By William C. Shelton

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

Over the last two decades, the in-migration of people who make their living as professionals has changed Somerville. In some ways this continues an immigration pattern that goes back to the mid 19th Century.

Between 1850 and 1900, the city’s emerging industrial economy drew thousands of Irish immigrants. When Italians came here between 1900 and 1930, many of the incumbent Irish greeted them with suspicion and, often, discrimination.

But to the next generation, members of the opposite ethnicity and opposite sex were exotically attractive.  Forming relationships with them was both exciting and a way to distinguish yourself from your parents.  By the 1950s, babies were being born with names like Salvatore O’Hanrahan, or Moira Mancini.

There had always been a small population of Portuguese here. They were joined by many more after a 1965 immigration act increased their quota. They experienced some of the suspicion and hazing that the Italians had, although not to the same degree. And they too were eventually assimilated.

Each of these groups shared the same class, religion, and immigrant experience. These similarities do not exist between the New Somerville professionals and the Old Somerville natives.

As professionals began arriving in the late 1980s, there was resentment from many in Old Somerville. Some of it was justified. New arrivals would bid up the cost of housing, make little contribution to the community, leave when their kids reached school age, and sell out at the highest possible price. Many of them were unaware of, or indifferent to the fact that any real community has it’s own culture, with mutual rights and obligations.

The stream of newcomers accelerated after 1996, when Massachusetts voters abolished rent control in Boston, Cambridge and Brookline. It continues to grow, as does the number of native Somervillians who cannot afford to live here.

But increasingly, newcomer professionals are intending to spend their lives here. They are getting involved in community affairs, coaching youth sports, working to improve the schools, and contributing to the life of their neighborhoods.

Lifelong Somervillians are beginning to form relationships with them. Their motivation isn’t one of  “Let’s all get along,” but “Let’s get this done”—“this,” being some shared objective or concern.

The process can be an uneasy one. It obligates New and Old Somerville to confront their differences. But it also makes clearer that what they share is more important than their differences.

In the past I’ve written about the assimilation or non-assimilation of the nonwhite immigrant groups. In this series, I want to tell you about some New Somerville professionals who are making a life here and making a difference. But to put their stories in a meaningful context, I must first tell you about the roots of Old Somerville.

In the 1950s, Somerville was the most densely populated city in the U.S. Recent newcomers may be surprised to learn that it was also one of the best places in the U.S. to live and raise a family.

An industrial economy driven by over 160 manufacturing businesses provided full employment.  Modest taxes paid for decent city services.  Trolleys provided clean, convenient, and efficient transportation. Each neighborhood’s square was a center of commercial and social activity.

If you were a kid, there were at any time twenty or thirty playmates within a block or two. But you couldn’t go anywhere in the neighborhood and smoke or cuss, or someone would tell your parents. Volunteers organized dozens of youth activities.  If a kid got out of hand, any adult who was nearby might provide avuncular guidance.

Rich networks of extended families, neighborhoods, churches, unions, fraternal organizations, youth sports leagues, benevolent associations, political party clubs, and civic organizations intertwined to weave a strong and resilient fabric of community.  Each provided a different way for people to know each other.

These networks fulfilled functions that, in their absence, now burden government and increase its costs.  Through them, citizens guided the young, swiftly helped neighbors in need, resolved conflicts, and maintained security without being aware that they were doing anything special.

Somerville’s strong sense of community was rare in American society; its benefits, many.  It provided real security.  When neighbors knew and trusted each other, residential streets were not so much anonymous public spaces belonging to no one, but familiar personal territory.  Neighbors inquired when someone whom they didn’t recognize attempted to enter a neighbor’s home.  They intervened when someone was being harassed on their street, because the street belonged to them.

Old Somerville provided rites of passage for youth.  If you treated others with respect, demonstrated loyalty, and fulfilled your responsibilities, you would gain living-wage employment, a decent home, a place in the community, and the respect of your neighbors.  Every adult played a part in making this social contract work.

Closure of the Ford assembly plant in 1958 signaled a coming wave of change.  Over the next three decades, the number of Somerville’s factories dropped to a few dozen.

The push of job loss and the pull of suburbia’s lure reduced Somerville’s population by a net 36,000 between 1950 and 1970.  The rich organizational fabric that provided the framework for community unraveled.

Today, Somerville’s level of volunteerism and sense of community remain somewhat higher than most towns. And strong ties remain among many Old Somerville neighbors. But so much has changed.

Somerville kids on a 1960s playground had no reason to think, or frame of reference to reflect on, how rich and rare their community was.  Or that forces were already at work that would unravel it.

I think of these lines from Dylan Thomas:

Nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows

In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs

Before the children green and golden

Follow him out of grace.

And if you are of Old Somerville, these lines by two other Brits—Lennon and McCartney—may resonate:

There are places I remember all my life

And some have changed

Some forever, not for better

Some are gone and some remain.