historic Blackstone Block and within the larger downtown Market District.” Unfortunately, existing structures include the dreary Faneuil Hall Market garage and the rotting Blackstone Street buildings owned by one of the proposers, DeNormandie.

The upper story uses should take advantage of the adjacent Greenway. Uses should “reinforce the character of the Market District and Blackstone Block.” Whatever goes there should generate foot traffic and activate the Greenway. Additionally, it should benefit the Haymarket pushcarts and get built fast. Finally, “it should not be an object building, focusing attention on itself, but . . .  should create a frame or setting for and in concert with the Greenway itself.”

Oh, boy—how to handle all these guidelines, some of which compete with one another.

The Boston Museum has proposed a dramatic design that does focus attention on itself. It plans to capture the story of Boston since the Revolution in its growth, its many cultures, its politics, sports and innovation. This proposal is the only one to devote essentially the entire ground floor to the Haymarket pushcarts for however they want to use it.

The other proposals accommodate only the pushcarts’ need for trash disposal and storage.

DeNormandie Companies and Cresset Group propose the “Blackstone Market,” with 50 rental apartments, a farmers’ cooperative market, restaurants and a rooftop farm.

Normandy Partners, no relation to DeNormandie, proposes a hotel with a ground-floor market, restaurants, a community space and roof-top gardens.

Upton + Partners propose “Market Square,” modeled on a New York concept called “Eataly” that offers Italian delicacies and kitchen paraphernalia on the ground floor. They would build 119 rental units on the upper floors and, intriguingly, have offered to build rental apartments on the upper floors over next door’s public market.

Overshadowing it all, however, are dreams, assumptions, and contradictions. For example, is this parcel in the North End, as it was before the Central Artery? Or will it now be seen as part of the newly named “Market District” that, separated by the Greenway, feels more a part of the downtown?

Another balancing act is with architecture.  Should a new building adhere to the attributes of the surrounding buildings, some of which are less than ideal?

Three proposals use brick, and are of varying quality—maybe even boring. DeNormadie’s submission looked to me like a bad 1980s office park building. But two architects liked it. Is boring acceptable? Judge for yourself.

The glass museum is not a background building. But some preservationists say that new buildings in historic districts should be distinctly different to differentiate between old and new.

Another quandary is use. Should the upper floors be public or private? Hotel use seems odd, but then Boston always needs hotels. Earlier guidelines specify housing and two proposals include apartments. North End residents seem inclined to support housing. Later guidelines are more wary.

Fred Salvucci, father of the Big Dig and a former North End resident himself, expressed reservations that have concerned everyone at these meetings. Can the noisy Haymarket pushcarts with their throngs of people co-exist with apartment dwellers who might like to take a nap on a Friday afternoon?

Furthermore, said Salvucci, the Greenway was supposed to host civic institutions that one by one have eliminated themselves because building over the ramps was too costly. As the only civic use left standing, the museum would be the only use to welcome the public.

The public, however, is a problem in conservative Boston. It might draw that dreaded group—tourists. People point to Faneuil Hall Marketplace as a disappointment, where tourists go but not locals. People fear T-shirt shops and an influx of outsiders that would crowd out Haymarket’s Boston-area shoppers. But Seattle’s Pike Place Market proves that tourists and locals can co-exist happily.

The ground floor market proposals are another sticking point. DeNormandie’s farmer’s coop could compete with both the Boston Public Market and the pushcarts, said a public market supporter. Upton’s proposal for “Eataly” intrigued many observers, since it would extend the Italian flavor of the North End, and would appear to provide contrast rather than competition with the rest of the market area. But do we want a New York import?

One contingent scorns the Boston Museum and its mission to tell the more recent stories of Bostonians. Others say it is precisely the kind of museum we need.

What can actually get built is the last question people must answer. Can the Boston Museum raise the money to build its ambitious proposal? Its proponents say yes, as soon as it has a site. Salvucci pointed out that all proposers face financing problems in a struggling economy.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could predict with assurance what would be best for this site? You can see the detailed proposals for yourself at http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/InformationCenter/RealEstateAssetDevelopment.aspx. During May, you too can comment. The advisory committee will send in the pluses and minuses of each proposal rather than recommending one in particular. That’s a good place to start.

I gradually became aware that she had supposedly stolen another actress’s husband, that the husband was Brad Pitt, that Angelina and Brad had children and adopted several more, that they hung out in exotic places and that they plan to marry, though no one knows when. Brad and Angelina both seemed smart and attractive enough, although no more so than most of their celebrity peers.

Then I began seeing Angelina’s picture in publications to which I subscribe. Most recently she popped up in an ad in the New York Times in a center spread I’d seen before. In the picture a soulful-looking Angelina sits barefoot on an old wooden canoe in a swamp. A caption helpfully tells us the setting is Cambodia and implies that Angelina’s life has changed.

“How?” I wondered. Over her shoulder hangs a Louis Vuitton bag. What is the message? Did she arrive in Cambodia and, seeing poverty amid beauty, go to work for Oxfam? While toting a LV bag? Has she decided to dump Brad and join an ascetic Buddhist sect?

What is this ad trying to do? Make us want to go to Cambodia? Make us want to become Angelina? (Brad might be okay, but I’m not sure I’d want so many children.) The message might have something to do with film-making, but the Louis Vuitton web site was confusing, so I gave up.

The most obvious answer, of course, is that the ad is supposed to make us want to buy the bag. This bag, however, is so 1980s.  That was when fashion creators decided you wanted to wear their logo. Then and now the bag looks like it’s made of vinyl, which makes one wonder how LV gets to charge $900 for it. LV must believe they appeal to those who seek status and acceptance, even though carrying this bag might better reveal how dumb one is for paying such a huge amount for something that looks like vinyl and how insecure one must be to show up in such a thing.

Which led to another thought—it’s hard to believe any advertisements anymore. Maybe we never did. My personal favorites on television are the oxymoronic “clean” coal ads. Do these companies think anyone swallows this stuff? BP has funded ads too, touting their good works in the Gulf. Maybe, but I don’t think ads will change the story of neglect, insufficient safety and ineffective solutions to a terrible problem.

Another strange group of television ads that has surfaced in the last 20 years are those for expensive medicines treating conditions you never heard of. Some of those conditions might be better treated, we are learning, by taking a half an hour walk everyday.

Advertisers don’t hold back on insulting the audience. One ad mocks an arthritis sufferer because she takes several cheap ibuprofen—a friend calls this Vitamin I—rather than a more expensive once-a-day pill. How frazzled and entitled does one have to be to not manage to pop a couple of pills every few hours?

Some ads are believable, and it doesn’t take a focus group to produce them. A couple of pages after boat-bound Angelina is an ad for Harrys (sic) Shoes. The shoes are not fashionable but the picture clearly shows what you’ll see if you visit Harrys. And the upmarket T. Anthony touted an alligator briefcase, again letting you know what is (literally) in store. These ads, which let you know exactly what they provide, seem to be the most effective. Apparently Steve Jobs was this kind of advertiser. He designed good-looking, effective products, let the public know when they would appear, and stepped back to rake in the dough.

I’m not looking forward to the coming political season, in which we’ll be accosted with political ads that will probably be nasty and smelly. Romney seems to have made Rick Santorum so angry with his attack ads that Santorum, at least as of this writing, is withholding his endorsement. Brown and Warren won’t be pretty either.

Strangely, advertising ineffectiveness, meanness and lack of credibility may play into the hands of neighborhood newspapers. Like Harrys, the ads in such publications are believable. One store is having a sale. Another is getting a new shipment of a popular product. All remind you that Mother’s Day is about to take place. An new insurance agent has set up shop—though we hope it isn’t at street level.

I still don’t know what Angelina in a boat is all about. She looks pretty silly sitting there in a swamp with an expensive bag. But after writing this I probably won’t think about it much. What I want to know instead is—Angelina, when are you and Brad getting married?

Our metropolitan area is already the 8^th worst in America for traffic congestion, according to INRIX, a company that collects traffic statistics. On most of the rapid transit lines, cars are crowded at all hours of the day. Communities like Medford beg for the T to extend lines so their residents can get to work. The equipment the T uses now is old and breaks down too often. The T parking lots that allow drivers to ditch their cars for a faster trip into Boston are full early in the morning. Routes that should be rapid transit, such as the Silver Line, have been downgraded to buses because there’s no money to dig a tunnel underground.

We know how much downtown folks like us depend on the T to get around. We know that the more people ride the T, the fewer cars go on the road, making it easier to get around when we have to drive. The T gives us an economic edge over cities without good public transportation. Everyone appears to agree on these points. The T is “fundamental to our economic success and prosperity,” said state Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz.

If it’s so fundamental, then why haven’t we heard more from our elected officials about solving the problem? They’re working on it, said downtown Boston’s legislators. Long-term, they agree it will take a range of options to solve the T’s problems.

First, said Chang-Diaz, it is not just the T, but the commonwealth’s whole transportation system that needs help. Springfield, Worcester and the rest of the state have regional systems with as many problems as the T. Roads and bridges all over are in disrepair. It isn’t fair to the rest of Massachusetts to fix only the T, said Chang-Diaz. Moreover, it isn’t possible, since legislators outside of Boston will not support an MBTA fix if their regions aren’t helped too.

Boston’s legislators agree. State Rep. Marty Walz says her dream is that residents in all Massachusetts communities can get around car-free, but she knows the problem with roads and bridges . “All transportation modes are now underfunded,” said Walz.

Next, the MBTA needs to finish cleaning up its act, such as reducing needless staff and dealing with the fare evaders. “If you’re the customer and you see things that are wasteful, you get mad,” said Walz. “If customers feel it’s a well-run system, and everyone is paying their fair share, they don’t mind paying their share fair.”

The T has made progress along those lines. It has contracted station cleaning to an outside vendor, and the stations are noticeably cleaner. Walz pointed out that Red Line trains now make do with one operator rather than two. And MBTA employees recently became part of the health insurance plan run by the state’s highly effective Group Insurance Commission, saving about $30 million a year, state Sen. Anthony Petroccelli pointed out.

State Rep. Aaron Michlewitz said the legislature should consider other tweaks, including the agreement that has the MBTA paying MassPort $1 million in annual rent. This fee was imposed to make up for revenue lost when the Silver Line’s route took away some MassPort parking. But now new parking lots have been added. “Does this make sense now?” asked Michlewitz.

There is need for more revenue in general, but especially in transportation. The T has an operating deficit of more than $160 million and makes annual debt payments of $450 million. Our roads and bridges need about $20 billion over the next 20 years to bring them up to par, said state Sen. Anthony Petruccelli.

Raising the income tax is one option. New tolls, especially near the New Hampshire border, could be imposed with high tech “open-road” systems that automatically charge your account as you drive along at a normal speed. Raising the gas tax is still a possibility since Massachusetts’ gas tax is low compared with other states.

But reform comes before revenue, said Petruccelli. Governor Patrick’s tax expenditure commission has been scrutinizing the tax code to eliminate exemptions   that seem wasteful rather than incentivizing. “We’re reluctant to take the tax levy route without looking at what we can save by scrubbing the tax code clean,” he said.

Both Petruccelli and Chang-Diaz mentioned the sales tax exemption that buyers of airplanes and airplane parts enjoy as a particular frustration. Why should airplanes be exempt when boats and cars are not? This exemption was passed during the Romney Administration, but has not been eliminated. Supporters say it has increased airplane ownership by 40 percent and brought jobs, but it is hard to figure out how buying airplanes helps Massachusetts since we don’t have an aircraft building industry.

To raise more revenue, Chang-Diaz is pushing federal legislators to enable states to collect sales taxes on Internet purchases. This has the added benefit of leveling the playing field for local businesses, which enrich our economy and enliven our streets. If they have to collect a sales tax, why shouldn’t multi-national corporations have to also?

Walz is upbeat about our T, however. “Any company in America would be pleased to have the problem the MBTA has—customers want more service,” she said. “This is kind of cool. It’s a good problem to have.”

I’m here to answer this question once and for all. No.

I’ve got evidence. In the Global Cities Index, put out by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Boston ranked 16 among the 66 largest cities in the world, far behind—guess who—the top ten: New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, LA, Chicago, Seoul, Brussels and Washington, D. C.

The council measured cities on five factors: business activity, human capital, information exchange, cultural experience, and political engagement.

The report explaining this index appeared in an online publication called “The Atlantic Cities” and was forwarded to me by my friend Bob O’Brien, executive director of the Downtown North Association. It didn’t mention Boston. There was a lot of talk about “urban vectors” and  “relationships among nation states” and “urban axes” that made my eyes cross with bewilderment. The message about Boston was clear, however. It is not world class.

In other rankings of important cities, Boston isn’t mentioned either. Forbes? Passed us right over. Mastercard’s list of top cities for commerce? Boston ranked 21^st. Even Philadelphia beat us out. We weren’t on Mastercard’s list for livability either, but San Francisco was.

So how can we face the truth that Boston may never be world class? My suggestion is that we celebrate it. We’re not like one of those places with gazillions of people and an exhausting global pace. Boston is a regional city up in a corner of a big country. But it has more than its share of charm. We might even consider Boston a boutique city.

This shouldn’t mean that we’re a boutique city in the way the Boston Foundation fears in its 2012 Boston Indicators Report—that Boston is full of wealthy retirees and a dearth of families.

Instead it should mean that our neighborhoods are attractive, with lively commercial centers, well-kept housing and excellent pedestrian provisions—in other words, unique in the U.S.

It should mean that we adjust our zoning, property tax structure and other mechanisms to encourage small scale, local, independent businesses rather than the national and regional chains that make every other American city look like a Dallas, one of my most favorite cities to hate. Once when I was there I saw a billboard for a gun show. I thought if I lived there I’d have to go to the show, because I’d want to shoot myself. But I digress.

It should mean that we nurture our parks and other public spaces, create new ones and rejoice in our openness to one another while the rest of the country hunkers down in their gated communities.

It should mean that we expand our public transportation system and care for it so that we can go anywhere in the metropolitan area—or dare I say the state—with ease and economy, and that in doing so we reduce the number of cars coming into the city so that the drivers who have to drive have a good experience.

It should mean that we establish an “experience” committee to create only-in-Boston experiences for all the residents—an adult spelling bee, community sings, and events people with more fertile minds than mine could think up. Let’s nix those things like the cows that went to every city in the world so that by the time they got here, the idea was dead. After all, since we’re not world class, we’re never going to be the first city to host someone else’s idea of an event.

And finally, we should stop using the words “world class.” It’s the sure sign that we are not world class when we use those words.

But bikes mixed with cars or pedestrians always bring conflicts. Just take a peek in Robert McCloskey’s “Make Way for Ducklings.” While Mr. and Mrs. Mallard are in the Public Garden searching for a good spot to raise their ducklings, a boy with a predatory look on his face almost mows them down with his bicycle. They flee to one of the islands along the Esplanade where bikes can’t go.

So we know the bike scourge has been going on since 1941 when McCloskey’s book was published. And bikes are still a problem. When people contact me about a topic to address in this column, bad bike behavior and trash problems top the list.

Even if you’ve been mowed down by a bike—two so far have hit me—you probably still think bike riding, at least in the abstract, is good for the city. But there are some steps city officials and others could take to reduce the conflicts. It’s called obvious rules and constant enforcement.

Mr. and Mrs. Mallard’s Public Garden now is supposed to be off limits to bicycles. So let’s start with the Esplanade. Cyclists are supposed to walk their bikes over the footbridges and ride on the paths closest to Storrow Drive when the paths split. When there is only one path, they should be riding slowly so as not to endanger pedestrians, who can’t always hear their approach, even when they call out. The Esplanade 2020 Vision spells out separating the slow-going paths from those used by bikers, skaters and fast runners.

But as of now on the Esplanade there are no signs letting anyone know about appropriate bicycle behavior, so cyclists are riding over the narrow foot bridges, traveling on the paths supposedly reserved for pedestrians, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Pedestrians are complaining. Signs help. Bicyclists can’t say they didn’t know the rules if the rules are posted in plain view.

But Sylvia Salas, the Esplanade Association’s executive director, says, “it is not a question of just sticking up a sign.”  Signs and their wording have to be approved.

Why can’t someone stencil signs on the sidewalk? Salas said no one wanted

to paint on the sidewalks during the winter.

The old signs have been vandalized or stolen, said S.J. Port, a Department of Conservation and Recreation spokesperson. And DCR does not want to litter a park with signs. Mass. Historical has to get involved. Moreover, the number of staff at DCR, which has jurisdiction over the Esplanade, has been reduced by more than 25 percent, she said. So finding a person with the time to get something designed, approved and mounted isn’t as easy as it might have been before DCR got starved for funds. She hoped that this spring signs will be up.

The Esplanade is only one location in which conflicts between bikes and pedestrians take place. The streets of Boston themselves are rife with danger – for bikes from neglectful drivers; for pedestrians, who are in danger of being bumped off by bike riders who ignore cross walks, and for drivers, who live in fear of hitting a bike hidden by other cars as the rider swerves in and around traffic.

The Boston Police’s approach to bad bicyclists has emphasized education over punishment, which they believe is more productive, said spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll in an email. “The Boston Police Department routinely conducts awareness campaigns at targeted intersections where bicyclists are stopped for committing traffic violations and typically provided with a warning and education information. We recently conducted one of these “stings” near the Comm. Ave. bridge (next to BU) and issued more than 200 bike helmets to individuals to promote safety and responsible cycling.”

Driscoll said she does not have up to date information on how many tickets the police have issued to law-breaking cyclists.

Given the apparent lack of knowledge of the rules, combined with the lack of enforcement, conflicts are likely to occur. It makes one thankful we don’t have a “stand your ground” law like Florida’s. Can you imagine the bullets whizzing by if bikers, pedestrians and drivers carried firearms to “defend” themselves?

I saw all the usual things – the Ashmolean Museum, the Bodleian Library, Balliol and Magdalen colleges—you’ve probably seen these things yourself.

We took a bus trip out into the Cotswolds and marveled at the limited amount of sprawl. We walked along the canals where low, long houseboats bobbed contentedly. England was well into a beautiful spring, ahead of Boston even in this year of early blooming. We dined at pubs and restaurants that put to rest forever the reputation England has had for bad food. There wasn’t any bad food to be had.

All those things were nice. But what really impressed me was the street life.  In spite of narrow sidewalks, speeding cars and dozens of bikes, the hordes of pedestrians were having the time of their lives.

And why shouldn’t they? In small buildings and large, shop fronts were half the size of those in the North End and on Beacon Hill. So there was a lot to look at and a lot of goods and services to satisfy almost any desire or need. American retail experts have long understood that the more doorways a street has, the more success businesses enjoy. Oxford demonstrated this beautifully, and there were few empty storefronts.

            My friend lived in Jericho, a neighborhood made famous by PBS’s Inspector Morse, whose beat is the city of Oxford. “The Dead of Jericho” was the first installment in that television series way back in the 1980s. Her apartment was in an old factory building along a canal. The apartments were contemporary inside but on the outside things looked, not old exactly, but clean and settled, with paths hugging buildings and twisting and turning – no developer straight lines or plantings here. A pleasant sense of enclosure defined it all. A cemetery along the side of a main path drew birds and gave an opportunity for plantings of daffodils everywhere.

Her neighborhood had several small groceries—not “convenience” stores with only packaged food-like items. Three stationery stores, each different from the others, co-existed happily along six blocks. As tourists do in Boston, I nipped into one of these shops for a souvenir, although it wasn’t for me. I bought a paper cupcake presentation stand kit for a special 12-year-old I know who has taken up cupcake making as a hobby. She had as much fun putting it together as she has had filling it with cupcakes. It’s that kind of shopping opportunity that keeps small-scale retail alive—an interesting shop whose owner has made sure you can take away something special that you’d have trouble finding in a chain or on the Internet.

My friend’s neighborhood had a small movie theatre showing at least four movies, and we went to see one of them because it was showing at the right time and was so convenient. I’m not sure how the proprietors squeezed four different screens into so small a space, but they managed. It’s not that I don’t enjoy heading over to Loews or Harvard Square but it is typically an expedition, not a spontaneous act. And the opportunity to be spontaneous has to be one of the privileges of city life.

Jericho had several florists. It had two bike stores. And all of downtown Boston has maybe one? As you walked into the more central part of Oxford, there was a magic and costume store, many clothing shops, a bridal shop, a shop for pots and pans, several book shops, and few chains such as the Museum of Useful Things. There was a store selling mostly kaleidoscopes. How could a store selling only kaleidoscopes make it in the marketplace? I don’t know, but it was full of products and people and looked as if it had been there a long time. There were some banks and real estate offices, my favorite kinds of regrettable businesses, but they seemed fine since there weren’t too many of them. All in all, Oxford looked like Oxford – it didn’t look like London or New York or even the small nearby villages. It was a place with a sense of place.

Apparently England has had a recession too, but you wouldn’t know it from walking around Oxford. Like Boston, it has many students. While students have less disposable income than a young working man or woman, in great numbers their economic impact is great. But students alone can’t account for Oxford’s appeal and merchandising success.

Over the years, Boston residents and merchants have improved their understanding of what makes good retail. We no longer tear down shops to build a mall, as we did in Charlestown. We pay lip service, at least, to small independent shops, although we don’t always have enough of them. But Oxford was working perfectly for its merchants. Go there. See what a good experience can be had along its streets. If you make your living depending on the streets of Boston, maybe you can deduct it as a business expense.

In any case, you might like to know the aftermath of a few items that have appeared in this space.

In the fall, I wrote about my fondness for cold weather, storms and snow. Zero degrees is unfairly maligned since it kills the rats and fights back the bad bugs that migrate up from the south to eat our trees. For winter lovers, this winter has been a bust. It turns out I am not the only Bostonian longing for good single-digit temperatures and a few serious weather events. One reader said he loved the “happy anarchy of a blizzard,” which I thought said it well. “I do get away for a couple of weeks every winter and the worst seems to happen,” he wrote. “Boston gets hit with a big storm, and I’m then glued to the news for every detail on depth and road closings, wishing I was walking down the street to the Common. It seems to happen every year. I wait all winter for a big storm and the minute I leave . . .” This guy nailed it.

Last summer I criticized several businesses, including the CVS at Charles Circle, for the poor condition of their tree pits and the cleanliness of their sidewalks. CVS officials and the manager claimed it was the owner who was responsible for sweeping up and taking care of the trees. Tom McGuire, the owner of the building, called to say he was in charge of removing snow from the sidewalks, but the lease was unclear on the other points.

For many years a neighbor swept the sidewalk in front of CVS and tidied up, but he is getting older and hasn’t been able to do it as often as he once did. Tom himself planted a few plants in the tree pits, he said, but those didn’t do well.

A new tree now occupies one of the pits, but the sidewalks are still full of blowing trash. My criticism is still valid. A proud business that cared about its neighborhood and its customers would be taking care of the sidewalk in front of its store and taking care of the trees. CVS proves the suspicion that national chains harm neighborhood business districts, partly because they don’t give a fig about those neighborhoods.

Speaking of tree pits, local merchants too would do well to put in some effort and dollars toward the tree in front of their business, planting that tree pit and fencing it in so the dogs don’t trample the plants. Spring is right around the corner, so it will soon become obvious who is taking care of their front yard and who is not. Tree guards cost less than $1,000. A business eager to bring in customers would make sure its tree was looking good.

I asked readers what they would do if they were mayor. One surprising answer came from a woman from Russia who had been here four months and was still learning English. She liked Boston and thought it had a chance to be one of the prettiest cities in America. But she hoped a mayor would do something about the “ugly concrete buildings like City Hall and West End’s terribly looking buildings, including Government Center.” I had actually thought the West End was looking better these days.

She also wrote that the U.S. was sloppiest country she had ever seen—shopkeepers don’t wash their windows, rats are everywhere, and streets need cleaning.  “It is beyond my ken to understand how wealthy people living in expensive houses could walk, drive and live in this wasty [sic] surroundings,” she wrote.  Personally, I think we should add  ‘wasty’ to the American vocabulary. It seemed an appropriate word, given the context

The Russian newcomer continued with a cause of all this wastiness that I hadn’t encountered before. “I know it [wastiness] has historical roots people here almost do not care about aesthetic side of their life but maybe it is right time to change something in this way, ah?” she wrote.

So tolerance of the dirt and grime of Boston was part of John Winthop’s legacy? Or maybe the Irish? And yet Ireland is quite clean.

No matter. It is instructive to learn about Boston through a newcomer’s eyes. And this woman says she’s willing to help with the problems. Good for her.

A woman from the North End was also eager say what she would do as mayor. She would base a fee for resident parking stickers on the length of the car—rather sensible when you think about it. She also suggested that if the casino goes in at Suffolk Downs, the developer should be required to contribute to the operation of the Blue Line, the entrance should be at the train station, and the casino should be marketed at the nation’s only casino reachable by public transit.

Finally, I said the Bulfinch Triangle was also known as Downtown North, but I got push-back. A woman living in the West End (which used to be known as Charles River Park after it was known as the Old West End) said the Bulfinch Triangle is part of the West End.

But on at least one old map it was labeled the North End. Boston neighborhood boundaries are often in dispute. Where does the South End begin and the Back Bay end? How far into the Back Bay does Kenmore Square intrude?

The boundaries of Charlestown are clear, but will they be so when North Point is fully developed? The North End’s boundaries seem easy—from the harbor to the footprint of the old Central Artery. Every Beacon Hiller knows the outline of their neighborhood—Cambridge Street, Bowdoin Street, Beacon Street and David Mugar Way.

But as small changes occur at the edge of every neighborhood, those boundaries can ebb and flow.

People are still feeling a pinch, though, and maybe they haven’t identified it. But I can. What is really taking a chunk out of today’s wallets is the cost of staying in touch with the world.

Remember the good old days? No pay TV, only an aerial. A phone, not a landline. Your computer?  About the only thing your first computer could do was read two disks – one that was “read only” with the software program on it, and one that was “write only,” onto which we’d type. That computer couldn’t communicate with anyone. Fifteen years ago, when I ran a newspaper, we were excited when we began to send news stories from our computers over the phone instead of paying a messenger to haul a disk to our graphic designer who laid out the newspaper and prepared it for the printer, who picked up her disk in a truck. Now everything goes by e-mail.

In 2012 we’re all online, searching the ether for information and connections of all kinds. Communication and the costs associated with it have taken over our lives. A Comcast bill?  It can be more than $200 per month with your landline, television and Internet.

Your cell phone quickly consumes cash. $70 a month for unlimited calls. An extra $20 for unlimited texting and so forth. $100 more per month if you want to download lots of data. We’re up to $390.

Your iPad connection could cost you about $80 per month, pushing you to $470.

Even your landline is more expensive. Of course you can call anywhere in the U.S. for a pretty reasonable fee, but the phones themselves are pricey. My mother and father had a phone number that eventually become Harrison 7-2602—on a party line. That black phone that Ma Bell rented to us lasted from before I was born until my parents moved 45 years later. Now the buttons on the phones our family got eight years ago for a few hundred dollars are dying, and the phones will soon need replacing.

Perhaps you have a car. Sirius radio, which has no advertising and pulls in stations of all types unless the signal is blocked by a tree or a building, will take about $20 a month from your pocket. And automobile wi-fi, which allows to you connect to the Internet in your car from your computer and also might include Google Earth on your car’s navigation system, will set you back about $29 per month on Cadillac, with a dollar more on others. So now we’re up to about $520.

Your CDs are out of date. Even though there appears to be a small comeback for turntables as a cool retro artifact, the real news is on iCloud, where accessing 20 million songs on any of your devices will cost only $25 annually.

That totals more than $6,000 a year. Not all folks have all this stuff. But I’d wager that most of us probably are spending a small fortune on these connections. And this tally doesn’t include any hotel, airline or airport fees you might have to pay to get online, or charges for the web sites that aren’t free, or such equipment as a back up disk or the extra electricity we’re paying for to run all these little buggers.
If you’re one of those paying thousands for connections that you didn’t even know existed five years ago, there is surely more to come and your expenses in this realm will reliably go up.

We’re just going to have to remember the good old days, when we actually could complain about taxes.

Mitt, you don’t know from envy. There aren’t many who’d want to be in your shoes. We know how hard it is to be filthy rich. It’s time consuming and fraught with frustration.

Take houses, for example. If you own your home, you know how much work it takes. The leak you can’t find no matter how many workmen investigate. The furnace that shuts down on the coldest day. The complicated system you must learn so you can mange your computers, telephones, televisions and surround sound.

With problems like these, it’s hard enough keeping one house going. But Mitt has three, and sometimes he’s had more, and they are big. No wonder he can’t keep track of the illegal aliens mowing his lawns.

One of his houses is at 311 Dunemore Drive in La Jolla, California. A few weeks ago my brother and sister and I drove by to take a look. The 1936 house, historic by California standards, was one of the last houses designed by Lilian Rice, one of the first prominent American women architects.

Mitt, like lots of rich people, wants to demolish the house and triple its size. La Jolla’s building department has determined that Rice’s design has been compromised through repeated remodelings by other rich people, so it can be torn down. But just wait until the wrecking ball swings over that Rice masterpiece. Imagine the picket lines and protests from California architectural historians. Those who are not filthy rich never have to worry about such annoyances as protests because we could never afford to destroy masterpieces.

Then there is the location of the historic house. Like many rich people’s houses, it’s right on the beach—directly in the path of a tsunami, should Hawaii blow. In the event something terrible like this would happen, one would hope that Mitt would forego help from the federal flood insurance program, since he doesn’t believe government solves anything.

Then there is the burden of all those checkbooks and investments. It would take Mitt many hours just to read the 203 pages of his 2010 tax return when he got it back from the accountants. And that’s just the tax return. He’s got a trustee and a host of other advisors. Keeping track of such people and all those investments in the Cayman Islands is a full-time job. And what if one of them is secretly stealing, which has happened to rich people many times? Theft would take a long time to uncover because the reports are so dense and the advisors so numerous.

There’s also the problem with money being meaningless—since you no longer feel satisfaction in having more, you seek power instead. It makes you say strange things, such as claiming that you are “severely conservative,” which sounds more like a fatal disease than a political stance. If you hadn’t been so rich you might have chosen a better phrase—“deeply conservative,” perhaps?

Mitt is generous to his church and other causes. It must take him a couple of weeks to figure out the groups he’s going to support. Those of us who are not filthy rich don’t have to worry about invitations to have lunch with unfamiliar executives of do-good groups when you’d rather be home with a good book.

Since there is so much to do keeping up your houses and managing your money, you can’t do it all yourself. So you have to hire people. Managing people is many times worse than managing money.

So Mitt has to fire people. He told us he liked to do it, and Massachusetts citizens remember when he did. In 2005, in one historic firing event, he booted out the commissioner of the funds-starved DCR, scapegoating her when snowy sidewalks not yet shoveled contributed to a traffic accident, as if every sidewalk wasn’t full of snow at that time. (Maybe the illegal aliens shoveled his, so he didn’t realize the condition of the rest of the region.)

And his wealth encourages a certain recklessness revealed during his time as governor—he liked to target people for destruction. Say what you will about Matt Amorello and Billy Bulger, we learned less about them when Mitt went after them than we did about Mitt’s nasty streak. Those who are less wealthy have the benefit of having to keep most nasty tendencies in check.

Knowing that Mitt’s rich, do hundreds of his long-lost cousins pester him for money? After all, there are all those relatives in Mexico where his great-grandfather fled to continue his polygamy. What a pain to have to keep fobbing them off.

Having enough money to live on comfortably is a good thing. It makes for happier marriages, children who have better chances, and good communities.

But really really rich? No, thanks. We’re not envying you, Mitt.. We’re commiserating.