How students can take over City Hall

Part 2

by Michael Crowley

Right now, it would hardly be possible for students here to be less involved in city politics. Even though a collegiate spirit is central to Boston's identity, students are virtually invisible in the city's political landscape. Take the 1993 mayor's election that installed Tom Menino in his current job: voter turnout was a dismal 50.7 percent citywide, but student-heavy neighborhoods barely registered. In the Fenway, that most Urban-Outfitted of neighborhoods, turnout was an almost comic 19.7 percent.

Saying college students don't vote in city elections might seem a little like pointing out that cigar-chomping machine politicians don't vote in best-new-music polls. Why the hell would they?

Most students don't give a damn about politics in the cities and states where they attend college. Granted, they've got urgent matters on their minds: dating, beer, hooking up, partying, sex, and possibly classes. Most have grown up believing politics don't matter much. Students aren't especially inclined to worry about the dullards and dimwits running a city that hosts them for four nine-month years.

But suppose that it did happen, that a student passion was unleashed -- whether sparked by soaring rents and abusive landlords or by the siren song of a semi-messianic leader with a Stratocaster, great hair, and a burning political ambition. Suppose that the students of Boston elected one of their own. What would happen?

In this new Youthtopia, music and the arts would take on utmost importance. Free public concerts would become commonplace. Local clubs might receive tax breaks encouraging them to lower ticket prices. Public-access TV would win a little more money to air student-made films, music videos of local bands, and segments on local artists.

Boston would finally get the nightlife a big city deserves. Last call would be pushed back to 2 a.m. -- and if a couple of clubs wanted to serve for an extra hour, well, the cops would be advised to take no notice.

Exempting the city from the state's drinking age of 21 might prove too difficult, but the new chief of police could discourage busts for underage drinking. Instead, the cops would target belligerent steakheads staggering drunkenly out of Red Sox games.

Likewise, through the magic of non-enforcement, arrests for marijuana possession would plummet. And events like last week's hemp rally on the Common would become a lot more, um, common.

There's more: the city would pressure the MBTA to run trains later into the night, at least within Boston city limits. Or else late-night bus lines might spring up to shuttle students between student neighborhoods and popular nightspots -- an Allston-to-Lansdowne run, for instance.

Facilities for active lifestyles would proliferate. More bike paths and racks. A skateboard park on the Esplanade.

Housing laws would come under new scrutiny. Tenants' rights would be expanded, and landlords who exploited students would be prosecuted. Student housing would be placed under strict rent control.

Needle-exchange programs would multiply. The city would raise wages for exploitative part-time and weekend jobs.

And students would vanquish one of their most despised enemies: the city's resident-parking regulations. The laws would be rewritten, allowing students to obtain resident-parking stickers -- saving them a bundle on parking-space rentals and tickets.

Boston, in short, could host a new revolution. At a time when locally oriented politics and new approaches to tired models of city government are all the rage in America, a student coup in Boston could trigger a wave of youth activism from Harvard Square to Berkeley's Sproul Plaza.

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Michael Crowley can be reached at mcrowley[a]phx.com.