I mentioned that I would write a bit about the Williamsburg neighborhood. Brooklyn’s huge (millions of residents) and there are many neighborhoods (themselves large) within that borough. One of them is Williamsburg, a diverse and eclectic community, with both Hasidim and hipsters, and a thriving arts scene.

These groups within the neighborhood do not always get along. As one can guess, the Hasidim don’t like the hipster bars and social scene. (It is, reportedly, from one of those bars that the Pickleback originated.)

And yet, there they both are, and neither has effectively prevented the growth of the other, nor evicted the other. No one in Williamsburg has successfully placed a finger on government’s scale, assuring that only his or her own kind will live there.

These two groups — and many more people who are part of neither — are all residents of the same, large neighborhood.

They’ve had their share of tensions, but they’ve gone on, and done well for themselves, despite these problems.

It’s a characteristic of successful people that they thrive in many environments, and that they focus on their own accomplishments rather than on limiting and restricting others.

In this regard, so much of Old Whitewater is a failure: a few people patting others’ backs, while doing what they can to limit, inhibit, restrict, and prevent.

I sometimes think that Whitewater’s town squires would rather that the town be perpetually struggling and miserable rather than that there should be greater prosperity with a new and different atmosphere. (More particularly: if a few people feel like they’re doing well enough as things are, they don’t really give a damn if the rest of the town scrapes by, or even declines.)

Too much noise, too much fuss, too much energy, too much commotion: this is what these tired and dull officials will not brook. What they really fear is the energy and dynamism of new people, new ideas, new opportunities. They don’t want anything new that they cannot control, manage, or administer.

The problem, though, is that what they can control, manage, or administer isn’t nearly as good as what new people, new ideas, and new opportunities offer free of control.

Nothing stays the same: Whitewater will either grow more prosperous or less, more vibrant or less, more open or less. The same won’t be the same – the same will be among the less and lesser.

I’m confident that — over time — Whitewater will prosper, as the other places have. How wasteful and sad will these times seem from the vantage of that time-to-come?

Wasteful and sad, indeed, I think.