The 61 New Best Things About Boston

1. The Rest of the Country Secretly Wants to Be Like Us

It's been several decades since Massachusetts was considered a trusted member of the Union. Sure, the American experiment traces its roots to our state, but as far as our modern-day countrymen—with certain pockets of California excepted—are concerned, things here just got a little too weird over the past century. It's hard to say exactly why (McGovern in '72?), but somehow we came to be regarded as simply too out of touch, too out of step, too…European. So distasteful was our particular strain of progressiveness, they had to dream up a slur just to differentiate us from the more commonplace lefties: The Massachusetts Liberal. When the Democrats held their 2004 national convention in Boston, it seemed to many observers the perfect marriage of cause and locale. Jay Leno remarked that summer that "the Democrats are like the Red Sox. They're optimistic in the spring, concerned in the summer, and ready to choke in the fall."

A few months after that, of course, the Red Sox conquered the baseball universe, winning their first World Series in 86 years. You could smell the change in the air. Nobody's mocking us anymore. (Mitt Romney can attest to the effectiveness of making sport of this state.) In fact, recent doings in the rest of the country suggest that our fellow Americans are scrambling to catch up with all the liberal developments here.

When we became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage, critics demanded to know what was next—men marrying kangaroos? An outraged President Bush vowed to do whatever was necessary to "defend the sanctity of marriage." Well, it's four years later, and the sanctity of equal marriage seems secure. While we remain the only state to sanction full gay marriage, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and New Jersey have followed our lead and now authorize civil unions, and several others, including California, extend domestic benefits. Even Iowa—Iowa!—has gotten in on our act, with the Supreme Court there considering whether the state's ban on same-sex marriage is constitutional. Massachusetts, sprouting justice in the cornfields of Iowa.

Further proof that the spirit of Massachusetts truly is the spirit of America: Our introduction of universal healthcare two years ago was derided as socialist drivel—a fantasy best left to dreamers. Or Swedes. Well, hälsning, comrades! California's attempt to copy us fell apart in its legislature (yeah, you've got those impressive emission standards, Golden Staters, but when it comes to first-rate pinko policy, we're eating your organic, free-range, locally grown lunch), but the major Democratic candidates for president this year all made universal healthcare a cornerstone of their campaign. Hell, they even ripped off our idea for providing it!

Speaking of the campaign: Barack Obama may have lost the Massachusetts primary, but like the rest of America, he cannot get enough of our state. When he's not rolling out both our senators at rallies across the country, he's cribbing the odd stump line from our governor.

Massachusetts, of course, made Deval Patrick only the second elected black state chief executive. Coincidence, then, that the country may be poised to elect its first black president? Obama's drive for the White House has, at times, resembled Patrick's push for Beacon Hill. Both are reformers who took on establishment candidates. Both are sharp thinkers and mesmerizing speakers who energized voters with messages of "hope" and "change." Maybe Obama really is some kind of Manchurian candidate…from the People's Republic of Massachusetts.

We could go on—Boston was recently named the third-greenest city, our senate president has filed the first bill outlawing pharmaceutical company gifts to doctors—but the evidence is already overwhelming. As goes the Massachusetts Liberal, so goes the nation. —John Gonzalez and John Wolfson

2. Somewhere in an MIT Lab, a Researcher Is This Close to Saving the Planet

Photo by Christopher Churchill

Amid all the reports of out-of-control energy costs, melting ice caps, and vanishing natural resources, the headlines, to say the least, are not encouraging. But take heart— the brilliant minds at MIT are on the case. Our favorites of the many earth-savers being cooked up in Cambridge:

Carbon's Grave. You don't have to stare at many smokestacks to realize those grimy plumes of smoke are no good for the air. For decades, solutions have focused on removing as much of the nastiness as possible before it gets airborne. But what if the smoke could be kept out of the sky altogether? Scientists have played with pumping it underground or even under the sea, but those attempts have been foiled by cracks that allow the gas to bubble to the surface. Assistant professor Ruben Juanes, however, has a potentially fail-safe fix: He's scouring the earth for underground pools of salt water, where the CO2 will dissolve in the briny depths and stay out of the atmosphere for good.

Sea Power. It turns out there's more to the New England surf than grist for postcards: A new form of clean energy can be harnessed from our wave action, says professor Chiang Mei. One of his experiments taps into the rising and falling of a deep-sea buoy tethered in the currents to create mechanical energy; another uses crashing waves to push trapped air out of tubes placed just offshore to yield artificial wind, which would spin energy-producing turbines standing nearby.

Green Concrete. The Romans may have invented concrete, but professor Franz-Josef Ulm's work on the world's second-most-consumed resource could prove just as revolutionary. He's looking at concrete's nanocomposition, searching for ways to cook stronger batches at lower temperatures. Cooler ovens mean a greener process, one that could slash global CO2 emissions by 10 percent—a reduction that'd be about the same as closing every power plant in the country. —Geoffrey Gagnon

3. Swimming in the Charles

Illustration by Kagan McLeod

Talk about audacity: Simply cleaning up the Charles River—once our famously dirty water, now a rehabilitated ribbon of aquatic grandeur—wasn't good enough for the folks at the Charles River Conservancy. They're out to make the Chuck the country's only swimmable urban waterway. When the river played host last summer to a 68-person race, it was a mere harbinger of things to come, says Ben Martens, hired by the conservancy to be the Charles's full-time swim coordinator. He says the water's ready for swimmers, but with the beaches of old now long gone, Bostonians lack an appealing way into the drink. One solution being tossed around: floating bathhouses akin to ones popular in Switzerland. Would Bostonians go for such a thing? They did when pontoon platforms bobbed in the Charles a century ago. —G.G.

Why do you love Boston? Tell us by posting in the comments below!

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