PHOTO BY SCOTT EISEN
Pictured is a “Love Your Neighbor” sign in the yard of a home in Swampscott.
It’s interesting and inspirational to see the “Love your neighbor” sign movement spread across Swampscott. The signs on lawns still deep in winter slumbers are inspiring because they represent a home-grown effort to motivate townspeople to deepen their love for people down the street and around the world.
The interesting element about the “Love…” movement is the potential for the signs to prompt town officials, Town Meeting members and residents across Swampscott to take stock of the state of inclusion and diversity in their community.
The signs urge anyone viewing them to love people representing a broad spectrum of backgrounds and experiences. Cynics viewing the signs might be prone to suggest “Love your neighbor” displayers are Swampscott residents who are feeling a little guilty about a perceived lack of inclusion or diversity in Swampscott.
People who like the signs and who put them on their lawns are sure to suggest they represent a growing national trend to resist “us versus them” mindsets and to make efforts at the local level to tear down barriers separating people.
https://newitemlive.wpengine.com/news/swampscott-is-showing-signs-of-love/
How inclusive is Swampscott? There isn’t one answer to that question. A good place to find a start to an answer is town government where diversity in town offices and public safety departments is fairly easy to assess.
A housing study commissioned by town officials a year ago also offers clues to an answer. The study outlined housing production goals including finding ways to develop more diverse housing stock in Swampscott “to meet the needs of a changing demographic profile in the town.”
In expanding on that objective, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council report concluded: “While it is still a majority-white population, dropping from 96.6% to 93% between 2000 and 2010, during this time, Swampscott experienced notable increases in the number of Asian (169%), Hispanic (94%), and African-American (48%) populations. While these minority populations are still small in number, collectively making up 7% of the total population (compared to 3.4% in 2000), they represent a growing residential base … “
This is interesting information. But what does it mean to Swampscott and the question of diversity? Does “Love your neighbor” mean town residents need to simply embrace neighbors from different backgrounds? Or does it mean residents need to work collectively with the aid of town government and the Housing Authority to take steps to increase demographic diversity in Swampscott?
By linking demographics closely to housing production, the Council in its report pointed to the Housing Authority as an agent for change in Swampscott capable of helping to promote diversity.
Another agent for change is Town Meeting. It is the purest forum for democratic discussion and perhaps the best opportunity for frank and public discussions about diversity.
Maybe the “Love your neighbor” movement can blossom into a series of late-winter and early-spring discussion groups aimed at expanding on and deepening understanding about the message conveyed by the lawn signs. That product of those discussions could inform Town Meeting discourse and even plant the seeds for efforts to promote local diversity.