This area also sees a lot of Tufts students, who are outgoing enough, but out-going in the other sense as soon as they graduate.

The new luxury condos on Mass. Ave and on Tannery Brook are a daily sight for me, but to be fair, so is Trolley Square. I don’t know as mansions and spacious grounds are necessary to transform a neighborhood from high-interaction to high-isolation. The condos are very much high-end, dense though they are.

Nostalgia for the American Dream aside, the folks who live in high-end housing do come from a different culture than wage-earners – more cautious, perhaps because they’re accustomed to having more to lose?

What I want is totally new. That’s why I keep fishing here. I want a way to make it clear to our new neighbors that we’re not just an unfortunate byproduct of living near the city, or an entertaining but disposable whiff of Local Color (TM). I want friends, or at least allies. I want new neighbors who’ll actively choose to use their inevitable dominance (and yes, it’s inevitable; this is a capitalist nation) to keep Somerville a collection of vital neighborhoods. I want to find out how to show them that our mom-n-pop businesses are preferable to Sharper Image; that our dogs and kids and heartful art make life better, not worse; that we’re, if not worth knowing as individuals in their eyes, at least not scary. It’s a tall order. That’s why I keep banging my tankard on the table and hollering for a refill. I know there are some geniuses out there…

And, Columbine, may I ask the significance of your moniker? Some of your neighbors might find it threatening (sad to say).

I can choose from a passel of wonderful, one-of-a-kind shops and restaurants instead of the same old mall-strip clones.

I can stop and fumble for three minutes until I find the switch for the light that someone forgot to turn off on their bike, and not get chased off or reported to the police, even though I’m wearing a rain poncho and carrying a backpack instead of wearing a London Fog raincoat and carrying a briefcase.

I can walk home on the bike path knowing that, even if someone tried to start trouble, someone ELSE would most likely phone the cops or offer direct assistance.

I can bang on my neighbor’s door, shouting at the top of my lungs, when her smoke alarm goes off in the middle of the night, and not be issued a citation or shunned as a loony thereafter.

I can say Hi to other people’s kids – their CHILDREN! – and even have little conversations with them without them being swept away from the terrifying stranger in unfashionable clothes.

I can joke around with the folks in line with me at McKinnon’s and not be mistaken for a crazy or a beggar.

I can post on the Internet, “has anyone got a bread machine they’re not using?” and be offered one.

I think what I’m describing here is the warmth born of necessity that arises among low-income folks. I can offer or request assistance among people who aren’t my family or co-workers without scaring anybody.

I’ve never actually lived in a ritzy neighborhood, but I’ve visited friends who do, and there’s a chill in such places, a warning fluttering like a little plastic flag marking a chemically treated lawn. Keep a low profile, don’t make a fuss, keep to yourself, you’re not one of us. You don’t get that in a place like Somerville, and I hope it never creeps in.

Fascinating question, by the way! I’d love to hear how other people figure they benefit from living in an economically diverse city.

In my opinion, you don’t have to be political correct to be polite. I don’t see anything wrong be labelling demographics by their income level. Low-income, middle-income, high income. You can even break up the middle income category into two: lower-middle income and upper-middle income.

I would say that Somerville is made up of low-income, lower-middle income, and upper-middle income. Personally, I like it that way if people could get along better.

The newcomers have no active interest in maintaining economic diversity here – but benefit from it in ways that we need to figure out how to elucidate. What I’m looking for is a way to express those benefits in a way that the managerial class can understand. Common ground, expressed in a common language.

I need – we ALL need – to know how to express economic diversity as a universal good, in terms that will appeal to the newcomers. Stuff like ArtBeat and HONK! are a start, but won’t be appreciated as products of economic diversity until they’re driven out by a universally Wall Street lifestyle. We need to figure out how to communicate the value of economic diversity now, while we’ve still got it.