The Community of Framingham

Politicians have been using a new buzzword lately --"community" - as in, "Washington can't solve your problems anymore - it's up to the local community." They use the word as if it had magical powers to solve complicated problems that baffle federal officials.

But what is this thing called community? How does it work? And does it work? This week WBUR travels to the largest town in America, in search of answers to these questions - and to see how one community is meeting the challenges of the '90s.

We begin 22 miles due west of Boston on Route 9. For many people, this road lined with strip malls, national chain stores, motels and fast food restaurants is Framingham. Along Route 9, Framingham looks a lot like what much of America has become. The town pioneered suburbia. It was here that Shoppers' World, one of the nation's first suburban malls, was built after World War Two. Last year, the aging mall with its flying saucer-shaped Jordan Marsh department store was torn down to make way for an ev en bigger mall.

For better or worse, the weird, early space-age landmark distinguished the town. Now that it's gone, it's difficult to tell where Framingham begins and ends geographically, and as a community - a place where people actually live and work, share a past, s truggle with community problems, and have a common stake in the future. There still is a Framingham, but you won't find it here along Route 9.

For most of its 300-year history, Framingham was a farming community. And in at least one place, it still is. Tom Hanson still raises a few chickens and sells the eggs. But these days, most of Hanson's income comes from his roadside produce stand, where you can buy tomatoes, squash and corn. In late fall he hooks up his tractor for hay rides, and you can pick y our own pumpkins. The Hanson's farm is a last vestige of a Framingham long gone. Tom's father Chink is retired now, and still remembers the days when he felt a part of a community.

But maintaining a sense of community is something Framingham has always struggled with. Before Framingham was incorporated as a town in 1700, it was a collection of six separate villages. The original name, Framlingham, means, "place of strangers," and in many ways it still is just that. Town Selectman and State Representative John Stefanini says Framingham has a long immigrants' tradition.

New immigrants to Framingham have always found room to stake out separate parts of the large town. But according to local historian Steve Herring, the very ethnic diversity that has nourished Framingham has also prevented it from developing a single iden tity as a community. And so, Framingham as a community would appear to be ill-suited to flourish in this age of community solutions to local problems. But a closer examination reveals a more complicated state of affairs. For, while Framingham's sense of social community is, at best, vague, it does have a clear sense of economic community. In fact, it's even got a name: Metro-West. You won't find Metr o-West on a map, for it's defined not by geography, but the regional commercial activity that surrounds Framingham. By being a part of this larger economic community, Framingham was able to stay afloat during the collapse of the Massachusetts Miracle, wh ich Framingham State College economist Maureen Dunn likens to a "giant wave."

Gone were the old manufacturing jobs. The General Motors plant, the final remnant of Framingham's glory years as an industrial community, closed up shop in 1989. But while those jobs were lost, new high-tech and high-skilled service jobs were created. And now, even the aging, industrial part of town is showing renewed economic life, as businesses are moving in to serve the diverse downtown population.

Immigrants from 23 Latin American nations call this part of Framingham their community. So do new residents from Russia, India, and Southeast Asia. Wednesday is Brazilian music night at the Sampan Chinese restaurant. Pat Demling recently opened up Hip- Zippy, a clothing shop catering to the area's growing black and Hispanic communities.

People have stayed in their area, and not just to shop. Residents still define themselves as members of groups or neighborhoods, not as citizens of the community of Framingham. Today, the town is ethnically and geographically divided. So, while the tow n is doing better economically, it's ill-equipped to unify around certain social problems.

Bolivian-born Ramon Bascope is executive director of the Hispanic Yellow Pages. Today, Framingham's minority residents make up 15 percent of the town's population, and that percentage is expected to nearly double by the year 2010. Minorities are an emerging economic force, but they have yet to become a political power. Ram on Bascope says it's a matter of immigrant priorities. Today, just one of Framingham's 240 elected town meeting members is Hispanic.

Downtown business owner Barry Sokolov says the lack of minority representation has divided Framingham into political haves and have-nots. As a member of Framingham's zoning board, Sokolov has seen first-hand how the lack of a politically unified communit y has made it difficult for the town to solve problems. The board easily approved plans to build low-income elderly housing in South Framingham, but when there was a proposal for a similar project in the North, residents there said no way.

Erica Mash, an elected member of town meeting, has seen the sometimes painful transformation of Framingham from a suburban , predominantly middle class, industrial town into an ethnically and economically diverse community. As politicians in Washington t talk about shifting responsibilities to communities, they might be mindful that the concept of community is an elusive one - and that towns are complex places, with complex problems that defy simple solutions. Erica Mash, for one, welcomes the day when m ore Framingham residents from all parts of the town get involved in defining their future as a community.

The Mosaic Chorus of Framingham was organized earlier this year to express the rich diversity of the town's ethnic population. The group's name is an appropriate metaphor for Framingham. For, like a mosaic, the town is more than a collection of individual pieces. Up close, it's joined in subtle and complex ways to form a larger picture - that of community.