They probably asked me where I wanted to be—before I came here, I mean.  I probably chose this place at the celestial clearinghouse for life assignments, or in my application to the entitlement program for the disbursment of reincarnations.  I probably thought that a nice little city with eight—or is it twelve?  It doesn't seem to matter much any more—colleges would be imbued with the positivity and open-mindedness of youth.  I think I suspected that this place would be populated by New Age hippies and Ram Dass-ian fellowes—and they'd be the ones in charge—responsible for the right development of an even more purified generation of enlightened souls.  I probably expected the City of Worcester to reek of patchouli and incense and love and peace and happiness.  That was the pre-day I chose the path I am now on. 

What a difference a day makes. 

Worcester, which considers itself the heart of the Commonwealth, located in central Massachusetts, is the city that tore out its own heart and built a mall in its place.  That transplant has been failing for years.  The city already has too many hospitals and colleges, so Worcester has decided to fill its empty heartspace with some sort of hotel and convention complex.  Such a tactic might work in a resort town.  But Worcester?  We'll be selling cheap venues for hot air, and double kingsize beds for people who really don't want to be here.  Downtown Worcester—not the affluent residential sections, but the heart of the city—will become a frantic crossroads for underpaid service workers and disinterested strangers, a cold and soulless place, home to no one.  The heart of the city. 

It is the city that abandoned its own Main Street, and built a boulevard of dislocated dreams a hundred yards away.  The misalignment of those dreams has dumbed-down the social culture of this city, which sells itself whore-like to the rich and vulgar.  In return the city gets to promote its pretense of progress amid the dust of unnecessary renovations. 

My romantic delusion that rarefied airs of academia freshened every alley and tenement of Worcester has fallen away like scales from my eyes.  Worcester is not a college town, it is a credentialling factory.  Where I expected to find an edifying spirit of charm and wisdom, I found instead a sweatshop for the production of degrees.  Like that's all that matters.