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Love Duxbury? We can make it even better.
What more could we want than what Duxbury already offers in abundance: history, natural beauty, great schools, a low crime rate, plus the beach, bay and thousands of acres of conservation land?
For starters, in protecting our kids from fear and want--they’re growing up in a bubble, with limited perspective and few opportunities to connect with people outside the majority. As our economy becomes ever-more global, these will be liabilities for them as adults.
With a museum, art centers, restaurants, and thriving school arts programs, Duxbury is far from a cultural desert. But the range of experiences available is quite small. Performing arts that aren’t mainstream? Cuisines other than American, Chinese or Italian? You must go elsewhere for something different.
An affluent population can be good for business, but it has its downside too—if you run a retail, construction or service business, it can be hard to find employees who want to and can afford to live here. The Town, including Police, Fire, and Schools, faces the same hiring challenges.
And then there’s the rarely discussed dark side of Duxbury—the bullying, hate speech, and slights that people from minority groups experience on a regular basis. Can we really call this a safe and welcoming community when it’s not safe and welcoming for all?
We can address these issues by making Duxbury more diverse, equitable and inclusive. Being largely white and affluent, with limited connections to the larger world, is not an immutable condition. Duxbury has been evolving since the days when Wampanoags hunted, farmed and fished here. From Pilgrim settlement to ship building center, summer colony to Boston exurb, we’ve reinvented ourselves, and become a different and—for many, but not all—better community each time.
Think affluence and diversity can’t go hand-in-hand? Think again. Concord, Lexington, Lincoln, Sharon, Sudbury and Wellesley all rank significantly above Duxbury in terms of diversity and have exceeded the state’s 10% affordable housing goal, all while increasing median home valuation. We can too.
It won’t happen overnight. Making Duxbury more diverse will take planning, commitment and many years of determined action. We need to encourage people from different groups to move here, welcome them when they come, and embrace the differences they bring. Plus build more affordable housing, hire more people of color, and give our kids chances to connect with peers from other communities in the Commonwealth and around the world. The investment in diversity will pay off handsomely: the Duxbury of tomorrow will be far richer, in so many ways, than the Duxbury of today.
How Duxbury compares with other communities in terms of diversity
Duxbury is 95% White, 4% Latino, 1% Asian-American and less than 1% each Black, Native American or Mixed Race.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is much more diverse, at 71% White, 12% Latino, 9% Black, 7% Asian-American and 2% Mixed Race.
