Building a map for the future of Lynn

I would like for anyone with patience to click on the attached link and skim through it to see what the town of Keene, NH has labored to put together.

Keene, NH Comprehensive Master Plan

In essence the town has planned out a well balanced approach towards improving the character of the city for all of its residents (the fuzzy, feathered, slimy, and scaled ones too!)

I would like to quote from the plan

"A sustainable community is one that is economically, environmentally, and
socially healthy and resilient. It meets challenges through integrated solutions
rather than through fragmented approaches that meet one of those
goals at the expense of the others. And it takes a long-term perspective—
one that's focused on both the present and future, well beyond the next
budget or election cycle"

This connects with me and my visions for the city of Lynn, and the world in general, on a deep level. As we may have lost in our culture, but a facet which has remained in the cultures of indigenous peoples, is the concept of an integrated approach, rather than a fragmentary one. We often hear of many different interests in the city saying they have the solution. Some claim that we need to ease restrictions on small businesses and rezone so as to allow greater economic development. Others want to protect their neighborhoods from multi-unit and lower income housing. Still others want to want to protect the few remaining green spaces in the city (your author included) even if it comes at the complaints of developers claiming to want to create jobs or new tax revenue in the form of new housing.

Why not take a balanced and holistic approach, one that works for all of the citizens and all of the neighborhoods and all of the green spaces? Why not build a plan that will last beyond the next budget or election cycle?

As a very old, urban, slightly decayed city, Lynn has some major hurdles she needs to overcome. There must be plans in place for creating stability and prosperity for all of her citizens of all origins. We must create safe, clean, accessible, affordable neighborhoods with recreation spaces and opportunities for locally owned small businesses while at the same time protecting those who struggle from being priced out of their homes. We must help the hungry, help the homeless, end the cyclical unemployment and underemployment, improve opportunities and equality of opportunity, create unity and solidarity in the city and amongst our neighboring towns. We shall usher in a Lynn renaissance.!
We must, however, avoid previous attempts at dictating from crystal towers and instead work hand in hand with the people of each neighborhood, creating a coalition of community leaders of all interests and desires. The plan must not be a foreign design grafted unwillingly but an organic framework created by the minds and hands of the people who it will effect.

So my fellow Lynners, what are your desires, dreams, wishes, hopes? We should create a committee and begin to survey the citizens of Lynn, the children especially, and discover what the main concerns are, what are the problems, and what are the solutions. We will create a list of desires, a vision of a future Lynn.

And like the mural in the Lynn Library depicts, we shall be guided by our inner angels towards the Eden that was always there, hidden in our dreams, a dream of possible Lynns.

so as not to wax too poetic, Lynners you have only to lose your apathy and your doubts, the future is ours!