Are the people of Longmeadow united by their membership in a community where citizens have broadly shared values, institutional obligations, and economic interests? Or, is Longmeadow a town where residents share resources, have overlapping cultural values, but see their relationship with town government as economic; the way consumers see producers in the marketplace, or employers see employees on the job?My sense is that the latter better describes the perspective of most Longmeadow residents. Unfortunately, this model of citizenship is starkly at odds with both the actual form of government in Longmeadow (the New England town meeting) and its attendant theory of democratic citizenship; a theory to which virtually all of Longmeadow's 11,932 registered voters probably aspire and (ostensibly at least) subscribe.
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